Home -> John J. Newbegin -> The City of Domes -> Other Books by John D. Barry

Previous Page Home Up One Level Next Page

By the Same Author

In the Palace of Fine Arts and the French Pavilion



For the benefit of those visitors to the Exposition who have not made a study of painting and sculpture and who feel bewildered in the presence of so much that is to be seen, Mr. Barry has prepared this small and easily read hand-book, free from bewildering language and technical terms. It at once relates the reader to the most important pictures and statues and serves as a guide, telling where to begin and how to go on. The list of artists whose work ought to be seen is accompanied by a brief account of each, a most helpful feature. Here, for example, is what Mr. Barry has to say about the American painter, John Singer Sargent:

"One of the greatest portrait-painters of his time. At twenty-one he painted a portrait of his teacher, Carolus Duran, that made a sensation. From Velasquez he learned much in the way of technique. He excels in the vigorous presentation of character. Sometimes he shows that he is a rather stern observer. His portraits here are all remarkable. The Madame Gautreau is generally accepted as a masterpiece of painting. The left arm and the neck are notably well done. The make-up on the face is adroitly suggested. The portrait of Henry James, the American novelist, achieved notoriety through being slashed by a militant suffragette when it was first exhibited in London a few years ago. The portrait-sketch of Joseph Jefferson, the actor, was evidently executed with great sympathy. As Jefferson was a painter of ability, Sargent must have known that he had a sitter with a full appreciation of his work. Of late he has given up portrait-painting and devoted himself to landscape."



By the Same Author

Reactions and Other Essays, Discussing Those States of Feeling and Attitudes of Mind That Find Expression in our Individual Qualities



In this new collection Mr. Barry presents some of his most mature and representative work. It covers a wide range of theme, varying from a discussion of "Aspects of War" to those human problems of daily life that the author has treated so suggestively in his previous volumes.

Throughout the book is packed with keen observation and stimulating comment. In "Getting on with People" there is this striking bit of philosophy:

"Every one of us is like a mesh of string. And among all the many strings in that mesh there is somewhere bidden a yellow piece. It may be a long piece or a short piece. But it is there. And every one of us is likely to know it is there. And every one of us is likely to bide it from those we love and whose love we prize."

"Now and then some one comes along and sees in the mesh that yellow streak. And in seeing it he is likely to identify the whole mesh, that is, the whole character, with yellow."

"And if he lets us know that he believes we are all yellow, we are likely to become yellow, at any rate, so far as that particular observer is concerned. We are likely to act toward him as if we really were yellow."

"So it behooves us to be careful in seeing. If we must be sharp if we must see that yellow streak, let us be careful not to let it blind us to the other colors."

Among the more serious of the studies is the one that those who have suffered bereavement will be likely to find the most comforting, "The Dead."

Other subjects include "Keeping One's Pleasures," "Expecting the Impossible," "Prisoners of Prejudice," "The Imaginary People," "The Perfect Mother," "The Hope of the Future," "The Stumblers," "Silence," "Fate is Character," "The Looks of Prisoners," "Love," "God's Poor," "The Decline of Arrogance," "The Lies of Literature," "Multiplying Our Troubles," and "Creating a World."



By the Same Author

Outlines: Brief Studies in Fiction Representing an Effort to Give an Imaginative Interpretation to Familiar Human Experiences



The essays are charming in conception and treatment, allegorical and dainty, and yet instinct with manly virility. They deserve nothing but commendation. - Los Angeles Tribune.

Mr. John D. Barry's "Outlines" are social studies in allegory. Originally written for the San Francisco Bulletin, their wisdom and laconic vigor constitute good reason for collection. - Boston Daily Advertiser.

The author, in each case, has a moral idea to express and puts it into narrative form with a good deal of literary skill. The stories are very brief and stop short when the author has made his point. - New York Sun.

Here is rather a remarkable literary form. It is fiction, or rather
allegory each short piece interpreting some thought or ethic. Force, directness, simplicity and boldness commend it to the reader. - Duluth Herald.

The contents of the book are as rich and attractive as are the binding and typography. . . . Each article in the book is in reality a short story - a very brief, short story, but withal a very nearly perfect one. - Hartford Post.

Indeed they are "Outlines," these sketches of various phases of human experience; but outlines drawn by so sure a hand that each stroke tells. Nor could any elaboration of detail, however skilfully made, more vividly depict their subjects. - Boston Transcript.

Just as the dress of this volume is suggestive in its simplicity, so are the studies within. They are in the manner of fables, delicately conceived and expertly fashioned. There is a haunting beauty in the music of the prose and often a penetrating force in the ideas set forth. . . . There are nearly fifty stories in the book and there are few which will not jar you mentally. And mental upheavals are healthy things. - Detroit Tribune.

Here are half a hundred little parables of every day. Each is addressed to all the world. Each enwraps one or another of the multitudinous selves and attitudes in which the soul looks out in humanwise upon the mystery of life. All work together to give us lightning, flashes of our real but elusive selves as these exist under their overlayings of convention and custom. . . . It is writing of great beauty and distinction, little dramas of life set in a golden imagination. As a book, a thing for the hand and the eye, it is also one of Paul Elder's artistic productions. - Washington Evening Star,



By the Same Author

Intimations: A Collection of Brief Essays Dealing Mainly With Aspects of Everyday Living



A very readable book is Mr. Barry's "Intimations," the kind of book that one takes pleasure in possessing because its interest is so human, its earnestness so convincing, its quiet humor so sympathetic and its comments upon life and peoples so keen. - The Craftsman.

Get his volume, "Intimations " and read his essays. Ponder over them. They will soon rank in your mind with the work of the younger brother of Marcus Aurelius, Thomas a Kempis, and Emerson, and become of your daily bread for mind and spirit. - George Wharton James.

The wide variety of subjects touched on, the dramatic power displayed in the general plan and writing of the essays, the insight and originality, all mark the book as one of unusual dignity, power and excellence. - Salt Lake Tribune.

Read this book carefully in odd half hours, and it will add much to your knowledge of life; it will make your heart tender to those who are bearing heavy burdens; it will help you to endure the frequent ingratitude which is the portion of the warmhearted. And when you have got all there is in it, send the book to a friend, and thus spread the gospel of helpfulness. - George Hamlin Fitch, in the San Francisco Chronicle.

From the press of Paul Elder comes a new book of consequence. It is called "Intimations," and is from the pen of John D. Barry, by profession a critic, by nature constructive and by cultivation a writer of rare charm. In the past he has written several books of merit, but this last has in it a note of golden maturity, which outstrips the rest. It is mellow and beautiful and we doubt if America has produced anything in an essay since the days of Emerson that is more choice. - The Los Angeles Times.

John D. Barry has been writing for the San Francisco Bulletin a series of essays so delicate yet so strong as to suggest the French press rather than the American. These are now published in so beautiful a book as to astonish those "provincial" Easterners who imagine that no books are made except in New York, occasionally Boston, and that far fringe of Western civilization - Chicago. Here is a San Francisco book to amaze them, even on the outside. Inside is much to arrest the reader; thoughts penetrating, illuminating, uplifting; suggestions which do not antagonize or irritate, but leave a live idea, like the gift of a growing plant. The title is well chosen - "Intimation," - gentle in the extreme, yet perfectly defining the subject matter. - Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in The Forerunner.

Previous Page Home Up One Level Next Page