Stevenson and California. 115 



into English literature — a charm quite unknown to our 

 prosaic Anglo-Saxon temperament, and equally foreign 

 to the Norman genius for government and affairs — recall 

 this, and be glad that so large an infusion of Celtic genius 

 went into the making of our nascent Califomian art. 



These six I have named as well known and typical, 

 not meaning thereby to exclude any others who rightfully 

 may claim to stand beside them. But this group, however 

 constituted, it pleases me to think of as the original Ste- 

 venson Fellowship, of which your own organization is 

 the loyal and worthy continuator, maintaining as they did, 

 in the face of an unbelieving time, the old faith in noble 

 ideals, the old tradition of the high calling of art, and 

 the old love of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. 



Permit me to glance for a moment at the differing 

 genius of these men, and at the relation between Steven- 

 son's work and theirs. Sill was the true poet, with far- 

 reaching and unifying vision which refuses to be confined 

 to the provincial and local aspects of life. No consid- 

 erable portion of his works is distinctly Californian in 

 subject and treatment. In this he stands apart from the 

 rest, who are all artists in genre. Muir and Keith, nobile 

 par fratrum, hard-headed canny Scots on the one side of 

 them, rhapsodists and religious mystics on the other ; self- 

 taught artists both, devoted to landscape and mountains ; 

 both in their highest moments laying upon heart and 

 imagination a marvelous spell of mystery, tenderness, 

 and awe, with an aerial uplift of phantasy which suffuses 

 the whole like an atmosphere ! Yelland gives us more 

 exactly the outward form and aspect of the things he sees, 

 and with a certain unfailing dignity and eloquence; but 

 he rarely rises into the realm of poetic illusion. Stod- 

 dard, like Yelland, bears the distinct impress of his time, 

 and all its concern for exact knowledge and truthful rec- 

 ord. But both are artists, and their record of fact is suf- 

 fused with a tender grace of the heart which raises it far 

 above all the prosy head-work which filled that period. 

 The grace which invests Stoddard's work is the grace of 



