 On Demagogues in the American Democrat by James Fenimore Cooper. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. James Fenimore Cooper on Demagogues. A demagogue in the strict signification of the word is a leader of the rabble. It is a Greek compound that conveys this meaning. In these later times however the signification has been extended to suit the circumstances of the age. Thus before the art of printing became known or cheap publications were placed within the reach of the majority, the mass of all nations might properly enough be termed a rabble when assembled in bodies. In nations in which attention is paid to education this reproach is gradually becoming unjust, though a body of Americans even collected under what is popularly termed an excitement losing sight of that reason and respect for their own deliberately framed ordinances which alone distinguish them from the masses of other people is neither more nor less than a rabble. Men properly derive their designations from their acts and not from their professions. The peculiar office of a demagogue is to advance his own interest by affecting a deep devotion to the interests of the people. Sometimes the object is to indulge malignancy, unprincipled and selfish men submitting but to two governing motives, that of doing good to themselves and that of doing harm to others. The true theater of a demagogue is a democracy. For the body of the community possessing the power the master he pretends to serve is best able to reward his efforts, as it is all important to distinguish between those who labor in behalf of the people on the general account and those who labor in behalf of the people on their own account some of the rules by which each may be known shall be pointed out. The motive of the demagogue may usually be detected in his conduct. The man who is constantly telling the people that they are unearing in judgment and that they have all power is a demagogue. Bodies of men being composed of individuals can no more be raised above the commission of error than individuals themselves and in many situations they are more likely to err from self-excitement and the division of responsibility. The power of the people is limited by the fundamental laws or the constitution, the rights and opinions of the minority in all but those cases in which a decision becomes indispensable being just as sacred as the rights and opinions of the majority. Else would a democracy be indeed what its enemies termit the worst species of tyranny. In this instance the people are flattered in order to be led, as in kingdoms the prince is blinded to his own defects in order to extract favor from him. The demagogue always puts the people before the constitution and the laws in face of the obvious truth that the people have placed the constitution and the laws before themselves. The local demagogue does not distinguish between the whole people and a part of the people and is apt to betray his want of principles by contending for fancied or assumed rights in favor of a country or a town though the act is obviously opposed to the will of the nation. This is a test that the most often betrays the demagogue for while loudest in proclaiming his devotion to the majority he is in truth opposing the will of the entire people in order to effect his purposes with the part. The demagogue is usually sly, a detractor of others, a professor of humility and disinterestedness, a great stickler for equality as respects all above him, a man who acts in corners and avoids open and manly expositions of his course, calls black guards gentlemen and gentlemen folks, appeals to passions and prejudices rather than to reason and is in all respects a man of intrigue and deception of sly cunning and management instead of manifesting the frank, fearless qualities of the democracy he so prodigally professes. The man who maintains the rights of the people on pure grounds may be distinguished from the demagogue by the reverse of all these qualities. He does not flatter the people even while he defends them for he knows that flattery is a corrupting and dangerous poison. Having nothing to conceal he is frank and fearless as are all men with the consciousness of right motives. He oftener chides than commends for power needs reproof and can dispense with praise. He who would be a courtier under a king is almost certain to be a demagogue in a democracy. The elements are the same though brought into action under different circumstances. Ordinary observers are apt to fancy them the extremes of opposite moral casts. Travelers have often remarked that Americans who have made themselves conspicuous abroad for their adulation of rank and power have become zealous advocates of popular supremacy on returning home. Several men of this stamp are at this moment in conspicuous political stations in the country having succeeded by the commonest arts of courtiers. There is a large class of political men in this country who while they scarcely merit the opprobrium of being termed demagogues are not properly exempt from the imputation of falling into some of their most dangerous vices. These are they whose habits and tastes and better opinions indeed are all at variance with vulgar errors and vulgar practices but who imagine it a necessary evil in a democracy to defer to prejudices and ignorance and even to popular jealousies and popular injustice that a safe direction may be given to the public mind. Such men deceive themselves in the first place as to their own motives which are rather their private advancement than the public good and admitting the motives to be pure they are greatly both in their mode of construing the system under which they live and in the general principles of correcting evil and of producing good. As the greatest enemy of truth is falsehood so is the most potent master of falsehood truth. These qualities are correlatives that which is not true being false and that which is not false being true. It follows as a pervading rule of morals that the advancement of one is the surest means of defeating the other. All good men desire the truth and on all public occasions on which it is necessary to act at all the truth would be the most certain efficient and a durable agency in defeating falsehoods whether of prejudices reports or principles. The perception of truth is an attribute of reason and the groundwork of all institutions that claim to be founded in justice is this high quality. Temporary convenience and selfish considerations beyond a doubt are both favored by sometimes closing the eyes to the severity of truth but in nothing is the sublime admonition of God in his commandments where he tells us that he will visit the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation