ail were
necessary to this expression of nature's sublimity.

Is it at all strange that the impression which so charmed me as I saw
it from my car-window has faded? Nature unrolled for me suddenly a
poem. For symbols she used a great mass of dark, sturdy trees against
a majestic cloud, a rugged cliff, and a straggling path. I have
ignored them all and insisted that "truth was mighty and must
prevail." I am a realist and "paint things as they are." Not so. I am
an iconoclast and have broken my god and cannot put together the
pieces. I have sacrificed a divine impression to a human realism.

Suppose, however, that the painter who had this glimpse of nature
before entering the tunnel was no ordinary man, but a man of steadfast
mind, of firm convictions, of a sure touch, with an absolute belief
in nature, and so reverential that he dare not offer even a suggestion
of his own. He has seen it; he has felt it; it has gone down deep into
his memory and heart. The cloud, the cliff, the mass, the path--that
is all. And it is enough. The annoyances of the day, the seductions of
fresh impressions of newer subjects, the weakness of the flesh do not
deter him. With a single aim, to the exclusion of all else, and with a
direct simplicity, he records what he saw, and lo! we have a poem.
Such a man was Courbet, Corot, Dupre.

But one would say: That may answer for landscape: what about the
figure-painter? Let us counsel together.

A man only rises to his own level. In art, as in music and literature,
he only expresses himself. Each selects his own method. The school of
Meissonier is not content with a few grand truths simply expressed.
They want a multitude of facts; they must tell the story in their own
way. They are the Dickens and Walter Scott of art. It is iteration and
reiteration. My cardinal must not only have red stockings, says
Vibert, but they must be silk; every detail must be elaborated. Very
well, what of it? you say. What do you criticise, the drawing? No. The
color? No. The composition? No. Does the painter express himself?
Perfectly. What then? Just this. He expresses himself too perfectly.
At first I am delighted. The story is so well told--the well-fed
prelates; the half-sneer; the cynical smile; the earnest missionary
telling his experience. But the next day?--well, he is still telling
it. By the end of the week the enjoyment is confined to allowing him
to tell it to a fresh eye, and that eye another's, and watchi