his criticisms can be constructive as well as destructive. It was he who discovered and first proclaimed the extraordinary talent of Aubrey Beardsley, and it was he who recalled from partial neglect the merit of the illustrations of such great artists as Charles Keene and Daniel Vierge.

Mr. Pennell's attitude in his controversies gave him a great advantage as compared with the attitude of his own divinity and intimate friend, the great Whistler. In Whistler's controversies the unpardonable sin of his opponent was always committed against the personality of the great man himself, whereas Mr. Pennell, though hating the sin, continued to love the sinner. I remember a quaint demonstration of this, at a time when controversies were being waged rather furiously. Being at his house, I quoted to him the remark of Lady Teazle to her husband, Sir Peter, in Sheridan's "School for Scandal," "I vow I bear no malice against the people I abuse!" "No more do I," was Mr. Pennell's rejoinder; "personally they are very decent fellows."

Apart from the steady improvement in the quality of his pictures (and that he is twenty-five years older than when I knew him first), I can perceive no change in Joseph Pennell. A positive personality, he was himself from the beginning, and he will remain so to the end. His intercourse of twenty years with many distinguished people in London has not imparted to his speech even a trace of the London accent, nor have the more ornate and ceremonious manners of his British and Continental friends changed him in the least from the simple and kindly young Philadelphian whom I first knew. As I write I can almost see him in his London home taking his ease in his library and comfortably dumped" down in his lowseated wicker armchair. It was in this unceremonious but characteristic pose that Whistler made his portrait-knees and elbows being well in evidence. An outsider seeing him thus would think (begging his pardon) that he was a very lazy man. Joseph Pennell a lazy man! Any one who thinks so still has evidently not read the preceding pages.

T

HE grass stands high in the meadows. Poppies and daisies bloom there by the billion. Vines hang from tree to tree and the vineyards slope to the sea. White and smooth stretches the hard road; wild roses and morning-glories clamber over the low walls on either side; poplars and plantains shade us.

In front is a great plain-the most populous agricultural district in Italy. The district is rich not only in soil, but in air, and in this sun-steeped air it is doubly blessed, for the nearness of both mountain and sea are apparent in the invigorating breezes that blow over these fields. Nowhere are there more evidences of fecundity than in this land, bearing many crops of many kinds.

To the north and east the plain is bounded by the Carnic and Julian Alps. About seven miles from either range is the hill on which we stand. From our vantage-point we can well appreciate the fact that these ranges-rocky, steep, snow-capped-form the natural northern and eastern boundary of Italy.

Of course the mountains look as they did when Trajan and Attila traversed them. Nor can the plain have changed much, even though the Roman Utina became the Friulian capital Udine and then a favored Venetian stronghold; even though proud old Byzantine Aquileia down there on the coast was snuffed out by Attila nearly fifteen centuries ago; even though pagan temple architecture has been supplanted by that of Christian churches with their bell-towers of perfect proportions, detached from the main structure, as is the custom throughout Venetia.

Church and tower crown many of these long hills, which plunge, promontory-like, into the plain. One such church with its campanile rises just behind us as we stand on this hill of Santa

Margherita, eight hundred feet above the Adriatic. The oldest part of the church dates from the very early Christian centuries and formed the first feudalecclesiastical stronghold to the north established by the Patriarchs of Aquileia.

Yet, despite feudalism, the Friuli must always have been a fairly independent folk, as becomes those who reside in this sheltered, favored corner of the earth, and as becomes those who for centuries were under republican rule. We are prone to think of the Venetian Republic as confined mostly to the Island City, the residence of its Doge. Yet the people who lived throughout the Veneto, within a radius of a hundred miles of its capital, were inspired and are still largely inspired by republican sentiments; indeed, they have something of the Swiss about them. cally and socially they are republicans and democrats rather than monarchists and aristocrats. They are apt not to start with the title of any one about whom they may be talking, but with the personal pronoun. For instance: "He is a good man and a real Venetian-the Pope." "That gentleman-Count di M.

Politi

said so and so." With them title seems an incident. The man's the thing.

This tall tower of Santa Margherita behind us marks not only the noteworthy Past, but also the noteworthier Present. It marks the location of two institutions, interesting as evidences of social and educational uplift.

The first is a lace school. One enters a long, low building. A hundred small chairs line the walls of the large, cool, brick-paved room where we stand. Little girls from seven years upwards are the pupils. At this time of the year many are needed in the fields, but they can often manage to come for an hour or an hour and a half a day. Once a poor little maiden only four years old wanted

tasks out-of-doors rather than indoors. The teachers receive from $4 to $8 a month. The best lace pupils make from $40 to $60 a year, not an inconsiderable sum in this land of low-cost living towards the support of the girl's parents or towards her own dowry.

The lace school is thus a distinct economic gain to the peasants, and has naturally become popular both with parents and children. They urged its founder, Countess Cora di Brazzà, to

realm is not the only money. Time is also money. When a storm comes, the farm hands go to shelter and do nothing. The girls have been working in the fields as busily as the men. The latter are apt to be lazy, but the former take up their lace labor at home. They make about two cents an hour, more in proportion than they would be getting if working in the fields at seventeen cents a dayand a very long day at that.

Thirdly, the lace school has taught

cleanliness to every family and village represented. The school's first pupils were disgustingly filthy in their persons and habits; now, the rule of the white apron and the white sleeve, together with industrial training, has made them at fifteen to eighteen

clean as well as capable, and not a little insistent upon the same qualities in the members of their families and in their suitors.

Finally, the lace school is a school of morals. Prizeday is the great day of the year. Here in the Friuli, for forty miles around, the children gather in the park at Brazzà, not far away from us. The spirit underlying the whole endeavor is shown in the fact that certain moral qualities are rewarded before mere proficiency in lace-making is noticed. Thus, the first prize-a golden three-leafed clover on a gold chain-is given for the three virtues of self-control, order, and truthfulness.

FIRST

The second prize rewards the co-operative spirit, and goes to the girl who has taught the most to her companions. Every step in these schools is co-operative. When a little

girl has learned one

or two stitches, she must teach the second stitch to her companions before she herself learns the third. Now that morale has been emphasized, the last prize, a fully equipped cushion, is given to the girl who has done the best work.

The sale of laces shows that middlemen managed to make large profits between the price paid to the girls for their product and that paid by the merchant for it. To do away with this, thus benefiting both producer and consumer, the founder of the lace schools started a society under the name "Le Industrie Femminili Italienne," a national co-operative association for women's arts and crafts, a central clearing-house. In the few years