of their children more impressively verified than in the inevitable punishments that await every sacrifice of truth. Most of the political men of the day belong to this class of doubtful moralists who mistaking a healthful rule which admonishes us that even truth ought not to be too offensively urged in their desire to be moderate lend themselves to the side of error. The ingenuity of sophisms and the audacity of falsehoods receive great support from this mistaken alliance since a firm union of all the intelligent of a country in the cause of plain and obvious truths would exterminate their correlative errors the public opinion which is now enlisted in the support of the latter following to the right side as a matter of course in the train of combined knowledge. This is the mode in which opinions rooted in the wrong have been gradually eradicated by the process of time but which would yield faster were it not for the latitude and delusion that selfishness imposes on men of this class who flatter themselves with soothing a sore that they are actually irritating. The consequence of this mistaken for parents is to substitute a new set of errors for those which it has already taken ages to get rid of. On the subject of government and society it is a misfortune that this country is filled with those who take the opposite extremes the one side clinging to prejudices that were founded in the abuses of the feudal times and the other to the exaggerations of impractical theories that the struggle is not fiercer is probably owing to the overwhelming number of the latter class but as things are truth is a sufferer. The American doctrinaire is the converse of the American demagogue and in his way is scarcely less injurious to the public. He is as much a visionary on one side as the extreme theoretical Democrat is a visionary on the other. The first deals in poetry, the last in cat. The first affirms a disinterestedness and purity in education and manners when exposed to the corruption of power that all experience refutes and the last an infallibility in majorities that God himself has denied. These opposing classes produce the effect of all counteracting forces, resistance, and they provoke each other's excesses. In the doctrinaire or theorist of the old school we see men clinging to opinions that are purely the issue of arbitrary facts, ages after the facts themselves had ceased to exist, confounding cause with effect and in the demagogue or his tool the impractical Democrat, one who permits envy, jealousy, opposition, selfishness, and the unconsciousness of his own inferiority and demerits so far to blind his faculties as to obscure the sense of justice, to exclude the side of positive things, and to cause him to deny the legitimate consequences of the very laws of which he professes to be proud. This is the dupe who affirms that one man is as good as another. These extremes lead to the usual inconsistencies and follies. Thus do we see men who sigh for titles and factitious and false distinctions so little conscious of truth as to shrink from asserting the real distinctions of their social station or those they actually and undeniably possess, as if nature ever intends a man for an aristocrat who has not the manhood to maintain his just rights, and those again who can't of equality and general privileges while they stubbornly refuse to permit others to enjoy in peace a single fancied indulgence or taste unless taken in their company, although nature, education, and habits have all unfitted them to participate, and their presence would be sure to defeat what they could not in the nature of things enjoy. The considerate and modest and just-minded man of whatever social class will view all this differently. In asserting his own rights he respects those of others. In indulging his own tastes he is willing to admit there may be superior. In pursuing his own course in his own manner he knows his neighbor has an equal right to do the same, and most of all is he impressed with the great moral truths that flatterers are inherently miscreants, that fallacies never fail to bring their punishments and that the empire of God is reason. End of On Demagogues in The American Democrat by James Fenimore Cooper Excerpt from On Thinking For One's Self by Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org On Thinking For One's Self A library may be very large, but if it is in disorder it is not so useful as one that is small but well arranged. In the same way a man may have a great mass of knowledge, but if he has not worked it up by thinking it over for himself it has much less value than a far smaller amount which he has thoroughly pondered. For it is only when a man looks at his knowledge from all sides and combines the things he knows by comparing truth with truth that he obtains a complete hold over it and gets it into his power. A man cannot turn over anything in his mind unless he knows it. He should therefore learn something, but it is only when he has turned it over that he can be said to know it. Reading and learning are things that anyone can do of his own free will, but not so thinking. Thinking must be kindled like a fire by a draft. It must be sustained by some interest in the matter in hand. This interest may be of purely objective kind or merely subjective. The latter comes into play only in things that concern us personally. Objective interest is confined to heads that think by nature, to whom thinking is as natural as breathing, and they are very rare. This is why most men of learning show so little of it. It is incredible what a different effect is produced upon the mind by thinking for oneself as compared with reading. It carries on and intensifies that original difference in the nature of two minds which leads the one to think and the other to read. What I mean is that reading forces alien thoughts upon the mind, thoughts which are as foreign to the drift and temper in which it may be for the moment, as the seal is to the wax on which it stamps its imprint. The mind is thus entirely under compulsion from without. It is driven to think this or that, though for the moment it may not have the slightest impulse or inclination to do so. But when a man thinks for himself, he follows the impulse of his own mind, which is determined for him at the time either by his environment or some particular recollection. The visible world of a man's surroundings does not, as reading does, impress a single definite thought upon his mind, but merely gives the matter an occasion which lead him to think what is appropriate to his nature and present temper. So it is that much reading deprives the mind of all elasticity. It is like keeping a spring continually under pressure. The safest way of having no