engagement as principal solo contralto in 1884, because she had retired from public life to be Mrs. C. Munson Raymond, it was felt to be so necessary to have her present at the festival that the directors invited her to come and sit in the audience as their guest. Myron W. Whitney was just as intimately connected with the festivals. He sang at every one from 1873 till his retirement in 1890, except the festival of 1884.

When

The artistic significance of the Cincinnati festivals has rested upon the magnitude and dignity of the musical schemes planned for them by Mr. Thomas and the forces enlisted in their exposition. At the first meeting a large number of choirs took part, some coming from such distant cities as Des Moines and Milwaukee. At the second, half a dozen cities and towns in Ohio joined Cincinnati in providing the choral contingent, but since 1880 the festival chorus has been an organized body whose affairs are administered all the time by the Festival Association. The orchestra generally numbers about one hundred and fifty men; the chorus, five hundred voices. With these masses are always associated the best solo talent obtainable. the enthusiasm inspired by the festivals in other cities was at its height, Mr. Thomas found it possible to bring the three representative singers of Wagner's music from Vienna-Madame Materna, Herr Winkelmann, and Herr Scaria; and, as if this were not enough, Madame Nilsson was also enlisted. By this means communities never visited by traveling opera and concert singers have been enabled to hear the greatest singers of the age-Lehman, Nilsson, Materna, Cary, Eames, Lloyd, Whitney, Winkelmann, Scaria, and many others. The same policy has characterized the preparations for the twelfth festival, to be held from the 19th to the 23d of May this year. The German prima donna Frau Klafsky, the American Nordica, the Englishwoman (by courtesy so called as a matter of fact she is half German and half American) Brema, and the Englishmen H. Plunket Greene, Ben Davies, Ffrangçon Davies, and R. Watkin Mills, will all take part, besides a number of singers of local fame. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which had its first performance in the United States just fifty years ago this month, and was introduced to the West at the first festival in 1873, will be repeated. The other choral works will be "St. Francis," by Edgar Tinel, a young Flemish composer; Saint-Saëns's "Samson and Delilah" (an opera that is oftener given in oratorio form than operatic), Handel's "Judas Maccabæus," and a dainty secular cantata, "The Swan and the Skylark," by A. Goring Thomas. The Music Hall, which till now has been serviceable only for festival, convention, and exposition uses, has been remodeled in its interior arrangements and changed into a large theater, comparable with the Metropolitan Opera-House in New York and the Auditorium in Chicago.

Our Travelers' Club

By Lucy A. Martin

The autumn days had come, the winter would soon be upon us, and how were we to make some of its evenings profitable and enjoyable? Our village was a small one, and, though near New York, its country store and post-office combined was the chief center of trade, with but one rival a little way down the road, opposite which stood the blacksmith shop with its "spreading" elm.

The houses and homes were much scattered, but each of the two churches brought its part of the inhabitants together on Sunday, and the Library, down the hill by the river-it was the noble Hudson on whose banks we were nestled-was an important element in the week-day life of the village. Here, four years ago, was started the "Travelers' Club." We met every three weeks on Monday evening, and, gathered about the long reading-table, took our imaginary trip to Europe. Our Secretary, together with our President and Treasurer, planned each meeting, and we first made a truly American trip abroad, traveling hurriedly through England, France, Germany, and Italy, and at the close of the eight meetings we had each done our

part in contributing a short paper on some given place or topic-country, town, city, or some point of interest in one of these.

The second winter we traveled more slowly, and at the beginning of the season voted to spend our time in Scotland. We all remember with especial pleasure our evening with Robert Burns, when we renewed our acquaintance with the literature of the country. Our club, now numbering twenty, bought a good oil lantern and a screen, which, with the slides, procured as we required them, added greatly to the pleasure of the evenings. These slides we hired at a place in New York City where they have a large collection, at a cost of one and a half cents apiece for one evening. Thirty pictures, accompanied by our papers, made us feel as if we had really visited the place described. The slides were selected from a catalogue, and were called for and returned by one of the Club who goes to town daily—an advantage for which we are grateful, since economy is with us a necessity. Each member pays a tax of five cents a meeting to cover the expense of the slides. Our lantern we bought by a special entertainment.

