A Showing

Ludlow and I went to the Tenth Street Studios yesterday for a Premiere showing of paintings by Albert Bierstadt. There he was, the very man who pulled me from the river when I had my mishap! We laughed and explained to Ludlow that we had met, but I think Ludlow was too distracted by meeting the Great Man (because Bierstadt is very much the coming thing, with these big paintings making such a smash) to take note of the coincidence. Bierstadt's paintings are rather grand, overwhelming. I felt inundated by them. One has to stand well away from them to see them, but there were so many people crowded about, staring at the canvases a nose's length away as if trying to detect their secrets. I prefer to come back another time to see how they actually look. I am not sure that I like them, or him, for that matter. When we parted he took my hand familiarly and looked at me piercingly with those strange, small, almost Oriental eyes, and begged me to come back another day when there was no public viewing. Ludlow, however, is in raptures and rushed off to write a review immediately for the Post. I can see that we will be seeing much of Mr. Bierstadt, in future, for a painter needs a critic as much as a critic needs a painter. I hope he does not become tiresome.