thoughts of one's own is to take up a book every moment one has nothing else to do. It is this practice which explains why erudition makes most men more stupid and silly than they are by nature and prevents their writings obtaining any measure of success. They remain, in Pope's words, forever reading, never to be read. Men of learning are those who have done their reading in the pages of a book. Thinkers and men of genius are those who have gone straight to the book of nature. It is they who have enlightened the world and carried humanity further on its way. If a man's thoughts are to have truth and life in them, they must, after all, be his own fundamental thoughts, for these are the only ones that he can fully and wholly understand. To read another's thoughts is like taking the leavings of a meal to which we have not been invited, or putting on the clothes which some unknown visitor has cast aside. The thought we read is related to the thought which springs up in ourselves as the fossil impress of some prehistoric plant to a plant as it buds forth in springtime. Reading is nothing more than a substitute for thought of one's own. It means putting the mind into leading strings. The multitude of books serves only to show how many false paths there are and how widely astray a man may wander if he follows any of them. But he who is guided by his genius, he who thinks for himself, who thinks spontaneously and exactly, possesses the only compass by which he can steer a right. A man should read only when his own thoughts stagnate at their source, which will happen often enough even with the best of minds. On the other hand, to take up a book for the purpose of scaring away one's own original thoughts is sin against the Holy Spirit. It is like running away from nature to look at a museum of dried plants, or gaze at a landscape in copper plate. A man may have discovered some portion of truth or wisdom after spending a great deal of time and trouble in thinking it over for himself and adding thought to thought. And it may sometimes happen that he could have found it all ready to hand in a book and spared himself the trouble. But even so, it is a hundred times more valuable if he has acquired it by thinking it out for himself. For it is only when we gain our knowledge in this way that it enters as an integral part, a living member, into the whole system of our thought, that it stands in complete and firm relation with what we know, that it is understood with all that underlies it and follows from it, that it wears the color, the precise shade, the distinguishing mark of our own way of thinking, that it comes exactly at the right time, just as we felt the necessity for it, that it stands fast and cannot be forgotten. This is the perfect application, nay, the interpretation of Goethe's advice to earn our inheritance for ourselves, so that we may really possess it. Vas du er wandinen valern haft er wirb ess, um ess zu besitzen. Footnote, Faust I, 329, and a footnote. The man who thinks for himself forms his own opinions and learns the authorities for them only later on, when they have served but to strengthen his belief in them and in himself. But the book philosopher starts from the authorities. He reads other people's books, collects their opinions, and so forms a whole for himself, which resembles an automaton made up of anything but flesh and blood. Contrarily, he who thinks for himself creates a work like a living man as made by nature. Further work comes into being as a man does. The thinking mind is impregnated from without, and it then forms and bears its child. Truth that has been merely learned is like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a wax and nose. At best, like a nose made out of another's flesh, it adheres to us only because it is put on. The truth acquired by thinking of our own is like a natural limb, it alone really belongs to us. This is the fundamental difference between the thinker and the mere man of learning. The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks for himself resemble a fine painting where the light and shade are correct, the tone sustained, the color perfectly harmonized. It is true to life. On the other hand, the intellectual attainments of the mere man of learning are like a large palette full of all sorts of colors, which at most are systematically arranged, but devoid of harmony, connection, and meaning. Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of one's own. To think with one's own head is always to aim at developing a coherent whole, a system, even though it be not a strictly complete one. And nothing hinders this so much as too strong a current of other's thoughts, such as comes of continual reading. These thoughts bring every one of them from different minds belonging to different systems and tinged with different colors. Never of themselves flow together into an intellectual whole. They never form a unity of knowledge, or insight, or conviction, but rather fill the head with a Babylonian confusion of tongues. The mind that is overloaded with alien thought is thus deprived of all clear insight. It is well nigh disorganized. This is the state of things observable in many men of learning, and it makes them inferior in sound sense. They correct judgment and practical tact to many illiterate persons, who, after obtaining a little knowledge from without by means of experience, intercourse with others, and a small amount of reading, have always subordinated it too and embodied it with their own thought. The really scientific thinker does the same thing as these illiterate persons, but on a larger scale. Although he has need of much knowledge, and so must read a great deal, his mind is nevertheless strong enough to master it all, to assimilate and incorporate it with the system of his thoughts. And so to make it fit in with the organic unity of his insight, which, though vast, is always growing. And in the process his own thought, like the base in an organ, always dominates everything, and is never drowned by other tones, as happens with minds which are full of mere antiquarian lore, where shreds of music, as it were, in every key mingle confusedly, and no fundamental note is heard at all. Those who have spent their lives in reading, and taken their wisdom from books, are like people who have obtained precise information about a country, from the descriptions of many travelers. Such people can tell a great deal about it, but after all, they have no connected, clear, and profound knowledge of its real condition. But those who have spent their lives in thinking resemble the travelers themselves. They alone really know what they are talking about. They are acquainted with the actual state of affairs, and are quite at