Chapter III: The Fever of Neopalia (1)

I looked for a moment on the old man's pale, clean-cut, aristocratic face; then I shook his attendant vigorously by the arm. She awoke with a start.

"What does this mean?" I demanded. "Who is he?"

"Heaven help us, who are you?" she cried, leaping up in alarm. Indeed, we four, with our eager, fierce faces, may have looked disquieting enough.

"I am Lord Wheatley; these are my friends," I answered in brisk, sharp tones.

"What, it is you, then--?" A wondering gaze ended her question.

"Yes, yes, it is I. I have bought the island. We came out for a walk and--"

"But he will kill you, if he finds you here."

"He? Who?"

"Ah, pardon, my lord--they will kill you, they--the people--the men of the island."

I gazed at her sternly. She shrank back in confusion. And I spoke at a venture, yet in a well-grounded hazard:

"You mean that Constantine Stefanopoulos will kill me?"

"Ah, hush!" she cried. "He may be here! He may be anywhere!"

"He may thank his stars he's not here," said I grimly, for my blood was up. "Attend, woman! Who is this?"

"It is the lord of the island, my lord," she answered. "Alas, and he is wounded, I fear, to death. And yet I fell asleep. But I was so weary."

"Wounded--by whom?"

Her face suddenly became vacant and expressionless.

"I do not know, my lord. It happened in the crowd. It was a mistake. My dear lord had yielded what they asked. Yet some one--no, by heaven, my lord, I do not know whom--stabbed him! And he cannot live."

"Tell me the whole thing," I commanded.

"They came up here, my lord, all of them--Vlacho and all, and with them my Lord Constantine. And the Lady Euphrosyne was away; she is often away, down on the rocks by the sea, watching the waves. And they came and said that a man had landed who claimed our island as his--a man of your name, my lord. And when my dear lord said he had sold the island to save the honor of his house and race, they were furious, and Vlacho raised the death chant that One-eyed Alexander the Bard wrote on the death of Stefan Stefanopoulos long ago. And they came near with knives, demanding that my dear lord should send away the stranger; for the men of Neopalia were not to be bought and sold like bullocks or like pigs. At first my lord would not yield; and they swore they would kill the stranger and my lord also. Then they pressed closer. Vlacho was hard on him with drawn knife, and the Lord Constantine stood by him, praying him to yield, and Constantine drew his own knife, saying to Vlacho that he must fight him also before he killed the old lord. But at that Vlacho smiled--and then--and then--ah, my dear lord!"

For a moment her voice broke, and sobs supplanted words. But she drew herself up, and, after a glance at the old man, whom her vehement speech had not availed to waken, she went on:

"And then those behind cried out that there was enough talk. Would he yield or would he die? And they rushed forward, pressing the nearest against him. And he, an old man, frail and feeble--yet once he was as brave a man as any--cried, in his weak tones: 'Enough, friends, I yield; I--' And they fell back. But my lord stood for an instant; then he set his hand to his side, and swayed and tottered and fell, and the blood ran from his side. And the Lord Constantine fell on his knees beside him, crying: 'Who stabbed him?' And Vlacho smiled grimly, and the others looked at one another. And I, who had run out from the doorway whence I had seen it all, knelt by my lord and stanched the blood. Then Vlacho said, fixing his eyes straight and keen on the Lord Constantine, 'It was not I, my lord,' 'Nor I, by heaven!' cried the Lord Constantine; and he rose to his feet, demanding: 'Who struck the blow?' But none answered, and he went on: 'Nay, if it were in error, if it were because he would not yield, speak! There shall be pardon,' But Vlacho, hearing this, turned himself round and faced them all, saying: 'Did he not sell us like oxen and like pigs?' and he broke into the death chant, and they all raised the chant, none caring any more who had struck the blow. And Lord Constantine--" The impetuous flow of the old woman's story was frozen to sudden silence.

"Well, and Lord Constantine?" said I, in low, stern tones, that quivered with excitement; and I felt Denny's hand, that was on my arm, jump up and down. "And Constantine, woman?"

"Nay, he did nothing," said she. "He talked with Vlacho a while, and then they went away, and he bade me tend my lord, and went himself to seek the Lady Euphrosyne. And presently he came back with her. Her eyes were red, and she wept afresh when she saw my poor lord, for she loved him. And she sat by him till Constantine came and told her that you would not go, and that you and your friends would be killed if you did not go. And then, weeping to leave my lord, she went, praying heaven she might find him alive when she returned. 'I must go,' she said to me; 'for though it is a shameful thing that the island should have been sold, yet these men must be persuaded to go away and not meet death. Kiss him for me if he awakes.' Thus she went, and left me with my lord, and I fear he will die." And she ended in a burst of sobbing.

For a moment there was silence. Then I said again:

"Who struck the blow, woman? Who struck the blow?"

She shrank from me as though I had struck her. "I do not know, I do not know," she moaned.

Then a thing happened that seemed strange and awful in the gloomy, dark hall. For the stricken man opened his eyes, his lips moved, and he groaned: "Constantine! You, Constantine!" and the old woman's eyes met mine for a moment, and fell to the ground again.

