Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1894 — PRACTICAL ART. [ARTICLE]

PRACTICAL ART.

Incident* That Happily Illnatrate the Value of Drawing:. Prot Mahan, under whom Grant and most of the other generals of the late war studied engineering at West : Point, said: “There is no person, whatever his profession, but at times has need of drawing as an auxiliary to render his ideas intelligible to others. Stories which illustrate this saying are told by Alexandre Dumas 1 and by Nasmyth, the hammer man. If these men were not so eminent we might suspect that one tale suggested the other. They show that what might be competent expression to a Norwegian would not do for a German. Mr. Nasmyth said he was traveling in Norway, and one day, in a wild, out-of-the-way place, reached an inn, very hungry, but unable to make the hostess understand his wants by anything he could say. He was considerably perplexed till he happily thought of his pencil. He drew a dish, steaming, a plate beside it, with knife ;fnd fork, a bottle and a wine glass. His hostess looked at it and intimated that she knew what it meant. He went out for a stroll and, on his return, found the picture realized. The bottle, the wine glass, the plate, the knife and fork and covered dish. When he sat down hi 3 hostess lifted the cover, displaying a fine, hot fowl that sent forth a cloud of steam. Lucky Nasmyth! Not so lucky was Dumas, and yet as expressers of ideas, where is the comparison? The circumstances are similar, only Dumas was on the barber land of Switzerland, stopped by the rain; horse sinking in mud up to his knees; driver wet to the bone. Dumas would not have entered the little German inn, so wretched, except for his great philanthropy. If he hated anything it was sauerkraut, and when they imposed this “infamous pleasantry” upon him repeatedly, he gave it to the dog. The astonishment of his hostess was mountainous ‘“if you don’t like sauerkraut, what do you like?” “Anything but that.” It was all she had. A luminous idea lights his soul. Mushrooms! The country was famous for them, but he could not remember the German nama “come—some—How do you call it in German?” “Some? Some?—” repeated the hostess, mechanically. “Eh? Yes; some ” ‘.‘At this moment my eyes fell on my album. ‘Wait,’ said I, ‘wait.’ I then took my pencil and on a beautiful white leaf drew, as carefully as I could, the precious vegetable which formed for the moment the object of my desires. I flattered myself that it approached as near to a resemblance as it is permitted for the work of man to reproduce the work of nature. All this while the hostess followed me with her eyes, displaying an intelligent curiosity that seemed to augur most favorably to my prospects. ‘Ah! ja, ja, ja (yes, yes, yes),’ said she, as I gave the finishing touch to the drawing. She had comprehended—the clever woman—so well comprehended that .five minutes after she entered the room with an umbrella all open. ‘There!’ said she. I threw a glance upon my unfortunate drawing—the resemblance was perfect!” American Machinist.