home in the subject. The thinker stands in the same relation to the ordinary book philosopher as an eyewitness does to the historian. He speaks from direct knowledge of his own. That is why all those who think for themselves come at bottom to much the same conclusion. The differences they present are due to their different points of view, and when these do not affect the matter, they all speak alike. They merely express the result of their own objective perception of things. There are many passages in my works which I have given to the public only after some hesitation, because of their paradoxical nature. And afterwards I have experienced a pleasant surprise in finding the same opinion recorded in the works of great men who have lived long ago. A book philosopher merely reports what one person has said and another meant, or the objections raised by a third, and so on. He compares different opinions, ponders, criticizes, and tries to get at the truth of the matter, herein on a par with the critical historian. For instance, he will set out to inquire whether Leibniz was not for some time a follower of Spinoza, and questions of alike nature. The curious student of such matters may find conspicuous examples of what I mean in Herbert's analytical elucidation of morality and natural right, and of the same author's Letters on Freedom. Surprise may be felt that a man of the kind should put himself to so much trouble, for on the face of it if he would only examine the matter for himself, he would speedily obtain his object by the exercise of a little thought. But there is a small difficulty in the way. It does not depend on his own will. A man can always sit down and read, but not think. It is with thoughts as with men. They cannot always be summoned at pleasure. We must wait for them to come. Thought about a subject must appear of itself by a happy and harmonious combination of external stimulus with mental temper and attention, and it is just that which never seems to come to these people. This truth may be illustrated by what happens in the case of matters affecting our own personal interest. When it is necessary to come to some resolution in a matter of that kind, we cannot well sit down at any given moment and think over the merits of the case, and make up our mind. For if we try to do so, we often find ourselves unable at that particular moment to keep our mind fixed upon the subject. It wanders off to other things. Aversion to the matter in question is sometimes to blame for this. In such a case we should not use force, but wait for the proper frame of mind to come of itself. It often comes unexpectedly, and returns again and again, and the variety of temper in which we approach it at different moments puts the matter always in a fresh light. It is this long process which is understood by the term a ripe resolution. For the work of coming to a resolution must be distributed, and in the process much that is overlooked at one moment occurs to us at another, and the repugnant vanishes when we find as we usually do on a closer inspection that things are not so bad as they seemed. This rule applies to the life of the intellect as well as to matters of practice. A man must wait for the right moment. Not even the greatest mind is capable of thinking for itself at all times. Hence a great mind does well to spend its leisure in reading, which as I have said is a substitute for thought. It brings stuff to the mind by letting another person do the thinking, although that is always done in a manner not our own. Therefore a man should not read too much in order that his mind may not become accustomed to the substitute, and thereby forget the reality that it may not form the habit of walking in well-worn paths, nor by following an alien course of thought grow a stranger to its own. Least of all should a man quite withdraw his gaze from the real world for the mere sake of reading, as the impulse and the temper which prompt to thought of one's own come far offener from the world of reality than from the world of books. The real life that a man sees before him is the natural subject of thought, and in its strength is the primary element of existence. It can more easily than anything else rouse and influence the thinking mind. After these considerations it will not be matter for surprise that a man who thinks for himself can easily be distinguished from the book philosopher by the very way in which he talks, by his marked earnestness and the originality, directness, and personal conviction that stamp all his thoughts and expressions. The book philosopher on the other hand lets it be seen that everything he has is second hand. That his ideas are like the number and trash of an old furniture shop collected together from all quarters. Mentally he is dull and pointless, a copy of a copy. His literary style is made up of conventional, nay vulgar phrases and terms that happen to be current, in this respect much like a small state, where all the money that circulates is foreign, because it has no pointage of its own. Mere experience can as little as reading supply the place of thought. It stands to thinking in the same relation in which eating stands to digestion and assimilation. When experience boasts that to its discoveries alone as do the advancement of the human race, it is as though the moth were to claim the whole credit of maintaining the body and health. The works of all truly capable minds are distinguished by a character of decision and definiteness, which means they are clear and free from obscurity. A truly capable mind always knows definitely and clearly what it is that it wants to express, whether its medium is prose, verse, or music. Other minds are not decisive and not definite, and by this they may be known for what they are. The characteristic sign of a mind of the highest order is that it always judges at first hand. Everything it advances is the result of thinking for itself, and this is everywhere evident by the way in which it gives its thoughts utterance. Such a mind is like a prince. In the realm of intellect its authority is imperial, whereas the authority of minds in a lower order is delegated only, as may be seen in their style, which has no independent stamp of its own. Everyone who really thinks for himself is so far like a monarch. His position is undeligated and supreme. His judgments, like royal decrees, spring from his own sovereign power and proceed directly from himself. He acknowledges authority as little as a monarch admits a command. He subscribes to nothing but what he has himself authorized. The multitude of common minds, laboring under all sorts of current opinions, authorities, prejudices, is like the people which silently obeys the law and accepts orders from