"Why--why, Constantine?" moaned the wounded man. "I had yielded--I had yielded, Constantine. I would have sent them--" His words ceased, his eyes closed, his lips met again, but met only to part. A moment later his jaw dropped. The old lord of Neopalia was dead.

Then I, carried away by anger and by hatred of the man who, for a reason I did not yet understand, had struck so foul a blow against his kinsman and an old man, did a thing so rash that it seems to me now, when I consider it in the cold light of the past, a mad deed. Yet then I could do nothing else; and Denny's face, aye, and the eyes of the others, too, told me that they were with me.

"Compose this old man's body," I said, "and we will watch it. And do you go and tell this Constantine Stefanopoulos that I know his crime, that I know who struck that blow, and that what I know all men shall know, and that I will not rest day nor night until he has paid the penalty of this murder. And tell him I swore this on the honor of an English gentleman."

"And say I swore it, too!" cried Denny; and Hogvardt and Watkins, not making bold to speak, ranged up close to me; and I knew that they also meant what I meant.

The old woman looked at me with searching eyes.

"You are a bold man, my lord," said she.

"I see nothing to be afraid of up to now," said I. "Such courage as is needed to tell a scoundrel what I think of him, I believe I can claim."

"But he will never let you go now. You would go to Rhodes, and tell his--tell what you say of him."

"Yes, and farther than Rhodes, if need be. He shall die for it as sure as I live."

A thousand men might have tried in vain to persuade me; the treachery of Constantine had fired my heart and driven out all opposing motives.

"Do as I bid you," said I, sternly, "and waste no time on it. We will watch here by the old man till you return."

"My lord," she replied, "you run on your own death. And you are young, and the young man by you is yet younger."

"We are not dead yet," said Denny; and I had never seen him look as he did then; for the gayety was out of his face, and he spoke from between stern-set lips.

She raised her hands toward heaven--whether in prayer or in lamentation, I do not know. We turned away and left her to her sad offices, and going back to our places, waited there till dawn began to break, and from the narrow windows we saw the gray crests of the waves dancing and frolicking in the early dawn. As I watched them the old woman was by my elbow.

"It is done, my lord," said she. "Are you still of the same mind?"

"Still of the same," said I.

"It is death--death for you all," she said; and without more she went to the great door. Hogvardt opened it for her, and she walked away down the road, between the high rocks that bounded the path on either side. Then we went and carried the old man to a room that opened off the hall, and, returning, stood in the doorway, cooling our brows in the fresh, early air. And while we stood, Hogvardt said suddenly:

"It is five o'clock."

"Then we have only an hour to live," said I, smiling, "if we do not make for the yacht."

"You're not going back to the yacht, my lord?"

"I'm puzzled," I admitted. "If we go this ruffian will escape. And if we don't go--"

"Why, we," Hogvardt ended for me, "may not escape."

I saw that Hogvardt's sense of responsibility was heavy; he always regarded himself as the shepherd, his employers as the sheep. I believe this attitude of his confirmed my destiny, for I said, without hesitation:

"Oh, we'll chance that. When they know what a villain the fellow is, they'll turn against him. Besides, we said we'd wait here."

Denny seized on my last words with alacrity. When you are determined to do a rash thing, there is great comfort in feeling that you are already committed to it by some previous act or promise.

"So we did," he cried. "Then that settles it, Hogvardt."

"His lordship certainly expressed that intention," observed Watkins, appearing at this moment with a large loaf of bread and a great pitcher of milk. I eyed these viands.

"I bought the house and its contents," said I. "Come along."

Watkins's further researches produced a large chunk of native cheese; and when he had set this down, he remarked:

"In a pen behind the house, close to the kitchen windows, there are two goats; and your lordship sees there, on the right of the front door, two cows tethered."

I began to laugh, Watkins was so wise and solemn.

"We can stand a siege, you mean?" I asked. "Well, I hope it won't come to that."

Hogvardt rose, and began to move round the hall, examining the weapons that decorated the walls. From time to time he grunted disapprovingly; the guns were useless, rusted, out of date, and there was no ammunition for them. But when he had almost completed his circuit, he gave an exclamation of satisfaction, and came to me, holding an excellent modern rifle and a large cartridge case.

"See!" he grunted, in huge satisfaction. "C.S. on the stock, I suspect you can guess whose it is, my lord."

"This is very thoughtful of Constantine," observed Denny, who was employing himself in cutting imaginary lemons in two with a fine damascened scimiter that he had taken from the wall.

"As for the cows," said I, "perhaps they will carry them off."

"I think not," said Hogvardt, taking an aim with the rifle through the window.

I looked at my watch. It was five minutes past six.

"Well, we can't go now," said I. "It's settled. What a comfort!" I wonder if I had ever in my heart meant to go!

The next hour passed very quietly. We sat smoking pipes and cigars, and talking in subdued tones. The recollection of the dead man in the adjoining room sobered the excitement to which our position would otherwise have given occasion. Indeed, I suppose that I, at least, who had led the rest into this _imbroglio_ through my whim, should have been utterly overwhelmed by the burden on me. But I was not. Perhaps Hogvardt's assumption of responsibility relieved me; perhaps I was too full of anger against Constantine to think of the risks we ourselves ran; and I was more than half persuaded that the revelation of what he had done would rob him of his power to hurt us. Moreover, if I might judge from the words I heard on the road, we had on our side an ally of uncertain, but probably considerable, power, in the sweet-voiced girl whom the old woman called the Lady Euphrosyne; and she would not support her uncle's murderer even though he were her cousin.

