THE GENIUS OF A GREAT ARCHITECT.

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

PHILLIPS BROOKS was born in Boston, December 13, 1835. His college education was received at Harvard, after which he studied theology at the seminary in Alexandria, Va.

After preaching for several years in Philadelphia he removed to Boston and filled the office of rector of Trinity Church, a 5 beautiful edifice which was designed by the famous architect, Henry H. Richardson.

Mr. Brooks was one of the most brilliant pulpit orators of his denomination, and his printed sermons are widely read.

He was offered the position of preacher and professor at Har- 10 vard University, but declined. In 1891 he was made Bishop of Massachusetts. His death occurred in January, 1893.

Bishop Brooks was loved and honored throughout England and America; and memorials to him have been placed in London, at Harvard University, and in several churches.

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FROM 1872 to 1886-fourteen years was the great full period of Henry H. Richardson's life and work. And what years they were! He had realized his powers. The fire of distinct genius, indefinable and unmistakable, was burning brightly. His buildings 20 opened like flowers out of his life. It is not in my purpose now to name even his greatest works, or to describe the order in which they came, but rather to characterize some of the qualities, both of the man and of his work, as they showed themselves in those glori- 25 ous years when-all over the country, in Albany and Washington and Boston and Cincinnati and Chicago,

and in quiet villages, where he made the town hall and library a perpetual inspiration, and along the railroads, where he made the station houses bear witness to the power of art to beautify the most prosaic uses, and in 5 dwellings, which he filled with dignity and graceeverywhere the man genuinely and spontaneously blended his own nature with the purposes and material of the structures which he built.

The first quality of true genius certainly was in all 10 that he did. It was instinctive and spontaneous. Based upon thorough study, genuinely expressing great ideas, it yet was true that there was much in Richardson's work of which he gave and could give to himself little or no account as to how it came to pass. He was not 15 a man of theories. His life passed into his buildings by ways too subtle even for himself to understand.

And so he has done a larger work than he ever deliberately resolved to do. He simply did his work in his own way, and the style was there.

20 It is a style of breadth and simplicity that corresponds with his whole nature. Never somber, because the irrepressible buoyancy and cheerfulness of his life are in it; never attaining the highest reach of spirituality and exaltation, for his own being had its strong 25 association with the earth, and knew no mystic raptures or transcendental aspirations; healthy and satisfying within its own range, and suggesting larger things as he himself always suggested the possession of powers which he had never realized and used-something like

this is the character of the buildings which he has left behind him.

He grew simpler as he grew older and greater. He often seemed to disregard and almost despise detail of ornament. He loved a broad, unbroken stretch of wall. 5 He seemed to count, with Ruskin, "a noble surface of stone a fairer thing than most architectural features which it is caused to assume." And yet out of this simplicity could burst a sumptuousness of design or decoration all the more captivating and overwhelming 10 for the simplicity out of which it sprang. I have heard one of his own profession call him "barbaric." It was that which made his work delightful. Whoever came in contact with it felt that the wind blew out of an elemental simplicity, out of the primitive life and funda- 15 mental qualities of man. And this great simplicity, the truthfulness with which he was himself, made him the real master of all that his art had ever been, made it possible for him, without concealment, to take some work of other days and appropriate it into work of his 20 own, as Shakespeare took an Italian tale and turned it into Shylock or Othello.

These are the moral qualities of his architecture. But these qualities every one must feel who stands in front of one of Richardson's great buildings; and the 25 same qualities every man felt who came to know him. That is another note of genius. The man and his work are absolutely one. The man is in the work, and the work is in the man. So Richardson possessed in him

self that solidity without stolidity, that joyousness without frivolity, which his best art expresses.

Nowhere does this identity of Richardson and his work seem more impressive than in that unique house 5 at Brookline which was at once his workshop and his home. No one who saw it when it was filled with his vitality will ever lose the feeling of how it was all vital, like a thing that had grown.

His life was like a great picture full of glowing color. 10 The canvas on which it was painted was immense. It lighted all the room in which it hung. It warmed the chilliest air. It made, and it will long make, life broader, work easier, and simple strength and courage dearer to many men.

HONEST WORK.

"MEN said the old smith was foolishly careful, as he wrought on the great chain he was making in his dingy shop in the heart of the great city. But he heeded not their words, and only wrought with greater painstaking. Link after link he fashioned and welded and 5 finished, and at last the great chain was completed.

"Years passed. One night there was a terrible storm, and the ship was in sore peril of being dashed upon the rocks. Anchor after anchor was dropped, but none of them held. The cables were broken like threads. At 10 last the mighty sheet anchor was cast into the sea, and the old chain quickly uncoiled and ran out till it grew taut. All watched to see if it would bear the awful strain. It sang in the wild storm as the vessel's weight surged upon it. It was a moment of intense anxiety. 15 The ship with its cargo of a thousand lives depended upon this one chain. What now if the old smith had wrought carelessly even one link of his chain! But he had put honesty and truth and invincible strength into every part of it; and it stood the test, holding the ship 20 in safety until the storm was over."