The Proper Functions of Open-Air Statuary 
These func¬ 
tions are, in 
reality, only four 
in number, but 
very important, 
morally. They 
are : to delight , to 
refine , to console , 
to stimulate. 
The natural 
man seeks delight. 
In common with 
all animals he 
seeks the beauti¬ 
ful,—a beautiful 
wife to put into 
a beautiful house 
in a beautiful 
garden on a 
beautiful street in 
front of a beauti¬ 
ful square with 
beautiful food and 
beautiful music. 
To realize this is 
to find paradise 
on earth and 
supreme delight. 
Now, the most 
important ele¬ 
ment of beauty in any such combination— 
outside of the wife—is statuary. Bv statuary 
I mean not only bronze monuments but ideal 
statues, beautiful vases, fine columns, fine 
ornaments carved on fine houses, monu¬ 
mental fountains, as well as artistic lamp- 
posts and gateways, whether carved in stone 
or cast in bronze. All these are sculpture 
or statuary—when finely done. 
It is impossible for even a savage to walk 
through the park of Versailles with its miles 
of beautiful avenues, fountains, statues, trees, 
and flowers, without feeling a certain amount 
of delight. And why do people from all 
over the world flock to Paris, Dresden, 
Vienna, and far Buda-Pesth and Rome? On 
account of the people who live there? Not 
at all. But because those cities delight them. 
Those cities are all splendid, with the ugly 
reduced to a minimum, and the largest ele¬ 
ment of that splendor is, I repeat, statuary 
in its various forms. 
Do you know that for twenty years power¬ 
ful syndicates 
have been trying 
to get a law 
passed in Paris 
by cajolery, 
chicanery and 
corruption, to 
permit them to 
put upan elevated 
railway — and 
always in vain, in 
spite of the great 
need of rapid 
transit. 1 saw 
one design in¬ 
volving fine stone 
arches and stone 
balustrades, 
vases, flowers and 
statuary all along 
the line. But the 
Parisians could 
not be cajoled, 
driven or cor¬ 
rupted to give the 
franchise. A n d 
Paris will never 
be uglified and 
brutalized by an 
elevated rattle¬ 
trap. They now have a fine underground 
system. Then to think of those ignoble, 
nerve-racking, soul-destroying, disease¬ 
breeding horrors — the elevated roads of 
New York and Chicago! The Frenchman 
knows—the American is only beginning to 
divine—the spiritual and medicinal value of 
delight aroused by the beautiful. 
The second function of open-air statuary 
is to refine men, and when they begin to be 
refined the divine, dormant in man, begins 
to awaken. And, as men become more and 
more refined, crimes of a brutal nature 
decrease and good manners and politeness 
increase. Has not Bulwer Lytton, the most 
polite man of his day, said truly: “ Manners 
are more important than religion.” 
I have travelled from California to Egypt 
and from Spain to Hungary, and have 
always observed that the politest and most 
refined people live in the most artistic cities. 
Not only is it reasonable that this should be 
so, but I have found it so by experience. 
A MARBLE FOUNTAIN, BV REVNES, IN THE PARK 
AT BARCELONA 
484 
