Arts: Black & White

The orchestra was playing "Tell Me, Pretty Maiden" from Florodora when Harry K. Thaw shot Stanford White. The architect, who had started to rise when he saw Mr. Thaw coming toward him, sank back into his chair with an expression of sudden weariness while a tide of slow vermilion spread like spilled wine across the bosom of his evening shirt. That was in June, 1906. Now Harry Thaw has written a book.*

The book itself is, as a criticism, unimportant. Mr. Thaw has attempted to illuminate the lack of morals of the late Mr. White rather than his professional achievements. But through the coils and crumples of the narrative, through a catacomb of names, dates, documents arranged with the precise disorder of total recall, shapes emerge like people seen for a minute through a lifting mist, and one has a glimpse of the diversions of one of the most brilliant and perhaps the most debauched of U. S. architects.

Until the night of the shooting there were very few people who thought that Stanford White was overfond of gaieties. His friends debated, instead, whether Stanford White or Charles F. McKim was the ablest member of the famous firm of McKim, Mead & White. Stanford White was a man widely respected, for his wit and position as much as for his unusual talents: he was a member of the best clubs in Manhattan, the husband of a charming woman. If you wanted a house built, and had money, you went to Stanford White.