Dr. Vincent: That work on English Literature (Chautauqua Library) was commenced by an accomplished lady who has been ill ever since she wrote the first volume.
Written question: Are we to use the same text-book on Greece as the first year?
Dr. Vincent: We are.
Written question: What is the Bryant Bell? Did Bryant give it?
Dr. Vincent: He did not. We gave that name to the bell we purchased. We own only one bell. The other bells are furnished by the house of “Clinton H. Meneely Bell Company,” of Troy, N. Y.
Written question: Will reading the White Seal Course for the last two years give us the white seal?Dr. Vincent: Yes, sir.
I will now proceed to state the objects of the S. H. G. “The Society of the Hall in the Grove” has for its object the improvement of the graduates of the C. L. S. C. in all things that tend to true life, physical, intellectual, social, and spiritual; the permanence of the Chautauqua Idea and spirit, the keeping of the place, and the protection of the articles which have acquired a peculiar sacredness to all C. L. S. C. Chautauquans. In furtherance of these objects the Society of the Hall in the Grove shall select an executive committee of twenty-five members, whose business it shall be to appoint the working committees for each year. And each year all the members who are elected in 1882 shall constitute the nucleus or foundation of that committee. For example, if you elect twenty-five ladies and gentlemen this year, and next year ten of them are absent, the fifteen who are present make the nucleus of that executive committee. In that way we shall keep up a permanent element. It will be your duty to elect twenty-five members. The “Messenger of the Hall,” appointed by the Superintendent of Instruction, shall be chairman of that executive committee. We hope to retain this Messenger for years. The committee shall be elected in 1882. Then there ought to be several special committees. We had some annoyance on Saturday. That banner was left standing in the Amphitheater. It is a banner that no money could buy. It might be easily mutilated. We need a committee to protect that banner from one end of the year to the other. We need also a permanent “Guard of the Gate.” It is only a conceit, and some people may think it is ridiculous, but we do not mind that. It is a pleasant conceit that no one pass under that arch who has not a right to pass under it. It is the business of the Guard to carry out this law. We had the gate photographed to-day, but the gate was opened, and opened by the Guard. There should be a committee on correspondence. You see we have quite an amount of work to do as a “Society of the Hall in the Grove.” I make these announcements so that you all who are interested may know, and that we may become a formal “order” and duly elect our committees.
[EDWIN AND CHARLES LANDSEER.]
The writer of an obituary of Charles Landseer, who died in July, 1879, records an interesting incident connected with that artist’s picture, “The Eve of the Battle of Edgehill.” This, perhaps his best work, was painted in 1845. When it was nearly finished, Edwin Landseer was asked by Charles to come and look at it; and remarking that it was a very good picture, but “How nice a spaniel would look in that corner!” Charles said, “Will you put it in, then?” At which the master took up the brush, and at once painted in a fine old English spaniel with some leather dispatch-bags lying on the ground by him. The picture was duly exhibited and admired, the spaniel especially; but the dealer who bought it, being a simple man of business, bethought him that Sir Edwin’s dog would be worth more than the whole picture. So he coolly cut it out and sold it, filling the place by a common dog copied from it. Several years afterwards the owner of the picture showed Sir Edwin, with some pride, the picture in which he had painted the dog; but the great master declared “he’d be hanged if ever he did that dog.” The picture was examined more closely, and then the trick was found out. The identical picture, as cut out and put on another canvas, was sold shortly before Charles Landseer’s death at Christie’s, in the collection of the late Mr. White, for the sum of £43!