ugh held down with weight
of dew, are startlingly true. The great roots of giant trees, denuded by
storm and flood, lie exposed to view; and deep vistas are given of
shadowy glade and swift-running mountain torrent. All is somber,
terrible, and tells of forces that tossed these mountain-tops like bowls,
and of a Power immense, immeasurable, incomprehensible, eternal in the
heavens.

Dore's first exhibition in the Salon was made when he was eighteen, and a
few years later, when he was presented with the Cross of the Legion of
Honor, the decoration made his work exempt from jury examination. And so
every year he sent some large painting to the Salon.

His work was the wonder of Paris, and on every hand his illustrations
were in demand, but his canvases were too large in size and too terrible
in subject to fit private residences.

Patrons were cautious.

To own a "Dore" was proof of a high appreciation of art, or else a lack
of it--buyers did not know which.

They were afraid of being laughed at.

His competitors began to hoot and jeer. Not being able to make pictures
that would compete with his, they wrote him down in the magazines.

His name became a jest.

Various of his illustrations for the Bible were enlarged into immense
canvases, some of which were twenty feet long and twelve feet high. All
who looked upon these pictures were amazed by the fecundity in invention
and the skill shown in drawing; but the most telling criticism against
them was their defect in coloring. Dore could draw, but could not color,
and the report was abroad that he was color-blind.

The only buyers for his pictures came from England and America. Paris
loved art for art's sake, and the Bible was not popular enough to make
its illustration worth while. "What is this book you are working on?"
asked a caller.

It was different in London, where Spurgeon preached every Sunday to three
thousand people. The "Dores" taken to London attracted much
attention--"mostly from the size of the canvases," Parisians said. But
the particular subject was the real attraction. Instead of reading their
daily "chapter," hard-working, tired people went to see a Dore Bible
picture where it was exposed in some vacant storeroom and tuppence
entrance-fee charged.

It occurred to certain capitalists that if people would go to see one
Dore, why would not a Dore gallery pay?

A company was formed, agents were sent to Paris and negotiations begun.
Finally, on p