above. Those who are so zealous and eager to settle debated questions by siding authorities are really glad when they are able to put the understanding and the insight of others into the field in place of their own, which are wanting. Their number is legion. For, as Seneca says, there is no man but prefers belief to the exercise of judgment. UNAS QUITESCU MAVUT CRIDER THWAM ZUDICAR In their controversies, such people make a promiscuous use of the weapon of authority and strike out at one another with it. If anyone chances to become involved in such a contest, he will do well not to try reason and argument as a mode of defense. For against a weapon of that kind, these people are like Siegfrieds with a skin of horn and dipped in the flood of incapacity for thinking and judging. They will meet his attack by bringing up their authorities as a way of abashing him, argument them ad vercondium, and then cry out that they have won the battle. In the real world, be it never so fair, favorable and pleasant, we always live subject to the law of gravity, which we have to be constantly overcoming. But in the world of the intellect we are disembodied spirits held in bondage to no such law, and free from penery and distress. Thus it is that there exists no happiness on earth, like that which, at the auspicious moment, a fine and fruitful mind finds in itself. The presence of a thought is like the presence of a woman we love. We fancy we shall never forget the thought nor become indifferent to the dear one, but out of sight, out of mind. The finest thought runs the risk of being irrevocably forgotten if we do not write it down, and the darling of being deserted if we do not marry her. There are plenty of thoughts which are valuable to the man who thinks them, but only few of them which have enough strength to produce repercussive or reflect action. I mean, to win the reader's sympathy after they have been put on paper. But still it must not be forgotten that a true value attaches only to what a man has thought in the first instance for his own case. Thinkers may be classed according as they think chiefly for their own case or for that of others. The former are the genuine independent thinkers. They really think and are really independent. They are the true philosophers. They alone are in earnest. The pleasure and the happiness of their existence consists in thinking. The others are the sophists. They want to seem that which they are not, and seek happiness in what they hope to get from the world. They are in earnest for nothing else. To which of these two classes a man belongs may be seen by his whole style and manner. Lichtenberg is an example of the former class. Hearder there can be no doubt belongs to this second. When one considers how vast and how close to us is the problem of existence, this equivocal, tortured, fleeting, dream-like existence of ours, so vast and so close that a man no sooner discovers it than it overshadows and obscures all other problems and aims. And when one sees how all men with few and rare exceptions have no clear consciousness of the problem, they seem to be quite unaware of its presence, but busy themselves with everything rather than with this, and live on, taking no thought but for the passing day and the hardly longer span of their own personal future, either expressly discarding the problem or else over-ready to come to terms with it by adopting some system of popular metaphysics and letting it satisfy them. When I say one takes all this to heart, one may come to the opinion that man may be said to be a thinking being only in a very remote sense, and henceforth feel no special surprise at any trait of human thoughtlessness or folly. But no rather that the normal man's intellectual range of vision does indeed extend beyond that of the brute, whose whole existence is, as it were, a continual present, with no consciousness of the past or the future, but not such an immeasurable distance as is generally supposed. This is in fact corroborated by the way in which most men converse, where their thoughts are found to be chopped up fine, like chaff, so that for them to spin out a discourse of any length is impossible. If this world were peopled by really thinking beings, it could not be that noise of every kind would be allowed such generous limits, as is the case with the most horrible and at the same time aimless form of it. If nature had meant man to think, she would not have given him ears, or at any rate she would have furnished them with airtight flaps, such as are the enviable possession of the bat. But in truth man is a poor animal like the rest, and his powers are meant only to maintain him in the struggle for existence. So he must need keep his ears always open to announce of themselves by night as by day the approach of the pursuer. End of excerpt from On Thinking for One's Self by Arthur Schopenhauer Rendering Reflections in Window Glass by Arthur L. Guptill From Sketching and Rendering in Pencil This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. There is no great difficulty in acquiring the skill to render a wall of brick or stone or a roof of slate or shingle. But when it comes to successfully representing windows or glazed doors or any objects containing large areas of glass, our task proves less simple. Four glazed surfaces are so complex and changeable in their appearance as to demand special care and skill in their indication. It is not hard to be sure to learn to draw a typical window or two, especially if shown at small scale. But if the scale is so large as to make any considerable amount of detail necessary, it is no easy task for the beginner to do even this much well, while it is still more difficult to so render a number of adjacent windows as to give them the best effect in relation to one another and to the remainder of the building. If they are made too dark or too light, they may, even though good in themselves, attract more than their proper share of attention. And if all are drawn in the same way, the result will probably prove monotonous, while if, instead, too much variety is shown, the breadth of effect of the whole drawing is almost sure to be destroyed. Before attempting finished renderings of windows, the student should therefore acquaint himself through observation and study with the appearance of glass under different circumstances and conditions, for it is only by so doing that he can represent it to the best advantage in any given problem. Walk along a street and study the windows that you see, not only those near at hand, but those in the distance as well. Compare those on the sunny side with those in the shade and those in the upper stories with those in the lower. As you make these comparisons, ask yourself such