Presently Watkins carried me off to view his pen of goats, and, having passed through the lofty, flagged kitchen, I found myself in a sort of compound formed by the rocks. The ground had been levelled for a few yards, and the cliffs rose straight to the height of ten or twelve feet; from the top of this artificial bank they ran again, in wooded slopes, toward the peak of the mountain. I followed their course with my eye, and five hundred or more feet above us, just beneath the summit, I perceived a little wooden _chalet_ or bungalow. Blue smoke issued from the chimneys, and, even while we looked, a figure came out of the door and stood still in front of it, apparently looking down toward the house.

"It's a woman," I pronounced.

"Yes, my lord. A peasant's wife, I suppose."

"I dare say," said I. But I soon doubted Watkins's opinion--in the first place, because the woman's dress did not look like that of a peasant woman; and, secondly, because she went into the house, appeared again, and levelled at us what was, if I mistook not, a large pair of binocular glasses. Now, such things were not likely to be in the possession of the peasants of Neopalia. Then she suddenly retreated, and through the silence of those still slopes we heard the door of the cottage closed with violence.

"She doesn't seem to like the look of us," said I.

"Possibly," suggested Watkins, with deference, "she did not expect to see your lordship here."

"I should think that's very likely, Watkins," said I.

I was recalled from the survey of my new domains--my satisfaction in the thought that they were mine survived all the disturbing features of the situation--by a call from Denny. In response to it I hurried back to the hall, and found him at the window, with Constantine's rifle rested on the sill.

"I could pick him off pat," said Denny, laughingly, and he pointed to a figure which was approaching the house. It was a man riding a stout pony. When he came within about two hundred yards of the house he stopped, took a leisurely look, and then waved a white handkerchief.

"The laws of war must be observed," said I, smiling. "This is a flag of truce." And I opened the door, stepped out, and waved my handkerchief in return. The man, reassured, began to mop his brow with the flag of truce, and put his pony to a trot. I now perceived him to be the innkeeper Vlacho, and a moment later he reined up beside me, giving an angry jerk at his pony's bridle.

"I have searched the island for you," he cried. "I am weary and hot. How came you here?"

I explained to him briefly how I had chanced to take possession of my house, and added, significantly:

"But has no message come to you from me?"

He smiled with equal meaning as he answered:

"No. An old woman came to speak to a gentleman who is in the village."

"Yes, to Constantine Stefanopoulos," said I with a nod.

"Well, then, if you will, to the Lord Constantine," he admitted, with a careless shrug; "but her message was for his ear only. He took her aside, and they talked alone."

"You know what she said, though."

"That is between my Lord Constantine and me."

"And the young lady knows it, I hope--the Lady Euphrosyne?"

Vlacho smiled broadly.

"We could not distress her with such a silly tale," he answered; and he leant down toward me. "Nobody has heard the message but the lord and one man he told it to; and nobody will. If that old woman spoke, she--well, she knows, and will not speak."

"And you back up this murderer?" I cried.

"Murderer?" he repeated, questioningly. "Indeed, sir, it was an accident, done in hot blood. It was the old man's fault, because he tried to sell the island."

"He did sell the island," I corrected. "And a good many other people will hear of what happened to him."

He looked at me again, smiling.

"If you shouted in the hearing of every man in Neopalia, what would they do?" he asked, scornfully.

"Well, I should hope," I returned, "that they'd hang Constantine to the tallest tree you've got here."

"They would do this," he said, with a nod; and he began to sing softly the chant I had heard the night before.

I was disgusted at his savagery, but I said coolly:

"And the lady?"

"The lady believes what she is told, and will do as her cousin bids her. Is she not his affianced wife?"

"The deuce she is!" I cried in amazement, fixing a keen scrutiny on Vlacho's face. The face told me nothing.

"Certainly," he said, gently. "And they will rule the island together."

"Will they, though?" said I. I was becoming rather annoyed. "There are one or two obstacles in the way of that. First, it's my island."

He shrugged his shoulders again. "That," he seemed to say, "is not worth answering." But I had a second shot in the locker for him, and I let him have it for what it was worth. I knew it might be worth nothing, but I tried it.

"And secondly," I observed, "how many wives does Constantine propose to have?"

A hit! A hit! A palpable hit! I could have sung in glee. The fellow was dumb-founded. He turned red, bit his lip, scowled fiercely.

"What do you mean?" he blurted out, with an attempt at blustering defiance.

"Never mind what I mean. Something, perhaps, that the Lady Euphrosyne might care to know. And now, my man, what do you want of me?"

He recovered his composure, and stated his errand with his old, cool assurance; but the cloud of vexation still hung heavy on his brow.

"On behalf of the lady of the island--" he began.

"Or shall we say her cousin?" I interrupted.

"Which you will," he answered, as though it were not worth while to wear the mask any longer. "On behalf, then, of my Lord Constantine, I am to offer you safe passage to your boat, and a return of the money you have paid."

