The red-beaked water fowl
Cower beneath the lily leaves;
And a grey bee, stunned by the storm,
Clings to my sleeve.
Lollipop Venders
LUPO DE BRAILA
“Misfit clothing”—I saw these words this morning on a small shop sign and they kept dancing before my eyes. Misfit clothing. In vain all my attempts to concentrate on the object of my visit to the Art Institute.
I sat down to search my brain for the cause of this phenomenon, and I soon recalled another such visit I once made under similar difficulties.
It was at the San Francisco Exposition. I discovered by chance the so-called Annex of the Fine Arts Building, a stable-like structure in comparison to the main building. It housed the Norwegian, Hungarian, and Spanish exhibits—by the way, almost the only ones worth seeing. At that time another vision kept me from seeing the exhibit for some moments. It seemed as if some short bald men danced along green velvet walls, each one plucking his heart beats with gusto and, after arranging them in a queer design on a crystal glass plate, offering them to the stars and children.
This recollection cleared the air and I realized that surroundings have a strong effect on me. I have come to enjoy the result of the finest faculty we possess, our imagination. I have come to admire the result of a year’s work of our Chicago Artists.