We give to represent Mr. Stockton, an extract from his novel of "Ardis Claverden", containing one of those clever conversations so characteristic of the author, and success in which marks a high order of dramatic genius, in making characters express to the listener or reader their own individuality through familiar talk.
EXTRACT FROM "ARDIS CLAVERDEN."
Mr. and Mrs. Chiverly were artists.
The trouble with Harry Chiverly was that he had nothing in himself which he could put into his work. He could copy what he could see, but if he could not see what he wanted to paint, he had no mental power which would bring that thing before him, or to transform what he saw into what it ought to be.
The trouble with Mrs. Chiverly was that she did not know how to paint. With her there was no lack of artistic imagination. Her brain was full of pictures, which, if they could have been transferred to the brain of her husband, who did know how to paint, would have brought fame and fortune. At one end of her brush was artistic talent, almost genius; at the other was a pigment mixed with oil. But the one never ran down to the other. The handle of the brush was a non-conductor.
We pass on to a scene in the studio. An elderly man enters, a stranger, to examine pictures, and stops before Mr. Chiverly's recently finished canvass.
"Madam," said he, "can you tell me where the scene of this picture is laid? It reminds me somewhat of the North and somewhat of the South, and I am not sure that it does not contain suggestions of the East and the West."
"Yes," thought Ardis at her easel, "and of the North-east, and the Sou-sou'-west, and all the other points of the compass."