"How's he going to pay that?"

"He will pay it in a year, and give you security meanwhile."

"And the condition is that I give up the island?" I asked; and I began to think that perhaps I owed it to my companions to acquiesce in this proposal, however distasteful it might be to me.

"Yes," said Vlacho; "and there is one other small condition, which will not trouble you."

"And what's that? You're rich in conditions."

"You are lucky to be offered any. It is that you mind your own business."

"I came here for the purpose," I observed.

"And that you undertake, for yourself and your companions, on your word of honor, to speak not a word of what has passed in the island, or of the affairs of the Lord Constantine."

"And if I won't give my word?"

"The yacht is in our hands; Demetri and Spiro are our men; there will be no ship here for two months."

The fellow paused, smiling at me. I took the liberty of ending his period for him.

"And there is," I said, returning the smile, "as we know by now, a particularly sudden and fatal form of fever in the island."

"Certainly; you may chance to find that out," said he.

"But is there no antidote?" I asked; and I showed him the butt of my revolver in the pocket of my coat.

"It may keep it off for a day or two; not longer. You have the bottle there, but most of the drug is with your baggage at the inn."

His parable was true enough; we had only two or three dozen cartridges apiece.

"But there is plenty of food for Constantine's rifle," said I, pointing to the muzzle of it, which protruded from the window.

He suddenly became impatient.

"Your answer, sir?" he demanded, peremptorily.

"Here it is," said I. "I'll keep the island, and I'll see Constantine hanged."

"So be it, so be it!" he cried. "You are warned; so be it!" and without another word he turned his pony and trotted rapidly off down the road. And I went back to the house, feeling, I must confess, not in the best of spirits. But when my friends heard all that had passed, they applauded me, and we made up our minds to "see it through," as Denny said.

That day passed quietly. At noon we carried the old lord out of his house, having wrapped him in a sheet, and we dug for him as good a grave as we could, in a little patch of ground that lay outside the windows of his own chapel, a small erection at the west end of the house. There he must lie for the moment. This sad work done, we came back, and--so swift are life's changes--we killed a goat for dinner, and watched Watkins dress it. Thus the afternoon wore away, and when evening came we ate our goat flesh, and Hogvardt milked our cows, and we sat down to consider the position of the garrison.

But the evening was hot, and we adjourned out of doors, grouping ourselves on the broad marble pavement in front of the door. Hogvardt had just begun to expound a very elaborate scheme of escape, depending, so far as I could make out, on our reaching the other side of the island, and finding there a boat, which we had no reason to suppose would be there, when Denny raised his hand, saying, "Hark!"

From the direction of the village and the harbor came the sound of a horn, blown long and shrill, and echoed back in strange, protracted shrieks and groans from the hillside behind us; and following on the blast, we heard, low in the distance and indistinct, yet rising and falling, and rising again in savage defiance and exultation, the death chant that One-eyed Alexander the Bard had made on the death of Stefan Stefanopoulos two hundred years ago. For a few minutes we sat listening, and I do not think that any of us were very comfortable. Then I rose to my feet, and I said:

"Hogvardt, old fellow, I fancy that scheme of yours must wait a little. Unless I'm very much mistaken, we're going to have a lively evening."

Well, and then we shook hands all round, and went in, and bolted the door, and sat down to wait. We heard the death chant through the walls now, for it was coming nearer.

(_To be continued._)

In the galleries of the Luxembourg, Paris. First exhibited at the Salon of 1888.]

A CENTURY OF PAINTING.

NOTES DESCRIPTIVE AND CRITICAL.--COROT AND THE MODERN PASTORAL.--THE MEN OF 1830.--ROUSSEAU, DIAZ, DUPRÉ, AND DAUBIGNY.--FOUR FIGURE PAINTERS OF DIFFERING AIMS.

BY WILL H. LOW.

"Pictures?" boasted Turner. "Give me canvas, colors, a room to work in, _with a door that will lock_, and it is not difficult to paint pictures!" This was the spirit of the older men, against which Constable rose in his might. It was the legacy of the past; the principle, or the lack of it, which permitted Titian (in a picture now in the National Gallery, London) to paint the shadows of his figures falling away from the spectator into the picture, and _towards_ the setting sun in the background. The return to nature, however, was not accomplished at once. It is doubtful, indeed, if a painter can ever arrive at a respectable technical achievement without imbibing certain conventions which prevent complete submission to nature; absolute _naïveté_ thus becoming only theoretically possible. Constable, with all his independence, dared not throw over all received canons of art. And Géricault, while daring to paint a modern theme, daring still more to embody it in forms plausibly like average humanity, and refusing to place on a raft in mid-ocean a carefully chosen assortment of antique statues, still did not think, apparently, that the heavily marked shadows prevalent throughout his picture were never seen under the far-reaching arch of the sky, but fell from a studio window. Nor do the early pictures by Corot free themselves from the influences of the academy at once. In the studies which he bequeathed to the Louvre--two tiny canvases on which are depicted the Coliseum and the Castle of St. Angelo at Rome--the conventional picking out of detail, the painting of separate objects by themselves, without due relation to each other, is the effect of early study; and it is only in the as yet timid reaching for effect of light and atmosphere that we feel the Corot of the future. These studies were painted in 1826; and as late as 1835 the same influences are manifest in the "Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert," a historical landscape of the kind dear to the academies, but saved and made of interest by the native qualities of the painter struggling to the surface.