Last fall, when we gathered again to talk over plans for the winter, we decided to make this year's meetings and travels more simple and popular, and to admit some of the younger persons who would enjoy the trips; and with this end in view we adopted a plan for a journey in our own country. First we took "A Summer Pilgrimage," and spent the evening with the views and descriptions of New England watering-places-Bar Harbor, Newport, etc.-closing with an appropriate "Afternoon Tea." gramme consisted of papers on "The Hub of the Universe and Her Literary Men," with views, a reading, and a song: menu, Boston brown bread. For our "New England Fireside we went to the parsonage, where papers were read on "Customs and Home Life" and "Rural Scenery and Outdoor Life," a selection read from "Cape Cod Folks," and we had a merry time popping corn before the open wood fire, closing the evening by singing in concert Home, Sweet Home." "Our Wedding Trip" found us at Washington, and the views of that city, together with those of Philadelphia and Baltimore, which we were supposed to pass through en route, were fine. A paper on Baltimore and a selection on Social Life in Washington filled our evening, and we closed the meeting with some "truly" wedding-cake-of which, to be sure, there was only a square inch for each of us-from two boxes brought by one of the members from a large wedding in New York. The boxes, which were unusually pretty, were given to the two brides of the Club. The evening was opened by the Wedding March, played by one of the members, and this simple feast. completed a harmonious programme. "The Orange and Palmetto took us to Florida, and the slides gave us an excellent idea of the palatial hotels and the quaint town of St. Augustine and the weird river scenery of that region. Some of the golden fruit from that State served as a light refreshment with which to close the evening. The subject for the next meeting, "Way Down in Dixie," gave an opportunity to consider New Orleans and the Creole, the Negro, the "F. F. V.'s," and to hear a reading from "Uncle Remus" and the song "Dixie Land." Menu, peanuts.

The programme for the rest of the year includes "The Blue-Grass Region," and an evening studying the historic Hudson, preparatory to the celebration by the Club of the close of its season by taking an actual trip up the river on Decoration Day.1

甭

Sunset

By Mary Laura Mason
The west is a mass of color,

A glow of golden light,
That resolves like a chord of music
The day into the night.

The Outlook is glad to furnish through its Recreation Department circulars, descriptive pamphlets, time-tables, and other printed information which will enable members of Travelers' Clubs, like that described in this article, to put themselves in close personal touch with places to be visited and routes to be traversed.-THE EDITORS.

N the 4th of May occurs the centenary of a man, who has not only won a high place in American literature, but who challenges comparison with the very greatest historians of the world. Not without justice did a famous English critic assert that Horace Walpole's prophecy that the next Augustan age would dawn on this side of the Atlantic had been verified, "for Mr. Prescott's 'History of Ferdinand and Isabella' may rank among the first in the English language."

In one of Keats's delightful letters he wrote these significant and stimulating words: "I must think that difficulties nerve the spirit of a man; they make our prime objects a refuge as well as a passion." To the career of no man of letters are these words so applicable as to that of William Hickling Prescott. His life affords a striking example of enduring work achieved in spite of overwhelming odds. The gift of genius is a marvelous thing! Seldom can its ancestry be traced, more seldom is it possible to understand how it flourishes under certain conditions. I can understand how a poet, amid suffering, poverty, even darkness, can give magic expression to the beautiful forms which throng before his inner vision, giving out from his own sad heart his sweetest songs. I can imagine a romancer, sitting in darkness and alone, weaving his tales of love or of chivalry to thrill and charm the great world. A musician, too, can, even in darkness, have his solitude vocal with divine harmonies, and embody them in enchanting creations which will live after he himself has passed beyond the whirl and stress of time. But a historian, who must depend upon facts, not upon his glowing creative imagination,

1 For the illustrations to this article The Outlook is especially indebted to Mrs. Roger Wolcott and Mr. Arthur Dexter, of Boston, who have been most kind in lending to the author of the article many valued treasures. Of these the rarest have been selected-some never before published, and all comparatively unknown. There are many other portraits of Prescott, beautiful though not so rare. The drawings are done by kind permission of Miss Ticknor.

whose material is drawn from out-of-the-way sources of information, not from ideas current in his own age, from ancient records which must be studied and compared, upon conflicting authorities whose claims must be weighed-how is he to do his appointed work without the blessing of sight?

We are told by Johnson that Milton felt obliged to abandon a cherished plan of writing a history of England, as he found it scarcely possible for a man without eyes to pursue a historical work. Prescott said: "This remark, although discouraging at first, in the end stimulated me. If my ears are spared me, I will disprove the assertion that

no man can

compile a history who is blind."

The interest of Prescott's work is undoubtedly much enhanced by a knowledge of the difficulties in his path. Admiration for the magnificent products of his

PRESCOTT'S MOTHER From the Picture taken for Mr. Arthur Dexter and never before published

JUDGE PRESCOTT From the Portrait by Gilbert Stuart

genius is blended with admiration for the indomitable spirit of the man. In this brief tribute to Prescott's memory I can enter into no critical exposition of the distinctive features of his genius, nor have I space to even allude to much which is of value and interest in his life; but I wish to lay especial stress not only upon the winsomeness, the