The excellence of his pencil drawings notwithstanding, it is in pen-and-ink that Frank Reynolds appears to me to be at his best.  There is a quality about his work in this medium which gives it a peculiar distinction.  Always instinct with the most subtle and delicate feeling, there are occasions when his expressive line does more than satisfy.  It arrests:  revealing in its simple transcription of pose or expression a significance which had previously escaped our shallow observation, but of which the truth is forced upon us.  By comparison, one feels that, despite the fine finish of his pencil work, in the latter medium he loses, to a certain extent, the opportunities for that incisive sureness—­so suited to his own unerring vision—­which pure line affords him.  Consider the drawing (on page 32) of the girl singing in a Paris cafe.  There is no dependence on aught extraneous for the achievement of the effect sought.  Yet here, if ever, a human soul is laid bare in all its naked tragedy.

[Illustration:  Working Paris at luncheon. From “Paris and some Parisians"]

For sheer power in the art of drawing, Frank Reynolds has few equals and no betters.  As a draughtsman pure and simple, he seems to me well-nigh perfect, whether he has pen, pencil, or stump of charcoal in his hand.  It is the great merit of his work, as it appears to me, that it depends for the achievement of its intention solely on its own intrinsic qualities.  It has no tricks, no mannerisms, no “fakements” to distract the attention and conceal weaknesses.  It is straightforward, direct in its appeal, self-reliant in its challenge.

[Illustration]

To quote the words of a critic of discernment, as he passed from drawing to drawing, “Frank Reynolds is right, right—­right every time.”  This is praise to which one can hardly add.

[Illustration:  The Dare-devils. From “Social Pests."]

FRANK REYNOLDS. II.

Frank Reynolds is yet another in the long list of artists who have arrived at their true vocation by devious routes.  There are certain tendencies of mind which, when a man has them, refuse to be suppressed.  The journalistic instinct is one of them.  Do what you will with the man in whom it is planted, he can never keep his fingers from the pen.  Make him a doctor and you will find him scribbling columns for the press on hygiene in the house and the benefits of breathing through the nose.  Send him into the army and he will fill his leisure by writing tales of tiger-shoots and essays on the art of pig-sticking.  So with the artist.  The man born with the gift to draw finds as irresistible a fascination in pencil or brush as the man with the power of narrative discovers in ink and paper.  Whether he serves before the mast as an A.B., or cattle-ranches out west, sooner or later he is certain to drift into his proper sphere of activity.  It may take long to get there, but eventually he is bound to arrive.