Jean Baptiste Camille Corot was born in Paris, July 28, 1796. His father was originally a barber; but, marrying a dressmaker, he joined forces with his wife to such effect that they became the fashionable house of their time; and a "dress from Corot's" found its place in the comedies of the early part of the century, very much as the name of Worth has been potent in later days. The youth's distaste for business (certain unfortunate experiences in selling olive-colored cloth leading directly thereto) at length vanquished the parents' opposition to his choice of a career; and after a solemn family conclave, it was decided that he was to have an allowance of three hundred dollars a year, and be free to follow his own inclinations. Procuring materials for work, Corot sat him down the same day on the bank of the Seine, almost under the windows of his father's shop, and began to paint. It is prettily related that one of the shop-women, Mademoiselle Rose by name, was the only person of his _entourage_ who sympathized with the young fellow, and who came to look at his work to encourage him. Late in life the good Corot said: "Look at my first study; the colors are still bright, the hour and day remain fixed on the canvas; and only the other day Mademoiselle Rose came to see me; and, alas, the old maid and the old man, how faded they are!"

This portrait represents "good Papa Corot," as he was universally known, at work out of doors.]

It was Corot's good fortune to meet at the start a young landscape painter, Michallon, who had lately returned from Rome, where he had gone after winning the prize for historical landscape, which then formed part of the curriculum of the École des Beaux Arts. Michallon died in 1824, when only twenty-eight years old, too soon to have shown the fruits of an independent spirit which had already revolted against the trammels of the school. Desiring to save Corot from the mistakes which he had himself made, he adjured him to remain _naïf_, to paint nature as he saw it, and to disregard the counsels of those who were for the moment in authority. Gentle, almost timid by nature, having met so far in life with little but disapproval, Corot disregarded his friend's advice at first, and placed himself under the guidance of Victor Bertin, a painter then in vogue, and, needless to say, deeply imbued with scholastic tradition. In his company Corot made his first voyage to Italy, in 1825, and thus came for the first time under the true classic influence. The lessons taught in the school of nature, where Claude had studied, were those best fitted for the temperament of Corot, who has been called "a child of the eighteenth century, grown in the midst of that imitation of antiquity so ardent, and so often unintelligent, where the Directory copied Athens, and the Empire forced itself to imitate Rome." It is a curious and interesting fact that when, as in this case, the spirit of classicism reveals itself anew, its never-dying influence can be the motive for work as fresh and modern as that of Corot. It is also true that the rigid enforcement of the study of drawing was a healthy influence on Corot's early life. All the pictures of his early period show the most minute attention to form and modelling; and when he had finally rid himself of the hard manner which it entailed, there remained the substratum of a constructive basis upon which his freer brush played at will.

One of Corot's later works, and treated with greater freedom than the earlier.]

Many years, however, Corot was to wait before the memorable day when he bewailed that his complete collection of works had been spoiled, he having sold a picture. Living on his modest income, which his father doubled when, in 1846, the son was given the cross of the Legion of Honor, he was happy with his two loves, nature and painting. Little by little he gained a reputation among the artists, especially when, after 1835, on his return from a second voyage to Italy, he found that the true country of the artist is his native country. After that period his works are nearly all French in subject, many of them painted in the environs of Paris; though, with his Theocritan spirit, he could see the fountain of Jouvence in the woods of Sèvres, and for him the classic nymph dwelt by the pond at Ville d'Avray. His life was long--he died February 22, 1875--and completely filled with his work.

After Corot's death, there was exhibited at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris a collection of several hundred of his pictures, and then, perhaps for the first time, the genius of the man was profoundly felt. To those who were inclined to undervalue the pure, sweet spirit which shone through his work, and to complain of the representation of a world in which no breeze stronger than a zephyr blew, in which the birds always sang, and the shepherd piped to a flock unconscious of the existence of wolves, there were shown efforts in so many and various directions as to forever silence their reproach of monotony, so often directed against Corot's work. There were landscapes, showing the gradual emancipation, due to the most sincere study of nature, hard and precise, in the early period; vaporous and filled with suggestion, as the sentiment of the day and hour represented became important to the painter, and his technical mastery became more certain in later years. There were figures, none too well drawn from the point of view of David or Ingres, but serving, to a painter whose interest in atmospheric problems never ceased, as objects around which the luminous light of day played, and which were bathed in circumambient air.

From a painting now in the Louvre. One of the best known of the works of the master, executed during the transitional period, when he still gave great attention to detail. The original is remarkable for its sense of dewy freshness.]

From a painting in the Museum at Bordeaux.]

