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Bouton, John Bell

"Round the Block"

"
"I thought you would like it. And now, to drop the subject, I want you
three fellows to come up to my rooms, No. 121, third floor, Bartholomew
Buildings, Broadway--you remember--and see this great work of art, early
next week."
"Is it nearly finished?" asked Marcus.
"Yes--in my mind's eye. That is the main thing. The painting has not yet
been begun. It will be a very simple matter. The canvas will be about
four hundred feet long. One half of it will be a dead level of yellow
paint, for desert; and the rest, perpendicular stripes of green paint,
for jungle. A good artist, with a whitewash brush and two tubsful of
paint, ought to do up the whole panorama in two days. The heads and
tails of animated life, the two small lakes, and a few other objects of
interest, such as the sun, the moon, birds flying in the air, &c., could
be put in afterward by an artist of higher grade. And, by the way, now I
think of it, I may as well open with a sunrise off Cape Guardafui, and a
distant view of the Straits of Babel Mandel, give a passing glance at
the sources of the Nile, which lie in that undiscovered region, a brief
glimpse at the Mountains of the Moon, and wind up with a splendid sunset
in the Bight of Benin.


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