SNAPSHOTS

...The Malayan fern grows on the branches, of mountain trees...

...and this time I saw it...

...1 saw it must have seemed very foolish to him—and perhaps it was—when I told him why I had come...

...In fact, as the most famous altar pieces in the Louvre attest, most of the statues were delicately tinted so that in many cases they could not be known from wood...

...For years I had been hearing about a coffre which the Church Treasury possessed...

...Personally, I prefer some sort of scheme when I venture forth-for in the scheme, I, too, find the unexpected...

...I was looking, however, at another Christian object—an ivory plaque which goes back to the Fifth Century...

...Ieonfess that the little trip to Troyes that evoked this emotion was not without a certain satisfaction—especially when I found the sacristan so interested in a passer-by who should have stopped off between trains to see a little box...

...But, as I say, there are different ways of travelling and I prefer to hunt out such adventures...

...It is rather larger than I had thought, but what astonished me most was that I had not visualized its color...

...The others are always there: but these, o'-ie has some say in the making...

...to be tied to any fixed scheme is intolerable...

...The last time I was in Troves the Cathedral was closed...

...In China, it takes, three men, at 15 to 20 cents a day, to bring up one acre of rice...

...I am quite sure, too, that this all seems equal- ly silly to the reader of these lines...

...I am quite sure that the next person who stops before that particular ivory will be told, with all the proper embellishments, of its great value...

...But I would have none of that famed huntress—grateful as we must be to her" for her contribution to Christian iconography...

...In California, it takes one man at $5 a day to till 90 acres of rice with power machinery...

...Katmai, (or McKinley), in Alaska, the first time the surf bird's eggs were e,ver seen...

...the sacristan was out to one of those French lunches which take two hours, during which the House of God was without its customary caretaker...

...By hand, it would take about 270 Mongolians to care for 90 acres at a wage cost of $40 to $50 a clay...

...What makes it of the greatest interest is that it is a Nativity without either the Mother or Joseph...

...Another guardian comes to mind: he who keeps a friendly eye over the Museum at Nevers...

...Thus, when my reading reveals that in some treasury of a church or beneath the vitrines of some provincial museum there tranquilly rests a piece of ivory or a sculptured morsel of wood, I plan my trip to stop and salute it with a smile of recognition...

...but when I left him and sensed how his pride in the old museum had increased after what I had told him, I felt the journey worth while...

...This particular box in Troyes dates from the tenth century...

...It is important because it contains secular scenes unlike many other such boxes...

...On the ends were odd Oriental motives of decoration proclaiming its Eastern origin...

...Small towns to me, for example, always mean some particular thing I wish to see...

...Spot was third of a litter of four...

...Observers say that the male bird hatches the eggs...

...I am thinking today, as I am sailing home, of a few hours I spent this trip on such quests...

...The Arctic surf bird has always been-a mystery to the naturalist...

...He injected adrenalin chloride, a powerful astringent and heart stimulant, Into Spot 10 minutes after Spot arrived on earth, dead...

...But he went with me, none the less, pointing out some lovely faience enroute through the variegated rooms of a typical provincial museum...

...Some temperaments, too, can never travel otherwise...

...The infant Christ lies on the flat stable floor, with only the ox and the ass regarding the immortal phenomenon...

...And the old guardian will boast, as I did on leaving him, that "there are only one or two like it in the world...

...It contains two scenes: the Nativity and the Adoration of the three kings...

...and I was more content with my fancy than I might have been with the fact...

...The other Adoration reveals the three visitors to Mary and the Child, without beards—all of the same age, which is very rare—and carrying the Phyrgian bonnet that also betrays the plaque's Eastern origin...

...There are moods, of course, when this is the only way to enjoy the change of scene, bringing as it does unsuspected treasures to the attention...

...it is the knowledge that some hidden piece of beauty lies awaiting me...

...and it was purple—not the rich royal color which the name evokes, but faded enough to let escape the warm amber tones of the ivory beneath...

...About these relics, too, strange tissues were wrapped—some of which are also in Troyes—tissues woven with odd designs soon to be copied by the sculptors when they chiseled their marble columns and capitals that held up the church...

...A system of galleries runs thru_these masses and are invariably filled with ants—nests made for them by nature...

...Let come what may as the scene changes...

...I realized, as I talked of these things to the old guardian, that nobody before had ever made him know its importance...

...for when the early painters made the Virgin stand upon a crescent, they were paying tribute to Diana's emblem of her chastity...

...For it was" in such boxes as these that many of the relics of the Saints were sent back to friends at home or given to the various chapels which needed relics to make them blessed...

...The veterinarian tried something on him that has never been used before in veterinary cases...

...it is confining the heavens to a peephole...

...And as I w-as studying it he tried to tell me about a rather conventional Eighteenth Century Diana with flowing draperies that appealed more to his aged masculinity...

...I had only a short time to give and when I rang the bell and asked to see the ivories he smiled and said "he hadn't very much to show me...

...1 happened, by chance to have read about this plaque and thus to know it was related to a very important group of ivories...

...It was the habit in tiio earlier centuries to color ivory...

...Recently, a large nesting colony of this flyer was discovered near Mt...

...When we arrived at the case of ivories I saw instancy what I had come for...

...The fleshy, creepy stems give off many branches which form thick masses over the limbs...

...I could not help thinking, as I stood before it, of what its history may have been...

...That's why California can send rice to China and sell it cheaper than the Chinese can grow it...

...After being born dead, Spot, a pedigreed Boston bull terrier, is alive today and learning to walk...

...It is never the tyranny of the guide book that creases a route for me over unknown roads...

...But this time the hour was propitious and I found him...

...dolce far niete—letting the day take care of itself and awaiting whatever adventure the hour may bring...

...the scenes undoubtedly representing episodes during the Crusades...

...The little boxes, too, shared the same fate, being dipped to add richness to the carvings...

...Then he started artificial respiration and after awhile Spot came into the land of the living...