With all this variety, however, the true value of Corot's work lies in the expression of the spirit of the man himself. It is often possible, and it is always theoretically desirable, to separate the personality of a painter from his production in any critical consideration of his achievement. It is at least only fair to believe that the light which shines from so many canvases is the true expression of many a life which is clouded to our superficial view. With Corot, however, it is impossible to make this separation. Every added detail of his life--and they are so numerous that in the difficulty of a choice they must remain unrecorded here--gives a new perception of his work. A youthful Virgilian spirit to the day of his death, as old at his birth as the classic source from which he sprang, he invented a method essentially his own, in which to express his new-old message. In our work-a-day, materialistic age, like a thrush singing in a boiler-shop, he is the quiet but triumphant vindication of the truth that all great art has its roots firmly implanted in the earth of Hellenic civilization, though its expression may be, as in Corot's case, through an art unknown to the Greeks, and even, as in the case of the one greater man of this century than Corot--Millet--by the presentation of types which the beauty-loving sons of Hellas disdained to represent.

Millet's work must be considered later in these papers, but it is useful here to make this passing comment, that with Corot he represents what is best in our modern art; that the greatest quality of our modern art is its steadfast reliance on nature; and that, paradoxical as it may seem, they are alike in taking only that from nature which is serviceable to the clarity of their expression, being in this both at odds with the common practice of modern painting, which usually adopts a more servile attitude towards nature. Corot painted out of doors constantly; but in the maturity of his art his work was only based upon the scene before him, a practice dangerous to the student, and fraught with difficulty to the master. In the fever of production; in the almost childish joy which the long neglected painter felt when dealers and collectors besieged his door; and, finally, in the necessity which arose for large sums of money to carry on works of charity, which were his only dissipation, and which it was his pride to sustain without impairing the patrimony which in the course of time he had inherited, and which he left intact to his relatives, Corot undoubtedly weakened his legacy to the future by over-production. In addition, his work became the prey of unscrupulous dealers (as there is nothing easier to imitate superficially than a Corot), and the mediocre pictures signed by his name are not always of his workmanship. Such works apart, his art has given us a message from the purest source of poetry and painting, couched in a language which is thoroughly of our time; and in this year, which is the centenary of his birth, it can be said that no other painter of the century, save the graver Millet, has held fast that which was good in the art of the past, and so enriched it by added truth and beauty as Corot. It was fitting that when he lay dying as cheerfully as he had lived, contented that he had "had good parents and good friends," beautiful landscapes flitted before his eyes, "more beautiful than painting." On the morning of February 22, 1875, his servant urged him to eat to sustain his strength; but he gently shook his head, saying: "Papa Corot will breakfast in heaven to-day."

Eighteen years before, on December 22, 1867, there had died at Barbizon, Théodore Rousseau, who, born in Paris, July 15, 1812, had been the leader of the revolution in landscape painting, in which we to-day count Corot, Daubigny, Dupré, Troyon, Diaz, Jacque, and others who, with our mania for classification, we call the "Barbizon school." The fact that these men, more than any painters before their time, had, by direct study from nature, developed strongly individual characteristics, makes this title, localized as it is by the name of a village with which a number of them had slight, if any, connection, a misnomer. The French name for the group, "the men of 1830," is more correct; for it was about that time that their influence in the Salon began to be felt, as a result of the pictorial invasion of Constable. Lacking the poetic feeling of Corot, and more realistic in his aims, though not always in result, Rousseau met with instant success when he exhibited for the first time at the Salon in 1834. His picture, "Felled Trees, Forest of Compiègne," received a medal, and was purchased by the Due d'Orleans. The following year the jury, presided over by Watelet, a justly forgotten painter, refused Rousseau's pictures, and from that time until 1849, when the overthrow of Louis Philippe had opened the Salon doors to all comers, no picture by Rousseau was exhibited at the Salon.

A typical French river, with the familiar figures of peasant women washing linen in the stream. Probably painted during one of the voyages of his house-boat studio "Le Bottin," in which the painter passed many summers.]

This powerful picture gives an idea of the dramatic force of one who has been fitly termed a symphonic painter.]

A remarkable rendering of intricate detail without sacrifice of general effect, this picture, nevertheless, gives somewhat the impression of a photograph from nature.]

In the meantime, however, Rousseau's fame had grown, fostered by the more advanced critics of the time. He lived at Barbizon, on the border of the forest of Fontainebleau; and, basing his work on the most uncompromising study of nature, his pictures bore an impress of simple truth, which to our latter-day vision seems so obvious and easily understood that nothing could show more clearly the depth of error into which his opponents had fallen than the systematic rejection of his work for so many years. He was by nature a leader, and in his country home he was soon joined by Millet and Charles Jacque, while in Paris he had the hearty support of Delacroix and his followers of the Romantic school. While forced by circumstances to find allies in these men, Rousseau had, however, but little of the imaginative temperament. He was, above all, the close student of natural phenomena. He sat, an impartial recorder of the phases of nature's triumphal procession. Early and late, in the fields, among the rocks, or under the trees of the forest, his cunning hand noted an innumerable variety of facts which before him, through ignorance or disdain, the landscape painter had never seen. It is but fair to say that, like all pioneers in the untrodden fields of art, his means of expression at times failed to keep pace with his intention. His work is occasionally overburdened with detail, through the embarrassment of riches which nature poured at his feet. Then, heir to the processes of painting of former generations, it seemed to him necessary to endow nature with a warmth of coloring, an abuse of the richer tones of the palette, which we may presume he would have discarded but for the fact already noted, that a painter carries through his earthly pilgrimage a baggage of early-formed habits difficult to throw off _en route_. The belief that color to be beautiful must of necessity be warm, rich, and deep in tone was shared by all painters of Rousseau's time, and lingers still in the minds of many, despite the fact that nature has created the tea-rose as well as the orange. When, however, Rousseau was completely successful--as, for instance, in the "Hoar-frost," in the Walters gallery in Baltimore--the reward of his painstaking methods was measurably great. In such works as this the rendition of effect, the certainty of modelling, the sustained power throughout the work, lift it beyond mere transcription of fact into the realm of typical creations which appear more true than average reality.