questions as the following. What is the difference in the appearance of glass in sunlight and in shade? Do windows in the upper stories have the same general effect as those in the lower? How do windows in the distance compare with those near at hand? Can you see the curtains or shades distinctly in all the windows? How much of the interiors of the rooms do you see as you pass? Is the glass always plenty visible? Is it hard to tell if panes have been broken from a sash? Is it easy to distinguish plate glass when you see it? If so, why? Do all the lights of glass in one window look the same? Does the glass usually seem lighter or darker than the sash itself? Do you see images reflected in the glass? If so, are they sufficiently definite to permit you to tell trees from buildings? Does your own image appear in the windows? Are images more distinct in glass in shade than in glass in the sunlight? Are reflections as clear on a rainy day as they are when the sun is shining? A little observation will answer such questions as these and make it evident that ordinary window glass has two leading characteristics which relate especially to its appearance and which are therefore of the greatest importance to the student. First comes its transparency. Under certain conditions, glass seems practically invisible. This is especially true of clean plate glass favorably lighted. We are sometimes able then in our representation of windows to neglect the glazing and treat the sashes just as though the panes were non-existent showing distinctly the shades and hangings within. Or if the drawing is made from an interior looking out the foliage and sky beyond. The other characteristic and the one which causes much of the trouble of the beginner is the power that glass has to act as a reflector or mirror giving very often a shiny effect to the window and usually images of objects as well which in some cases are almost as clear as those obtained in the usual looking glass. One of the difficulties confronting the student who tries sketching directly from buildings is the complication in the effect of glass resulting from these reflections for often trees and buildings and skies and clouds and people are all pictured in the windows showing so plainly as to prove confusing for the images are not only somewhat distorted as a rule because of imperfections in the glass but are crisscrossed by the sash bars and mingled and blended with the curtains in a most bewildering manner. It is not easy therefore to know just what to put in and what to leave out so considerable experience will be necessary to teach what really is essential and what should be subordinated or omitted. It is worth remembering that as a rule the two characteristics of glass which we have mentioned appear in combination the glass seems sufficiently transparent to enable us to see through it quite easily yet has enough reflection to give it a shiny appearance sometimes however this power to reflect neutralizes the effect of transparency to such an extent that we find it impossible to look through the pains at all this is especially true in windows near the top of a building where the reflection of sunlight or bright sky is frequently so strong as to make the curtains within either invisible or very indistinct such windows and particularly those at the upper stories of very tall buildings often take on much the same color and tone as the sky and if the sun itself is reflected the windows become dazzling in their brilliancy a reflected light cloud may make the glass almost white while a blue sky may cause a blue reflection of a value similar to that of the sky itself if we observe the windows near the street level we find as a rule that most of them seem darker for in place of the sky reflections we have those of nearby buildings and trees it is useful to bear in mind then that when rendering tall buildings the general tone of the glass taken as a whole may often be correctly shown lighter in the upper than in the lower stories even in the ordinary suburban home or country house the windows of the lower floors frequently seem darker when viewed from without then do those above especially if the nearby foliage is comparatively low so as to reflect in the downstairs windows only it is true too that glass within shadow or on the shady side of a building usually seems much lighter than we would expect so it is by no means necessary to represent it by a dark tone simply because it is within shade or shadow its light appearance is generally due to the fact that it mirrors the brightness of the sky or some nearby building in sunlight this power which glass has to reflect varies under different circumstances if glass has black or darkness as a background or is in shadow as we have just mentioned it usually proves a stronger reflector than it does when in light or with light shining through from behind or with a light background paint glass black on the back and it becomes a good mirror reflecting objects very distinctly when we look at a window from without in the daytime and it has no shades or curtains its glazing may be likened to the painted glass just mentioned the darkness of the interior being relatively of a deeper value than the outdoor tones and therefore taking the place of the black paint and such a window shows reflections more distinctly than one with light curtains behind if a window by chance shows portions of a black or any very dark window shade and of a light one as well the reflections will be more distinct on that portion of the glass which has the dark shade behind it and contrarially if a similar window has a light shade lowered to the sill so as to fill the whole opening the reflections will be comparatively indistinct as a further proof that glass is a good mirror when backed up with black stand facing a window in a lighted room at night with a shade raised and if it is dark out of doors your own image can be easily seen in the daytime however if you stand at the same place and look out into the sunlight you will find your reflection to be quite indistinct or even invisible when making a drawing of an interior as it appears in the daytime it is therefore seldom necessary to show any reflections in the glass of the windows or doors of the outside walls as the brighter light without renders them impotent in fact in architectural drawing it is only occasionally the definite reflections of objects are shown for unless extreme care is used to keep them inconspicuous they may become so noticeable as to seriously detract from the result it is not often advisable for instance to show the reflections of tree trunks or nearby buildings and if such images are indicated they should be drawn correctly and kept subordinated there are times however