The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 92, July 1988 - April, 1989 Page: 102

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

godawful fountain pen and handwriting of yours. In fact, you've ruined
more title pages than any author alive. I put a bastard title in books for
people like you. Dammit, use it!"'
Dobie used it, and his finished inscription summarized the book's
publication history. "Originally Carl Hertzog of El Paso was to print
this book for E. DeGolyer of Dallas, who had engaged me to write
an introduction and then Tom Lea to illustrate. In the meantime
DeGolyer bought into Sloan Associates and wanted that publishing
house to bring out the book. Hertzog finally agreed, with the under-
standing that he design the printing and format."
His attention turned next to the Lea and Russell portfolios. As Dobie
simply signed first one and then the other, I casually volunteered my
opinion that Tom Lea created more powerful, compelling images than
Russell, as had Remington, who had further benefited from having
"been there." Dobie put down his pen, pushed back his chair, and said,
"Well, Charlie Russell was there, too. Come here to the living room and
let me show you."
It was time now for Art Appreciation io1.
For the next few minutes Dobie discoursed on several C. M. Russell
originals lining his living-room wall. (These may now be seen in the
Dobie Room on the fourth floor of the University's Academic Center.)
In particular he dwelt on an intensely dramatic watercolor entitled Lift
of the Fog, which depicts three emaciated cows protecting their calves
from encroaching wolves as the herd bull lumbers over frozen turf to
the rescue. Dobie saw Russell himself as a force of nature, whose artistic
genius was pristine, untainted by outside influences. Indeed, this atti-
tude was widely shared by many in Russell's generation and the genera-
tion that followed. Only now are scholars looking more critically and
making new assessments. (See, for example, Brian W. Dippie, Looking
at Russell. Fort Worth: Amon Carter Museum, 1987.)
Satisfied that he had done his part to educate me about Charlie Rus-
sell, Dobie led me back to the sunroom. He motioned me to sit while he
went rummaging in a closet. When he returned to his table he was
bearing a clutch of pamphlets-those that he and his wife sent to their
friends at Christmastime. One after the other he began inscribing them:
As the Moving Finger Writ, Storytellers I Have Known, A Schoolteacher in Al-
pine. These were pil6n. I thanked him and took my leave from one of
the most memorable encounters of my life. Six weeks later there ar-
rived in our rural mailbox an envelope bearing the Dobies' latest Christ-
mas pamphlet: Hunting Cousin Sally. There would be no more; he died
the next year.
Each of the books, pamphlets, and portfolios that Dobie inscribed for
me on that crisp, fall morning twenty-five years ago remains cherished
not just in my library, but in my heart and mind as well. In my copy of

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