A typical example of the master, solidly painted, though, as was often his habit, somewhat forced in effect.]

Of the life of Rousseau as the head of the little colony of painters who for longer or shorter periods resided at Barbizon, much could be said if space permitted. It is pleasant to think that the more prosperous Rousseau helped with purse and influence his comrades, and that, by nature sad and irritable, he was always considerate of them in the many discussions which took place. Corot, ill at ease in the revolutionary atmosphere, made an occasional appearance. Diaz, he of meridional extraction, turbulent and emphatic, stamped his wooden leg, and was as illogical in debate as in painting. Charles Jacque, with the keen smile and the facility for absorbing ideas from the best of them; Ziem even, who painted Venice for some years in the shades of Fontainebleau; Dupré, whose nature expresses itself in deep sunsets gleaming through the oaks of the forest; Daubigny, the youngest of the group, and the more immediate forerunner of landscape as it is to-day, then winning his first success; Decamps, who later sometimes left the Imperial Court, domiciled for the moment at the palace of Fontainebleau, and brought his personality of a great painter who failed through lack of elementary instruction, among them; Daumier, the great caricaturist, and possibly greater painter, but for the engrossing character of the work which first fell in his way--all these and more made up the constantly shifting group. The first innkeeper of the place and his wife, whose hyphenated name, Luniot-Ganne, commemorated their union, kept for many years on the walls, the panels of the doors, and on odd cabinets and bits of furniture, _souvenirs_ of the passage of all these men, in the shape of sketches made by their hands. This little museum, created in sportive mood, bore all these names and many more, those of men, often celebrated, who from sympathy or curiosity visited the place. Millet was in life, as in art, somewhat apart in the later years; but he was the consistent friend of Rousseau, whose life closed in the darkness of a disordered mind.

From the original, in the Louvre.]

Narcisco Virgilio Diaz de la Peña was the noble name of him who, born at Bordeaux in 1807, the son of a Spanish refugee, died at Mentone, November 18, 1876. Left an orphan when very young, he drifted to Paris, and found work, painting on china, in the manufactory at Sèvres. Here he met Dupré, employed like himself; and in their work in other fields it is not fanciful to feel the influence of the delight in rich translucent color, of the tones employed with over-emphasis on the surface of _faïence_. After a bitter acquaintance with poverty, Diaz produced work which brought him great popularity. The earlier pictures were studies in the forest of Fontainebleau, whose venerable tree-trunks, moss-grown; whose lichen-covered rocks, and gleaming pools reflecting the sky, he rendered with force of color and strength of effect. Gradually he began to attempt the figure, which in his hands never attained a higher plane than an assemblage of charming though artificial color; and these little _bouquets_, which superficially imitated Correggio, Da Vinci, or Prud'hon, as the fancy seized the painter, bathed in a color that is undeniably agreeable, were and are to this day loved by the collector. Of a whimsical temperament, Diaz was the life of artist gatherings; and his facility in work, and its popularity, gave him the means of doing many generous acts, the memory of which lives. But of the group of men of his time, he has exercised, perhaps, the least influence.

One of Courbet's early pictures, which, when exhibited at the Salon, excited considerable discussion, certain adverse critics finding in it an appeal to the socialistic elements. It represents a scene common in France, where stones are piled by the roadsides, to be broken up for repairing the route.]

Jules Dupré rises to a higher plane. But his work, freed from the colder academical bondage, is pitched in a key of color which takes us to a world where the sun shines through smoke; where the clouds float heavily, filled with inky vapors; and the light shoots from behind the trees explosively. It is a grave, rhythmic world, however; and if it lacks the dewy atmosphere of Corot, it has an intensity which the more sanely balanced painter seldom reached. Dupré, born at Nantes in 1812, and dying near Paris, at the village of L'Isle-Adam, in 1889, made his first important exhibit at the Salon in 1835, after a visit to England, where he met Constable. This picture, "Environs of Southampton," was typical of the work he was to do. A long waste of land near the sea, the middle distance in deepest shadow, and richly colored storm-clouds racing overhead; the foreground in sunlight, enhanced by the artificial contrast of the rest of the picture; a wooden dyke on which, together with two white horses near by, the gleam of sunlight falls almost with a sound, so intensified is all the effect, make up the picture. Dupré's work is generally keyed up to the highest possible pitch, and it is no little merit that, with the constant insistence on this note, it is seldom or never theatrical.

