ON]

As we look at the picture we feel sure that Millet was a lover of
children, and it is pleasant to know that he had many of his own. The
artist father was his children's favorite playmate, and at the close
of his day's work in his studio, they ran to meet him with shouts of
joy. He used to like to walk about the garden with them showing them
the flowers. In winter time they sat together by the fire, and the
father sang songs and drew pictures for the little ones. Sometimes
taking a log from the wood basket he would carve a doll out of it, and
paint the cheeks with vermilion. This is the sort of doll we see on
the window seat in our picture.

Ruskin tells us that a true artist feels like a caged bird in painting
any enclosed space, unless it contains some opening like a door or
window. No amount of beauty will content us, he says, if we are shut
in to that alone. Our picture is a good proof of this principle. We
can easily fancy how different the effect would be without the window:
the room would appear almost like a prisoner's cell. As it is, the
great window suggests the out-of-door world into which it opens, and
gives us a sense of larger space.

Our illustration is taken from a drawing. Millet was a painstaking
artist who made many drawings and studies for his paintings. This is
probably such a study, as there is also a painting by him of the same
subject very similar to this.

III

THE POTATO PLANTERS

In the picture called The Potato Planters we are reminded at once
of the peasants we have already seen in Going to Work. We see here
married people a few years older than the young people of the other
picture working together in the fields.

It may be that this is their own little plot of ground, for they work
with a certain air of proprietorship. They look prosperous, too, and
are somewhat better dressed than common laborers. It is the highest
ambition of the French peasant to own a bit of land. He will make any
sacrifice to get it, and possessing it, is well content. He labors
with constant industry to make it yield well.

The field here is at quite a distance from the village where the
workers live. We can see the little group of houses on the horizon. In
France the agricultural classes do not build their dwelling-houses on
their farms, but live instead in village communities, with the
farms in the outlying districts. The custom has many advantages. The
families may help one another in variou