BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
i7 
after spending a week or more in New York studying these 
paintings. It was published under the pen name of Celen Sab- 
brin. Copies were sent to the various art journals, and to the 
New York Art Exhibition, and many were sold at the door of 
the gallery as supplementary to the catalogues. This article 
was afterwards translated into French by the editor of “La 
Vogue.” 
Some of the Impressionist paintings especially emphasized 
the pitilessness of natural forces or of Nature where all human 
interests were lost to view. It was as if the universe were a huge 
scientific demonstration, with feeling, mental response, and all 
that goes to form religion eliminated. It was the inevitable 
onward march of the physical life of the world, as each seon 
brought it nearer and nearer to cold, death, and annihilation. 
Such thoughts may have been due to an overwrought, sen¬ 
sitive mental organization, but it was all very real, and even 
the sunlight shining on the green trees and grass brought with 
it a suggestion of the steel-blue light that astronomers tell us 
prevails beyond this earth’s atmosphere. To break the spell 
of this mood, I gave up the study of the Impressionist paintings 
at the time, and even the study of the physical sciences be¬ 
came so painful to me that I felt obliged to discontinue it and 
find relief in literature, poetry, and whatever else suggested 
sentiency. 
It happened to be Holy Week, and often in the late after¬ 
noon, I would drive to some church and sit there in meditation 
in the deepening twilight under the spell of the solitary altar- 
lamp, symbolical of everlasting light, and the slowly-fading 
colors of the stained-glass windows, as one by one they settled 
into the common tone of the early evening dusk. 
Especially in the domain of poetry were many hours at 
this season spent. The works of Goethe received due share 
of attention. Alfred de Musset, Murger, Beranger, Shelley, 
and later, Browning, all contributed their delightful compan¬ 
ionship. Spinosa and Novalis were constantly referred to and 
read. 
Dr. Brinton had a happy way of selecting passages from 
his favorite authors and copying them in his own handwriting 