Constant Troyon, from sympathy of aim, is commonly included in this group, although it was gradually, and after success achieved in landscape, that his more powerful cattle pictures were produced, which alone entitle him to the place. Born at Sèvres in 1810, where his father was employed at the manufactory of porcelain, he was thrown in contact with Dupré and Diaz. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1832, and for nearly twenty years was known as a landscape painter. His work at that time was eclectic, sufficiently in touch with Rousseau, whose acquaintance he had made, to be of interest, but never revolutionary enough to alarm the academical juries of the Salon. In 1849, after a visit to Holland, he turned his attention to animal painting, and became in that field the first of his time. In common with his quondam comrades in the porcelain manufactory, Troyon delighted in warmth and richness of tone and color; but in the rendering of the texture and color of cattle the quality availed him greatly, and as objects in his foreground the landscape environment gained in depth by its judicious use. Troyon will be chiefly remembered by the pictures painted from 1846 to 1858. The later years of his life, until his death in 1865, were passed with a clouded intellect.

From the Salon of 1870; now in the Luxembourg. The story of the man who went down to Jericho and fell among thieves is here treated as a pretext for a forcible effect of light and shade, though it is also a novel and dramatic presentation of the scene.]

The youngest of the group proper was Charles François Daubigny, who was born in Paris in 1817, and died there in 1878. He was the son of a well-known miniature painter, and passed his youth in the country, where he imbibed the love for simple nature which he afterwards rendered with less of fervor than Rousseau, with less poetry than either Corot or Dupré; but, in his way, with as much or more of truth. His task was easier. In the progress which landscape painting had made, there were hosts of younger painters, each adding a particle of truth, each making an advance in technical skill and daring, and Daubigny profited by it all. Corot, it is true, had never been afflicted with the preoccupation of combining the freshness of nature with the _patine_ with which ages had embrowned the old gallery pictures; but Daubigny, looking at nature with a more literal eye than Corot, ran a gamut of color greater than he. It was Daubigny who said of Corot, in envious admiration: "He puts nothing on the canvas, and everything is there." His own more prosaic nature took delight in enregistering a greater number of facts. Floating quietly down the rivers of France in a house-boat, he diligently reproduced the sedgy banks, the low-lying distances the poplars and clumps of trees lining the shore, and reflected in the waters. He painted the "Springtime," now in the Louvre, with lush grass growing thick around the apple trees in blossom; with tender greens, soft, fleecy clouds, and the moist, humid atmosphere of France; without preoccupation of rich color, of "brown sauce," of "low tone," of the thousand and one conventions which have enfeebled the work of men stronger than he. Thus he fills a middle place between the men who made an honest effort at painting nature as they saw and felt it, but could not altogether rid themselves of their early education, and the lawless band who, with the purple banner of impressionism, now riot joyously in the fields, with brave show of gleaming color, and fearless attempt to enlist science in their ranks.

From the Salon of 1863; now in the Luxembourg galleries. A quiet scene, essentially French from the type of the woman to the "fountain" of red copper so often seen in French kitchens, it recalls the work of the old Holland masters, and proves that, in our day, and with material near at hand, one can be thoroughly modern, and yet claim kinship with the great painters of the past.]

It is to these latter that the future must look, and it can do so with confidence. In all the license which runs ahead of progress there is less danger than resides in stagnation. The men of 1830, who by ungrateful youths are now derided, had their turn at derision, and extravagances were committed in their name, according to the beliefs of their time. They carried their work, however, to its full completion, and it remains the greatest achievement of this century in painting, the greatest in landscape art of all time. What the next century may bring is undoubtedly foreshadowed in the work of impressionistic tendency. It has the merit of being a new direction, one as yet hardly opened before us, but more hopeful, despite certain excesses, than it would be to see the men of our time settle down to an imitation of the works, however great, of those men of 1830. The immediate effect of their example was and can still be seen in the works of men too numerous to be enregistered here.

In the Luxembourg catalogue, to which museum the picture came from the Salon of 1850, is printed a long quotation from Lamennais's "Les Paroles d'un Croyant" (The Words of a Believer), an emphatic work, of great popularity about the time that the picture was painted. The women represented, having fallen into poverty, are suffering from cold and hunger, the obvious end of the tragedy being explained by these words, "Shortly after there were seen two forms, luminous like souls, which took their flight towards Heaven." The picture, like much of Tassaert's work, affords an instance of misguided and morbid talent.]

In Henri Harpignies, a living painter, though now aged, the influence is felt in the careful attention to form throughout the landscape. The delicate branching of trees is depicted in his work with accuracy tempered by a sense of the beauty of line, which prevents it from becoming photographic. Léon Germain Pelouse, who was born at Pierrelay in 1838, and died in Paris, 1891, carried somewhat the same qualities to excess. His pictures, though undeniably excellent, are marred by the dangerous facility which degenerates into mere virtuosity. Charles Jacque, who was born in 1813, and lived until 1894, was of the original group living for many years in Barbizon. He was, perhaps, of less original mind than any of the others, but was gifted with a power of assimilation which enabled him to form an eclectic style that is now recognized as his own. His pictures are many in number and varied in character, though his somewhat stereotyped pictures of sheep, done in the later years of his life, are best known.