THE BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT

The illustrator has set his pictures against the John Godfrey Saxe version of the famous Indian legend. If you like Saxe, you'll like this. Nil nisi bonum and all that, but Saxe's jingling rhymes removed the pathos that balanced the humor and blunted the point of the original story. These illustrations reflect this approach. The blind men, the elephant and all the animals smile gaily throughout. The final disputations of the blind men are illustrated by the blandest, most smiling picture of them all. The pictures are very good. The objections here are that this compounds an artistic felony. To repeat — if you like Saxe you'll probably find this charming. If you don't like what Saxe did with the original — welcome to the club.