OCTOBER 73 



Spikes of bright yellow poplars here and there marked 

 the road as it wound up the hill, to lose itself in the 

 silent forest. The walls of my bedroom were hung 

 round with photographs and prints, remembrances 

 brought back by my cosmopolitan hostess from various 

 countries. They were most of them known to me, but 

 one print was quite a stranger and very striking. It was 

 of a picture, I was told, by a Swiss artist called Arnold 

 Boecklin, a celebrated man, though unknown to me. On 

 the white margin of the print were written the simple 

 words : Todten-Insel. The print represents an imag- 

 inary burial-place : A high, rocky island, with a 

 suggestion of big caves in the rock and windows made 

 by man. In the middle a little open space, with tall, 

 upright groups of splendid Italian cypresses, which seem 

 to be mournfully swaying in the wind. Down the rocks 

 on each side tumble somewhat conventional waterfalls 

 into a fathomless ocean, perhaps meant to be typical 

 of life and death. Two white stone posts on each side 

 of a step mark the entrance to this sombre garden of 

 peace and rest. On the foreground of calm water floats 

 a black boat, which approaches this entrance rowed by 

 a solitary dark figure a realistic Charon. Across the 

 front of the boat lies the dead ; and a radiant, draped, 

 mysterious mourner, with head bowed over the inevi- 

 table sorrow of mankind, stands erect in the middle of 

 the boat. The combination of the horizontal dead 

 figure and the upright mourner, in their white draperies, 

 seems to form a shining cross against the deep shade of 

 the cypresses. This print fascinated me, with its eternal 

 facts transcribed into an allegory by a man of genius. 

 The picture from which it is taken is a replica, with 

 many alterations, of one painted some years ago which 

 I have seen. But, judging from the print, I believe 

 that the last -painted one is the finest. Certainly the 