when a reflection of a window reveal or an arch intratos or some similar adjacent part of a building may prove interesting and in the sketch at number 5 figure 36 a dark reflection of the shaded intratos is shown even though comparatively little use is made of definite images of objects when representing glass the effect of most windows is nevertheless modified to such an extent in general tone by the indefinite reflections of the sky and distant objects as to demand some expression of this modification but as the spectator when viewing a drawing seldom has an exact knowledge of what these objects influence in the appearance may be the artist is usually at liberty to assume such conditions as best suit his requirements and convenience this means that if it pleases him to draw his windows light on the assumption that they are reflecting a bright sky or dark for some similar reason he is at liberty to do so and as windows often change in effect completely and suddenly it is hard to dispute his authority now to get down to a few practical facts of value to the beginner first of all decide whether the glass is to be shown light or dark this depends largely on the surrounding material if the walls are of light plaster and strong contrast seems desirable keep the glass dark if instead the walls are of a dark material light windows will attract more attention there are many cases however where it seems wise to keep certain windows inconspicuous as a matter of presentation and under such conditions strong contrast is of course to be avoided the best way to determine which windows should be dark and which light is by making a preliminary study on tracing paper before starting the final rendering as a rule those windows nearest the spectator or in some instances nearest the center of interest should show not only the sharpest contrasts but also the greatest amount of detail this gives us an opportunity to get a certain variety of treatment in the different windows which is essential but at the same time care must be taken not to provoke unrest by overemphasizing the differences of representation once a general scheme for the values has been determined upon it is necessary to reach a decision as to how much detail is to be shown through the glass this will depend largely on the location of the windows and on the nature of the building if a dignified facade is to be rendered it is seldom wise to show much inside the glazing as curtains and the like sometimes detract from the architectural character of a formal building unless rendered in a very conventional manner an informal building such as a suburban residence permits greater freedom of expression however so in a building of this sort it is usually best to show the shades and curtains quite distinctly stiffness of effect is avoided if an occasional window is shown open or with the shutters partly closed while awnings and screens and such things sometimes add to the feeling of reality in a formal building if shades are shown in the windows they are usually all lowered to the same point generally about one third to one half way down from the top or are arranged in some uniform manner but greater variety of spacing is permissible in less formal structures inside draperies harmonize better with the structural lines of the building if shown hanging vertically or nearly so and for this reason it is often well not to drape them in curves as curved lines frequently attract too much attention neither is it necessary or desirable to show much detail or design in the hangings though there is no harm in suggesting some simple pattern as in number four figure 36 especially if a sash is unbroken by mountains or other objects when it comes to the rendering of the sashes and the window frame treat the woodwork very broadly merely suggesting by one or two lines all the various members of which the hole is composed the sash bars will usually be sufficiently well indicated if a single line representing their shady side and their shadow on the glass is used sashes are as a rule left white on renderings but there are instances where the glass is shown so light as to cause dark sashes to seem essential as a means of producing proper contrast in number five figure 36 it will be noticed that the woodwork of the door is left light at the bottom where the glass is dark but graded to dark at the top so as to count strongly against the light reflection in number nine figure 37 the sashes are in shadow and consequently dark but the glass here is catching a strong reflection of light as in the previous example it perhaps seems a bit extreme to leave the glass as white as it is in this sketch and in the doorway at number 13 on the same sheet but an effect of transparency is obtained in this way and the light tone of the glass pleasingly breaks up the monotony of the shadow often however the glass in such windows is shown very dark this being a matter of choice as both conditions are found in actual buildings in most drawings of windows the shadows cast by the frame and by the sashes on the shades and curtains are made quite prominent and this often adds greatly to the effect and it is well as a rule to emphasize the shadows of the shutters also there is another point worth considering and this is that if there is a large dark shadow near the top of a window it is best not to have a similar dark tone at the bottom as such duplication may injure the result end of rendering reflections in window glass by Arthur L. Gooptill from sketching and rendering in pencil recorded for LibriVox by Sue Anderson some reflections on the beauty of unpunctuality by Lord Alfred Douglas this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Rob Marland some reflections on the beauty of unpunctuality there is an old proverb which says that procrastination is the thief of time this has been amended and improved along with many other proverbs by a brilliant and witty modern author who says punctuality is the thief of time this latter saying is very true nothing is more fatal to time than punctuality under its influence time gallops away it cuts time up into little square bits all quite square and when the process is finished there is no time left but each little square bit represents some one thing such as breakfast a lecture or luncheon so the saying is very true and very subtle and yet if we look at the old saying in a certain way and a way different from the usual way we will see that it too contains its modicum of truth in both the proverb quoted and in its emendation the word time is, I presume taken to mean one's own time I mean that when the author of the proverb whoever he was originally wrote it he intended to intimate that procrastination was an undesirable thing and that the