iSg2'2 Priest of the Sierra 



ment of war. The most unconventionally forcible 

 among the clergy of the state, he was now express- 

 ing still another side of his versatile nature from a 

 Baptist pulpit. 



His marriage later to Mrs. Clara Bradley Baker 

 of Pasadena brought two effective workers under 

 one roof. Mrs. Burdette, a woman of unusual 

 ability along many lines, is a prominent leader in 

 the Federation of Women's Clubs, active in every 

 good cause touching city and nation. 



Of my earlier acquaintance with John Muir, Muirand 

 priest of the High Sierra, I have previously had ^"^^' 

 occasion to speak. "Interpreting the land in terms 

 of color," — as Lummis once put it, — William 

 Keith, Muir's countryman by birth as well as by 

 adoption, stood easily at the head of the guild of 

 local painters. Mr. Keith's early pictures were 

 mainly direct and literal renderings of appealing 

 blocks of landscape. His finer canvases — by which 

 he is fairly to be judged — showed a deeper insight. 

 With much of the emotional discernment of Inness, 

 his friend, and something of Corot's poetic spirit- 

 ualization of nature, he may be said to have ex- 

 pressed on this coast, in his way, the romanticism 

 of the Fontainebleau school. His vogue has latterly 

 declined here; his best efforts, nevertheless, remain 

 what they always were, a source of permanent 

 satisfaction to many. 



Characteristic of many Keiths is a bright patch 

 of sunlight piercing the somber shadow of live oaks. 

 Once a brother artist said to him: "I know a kind 

 of soap which will take out those white spots." 

 But the sun was allowed to shine through the dark 



C 459 3 



