e of early times, and that the artist has a larger and more poetic
task than that of suggesting certain prudential and conciliatory
measures for the purpose of diminishing the fright caused by his
pictures. His aim should be to render attractive the objects he has at
heart, and, if necessary, I have no objection to his embellishing them
a little. Art is not the study of positive reality, but the search for
ideal truth, and the "Vicar of Wakefield" was a more useful and healthy
book than the "Paysan Perverti," or the "Liaisons Dangereuses."

Forgive these reflections of mine, kind reader, and let them stand as
a preface, for there will be no other to the little story I am going
to relate to you. My tale is to be so short and so simple, that I felt
obliged to make you my apologies for it beforehand, by telling you what
I think of the literature of terror.

I have allowed myself to be drawn into this digression for the sake of a
laborer; and it is the story of a laborer which I have been meaning to
tell you, and which I shall now tell you at once.

I -- The Tillage of the Soil

I HAD just been looking long and sadly at Holbein's plowman, and was
walking through the fields, musing on rustic life and the destiny of
the husbandman. It is certainly tragic for him to spend his days and his
strength delving in the jealous earth, that so reluctantly yields up her
rich treasures when a morsel of coarse black bread, at the end of the
day's work, is the sole reward and profit to be reaped from such arduous
toil. The wealth of the soil, the harvests, the fruits, the splendid
cattle that grow sleek and fat in the luxuriant grass, are the property
of the few, and but instruments of the drudgery and slavery of the many.
The man of leisure seldom loves, for their own sake, the fields and
meadows, the landscape, or the noble animals which are to be converted
into gold for his use. He comes to the country for his health or for
change of air, but goes back to town to spend the fruit of his vassal's
labor.

On the other hand, the peasant is too abject, too wretched, and too
fearful of the future to enjoy the beauty of the country and the charms
of pastoral life. To him, also, the yellow harvest-fields, the rich
meadows, the fine cattle represent bags of gold; but he knows that
only an infinitesimal part of their contents, insufficient for his daily
needs, will ever fall to his share. Yet year by year he must fill those
accursed ba