unpunctual man was a loser by practising unpunctuality Mr. Oscar Wilde at once perceived the fallaciousness of this idea and very properly corrected the proverb into what I've already quoted he saw that procrastination was a charming thing he realised that unpunctuality made life beautiful and he noted the alarming and dangerous prevalence of boldness seriousness and solid common sense among the punctual but now that the old proverb has been effectually knocked on the head or perhaps rather I should say neatly spitted and now that it is hiding itself away among the middle classes let us seek it and find it again and by misinterpreting the meaning of its original propounder give to it a new vitality which will enable it to hold up its head again and even to shake hands with Mr. Oscar Wilde's emendation to do this we have merely to interpret the word time in the proverb as other people's time then it becomes quite true and what is more important quite modern to say that procrastination is the thief of time of course it steals other people's time and gives it to the unpunctual man and by so doing it fulfills another saying to him that hath shall be given and from him that hath not shall be taken away for the punctual man as all the world knows never has any time to spare his time is money and he never throws that away recklessly whereas the unpunctual man has all his time through all the day to do what he likes with and in addition to that he can add on whenever it suits him other little bits that his slave procrastination steals from the punctual by giving this meaning to the word time we have brought the old proverb round again and it has now been shown that the statement procrastination is the thief of time is in one sense as true and as modern as the statement punctuality is the thief of time is in another but no doubt there is a portion of people who cling to the old idea that punctuality is a desirable thing and unpunctuality the reverse and who although they must have observed the frightful evils which spring from punctuality and the fearful tendency among the punctual towards early rising regular exercise and methodical habits yet persist in going to bed at a reasonable hour to rise for early breakfast or worse still attend a roll call in the morning of such I would earnestly beg that they will spend a few moments of that portion of the day which is set apart for shall we say reading in the academical sense of the word in cultivating habits of unpunctuality they will no doubt find it difficult at first the path is steep and is beset with thorns and quagmires not to say dons but perseverance will be rewarded and although they may often slip back and waver yet if they earnestly fix their eyes on the absolute unpunctuality and struggle on they will in the end find it easy and pleasant once they have tasted the real fruit of unpunctuality I have no fears for them they will look back with horror to their former lives and regret every hour that they lived as slaves to punctuality but the unpunctual man is not as might perhaps be supposed the only one who is benefitted by his own unpunctuality no, it is his mission to bring light and joy before even the most degraded of the punctual sometimes benefits by his appearance who that has ever attended a dull lecture say on the ethics of Aristotle and has come we won't say quite in time but reasonably early can have failed to note the joyous and inspiring effect of the arrival of the unpunctual man say half an hour late and half happy laughter that flows through the room the mild joke on the part of the lecturer perhaps himself not the least pleased at the interruption the blush of pleasure and conscious well-doing on the part of the late arrival and the triumphant and a lighted pride of his close personal friends who indirectly share as is only right with friends in his distinction again what a great thing it is to be late for dinner it is true that when people are waiting for an expected guest who is late they are apt to say unkind things about him and to regard him with hatred and enmity but when he does arrive they forgive him and even bless him for his arrival is the signal for the adjournment to the dining room and thus he appears out of deliverer from famine and quite illogically no doubt the very cause of the feast and besides the unpunctual man who arrives late for dinner is bound to provide some beautiful and highly coloured legend to account for his lateness and thus conservation is promoted fiction is encouraged and a basis is formed for the evening's conversation it is now so generally admitted that punctuality at breakfast unless for some particular reason is not a thing to be encouraged that it is hardly worthwhile to discuss that point and I will content myself with saying that in my opinion a man who consistently comes down in time for breakfast and expects others to do likewise is quite capable of going out for a walk for breakfast in the fresh morning air and such a man usually goes to sleep in a chair and snores directly after dinner let no such man be trusted again how many people have escaped terrible deaths by being late for trains the number must be something enormous all the trains that I have ever missed have come to the most fearful ends they have either run off the lines or gone away from London or stopped at stations to drink water and who shall say which of these calamities is the greatest but why should I multiply instances of the beauty and blessedness of unpunctuality need I remind my readers that the Prussians by being late for the battle of Waterloo not only got at least an equal amount of glory with the English but to a large extent shaped the discomfort and inconvenience of being shot down in thousands and wounded or need I dwell upon the exquisite and subtle pleasure which is to be obtained by arriving at a country church after the end of the second lesson a pleasure which I am told is only to be equaled by that of arriving late for a wedding when one is acting one of the leading parts I feel that it is superfluous and unpunctual man will agree with me he will understand my feelings but the punctual man being by nature a Philistine cannot understand them and never will I do not wish to be misunderstood I know that there are many people who are unpunctual by temperament and yet are forced by circumstances to be punctual and I sympathise deeply with them there are no greater martyrs to be found in this world but for those who are really punctual by nature and temperament there is little hope they must be Philistines but some Philistines are nice and a nice Philistine is one of the most charming and refreshing things in life end of some reflections on the beauty of unpunctuality by Lord Alfred Douglas