to be accused of artificiality,
but to be credited with a true sincerity of selection in juxtaposing his
soft corals and carnations and gleaming topaz, amethyst, and sapphire
hues. The most exacting literalist can hardly accuse them of solecism in
their rendering of nature, true as it is that their decorative sense is
so strong as to lead them to impose on nature their own sentiment
instead of yielding themselves to absorption in _hers_, and thus, in
harmonious and sympathetic concert with her, like Claude and Corot,
Rousseau and Daubigny, interpreting her subtle and supreme significance.

* * * * *

Rousseau carried the fundamental principle of the school farther than
the others--with him interest, delight in, enthusiasm for nature became
absorption in her. Whereas other men have loved nature, it has been
acutely remarked, Rousseau was in love with her. It was felicitously of
him, rather than of Dupre or Corot, that the naif peasant inquired, "Why
do you paint the tree; the tree is there, is it not?" And never did
nature more royally reward allegiance to her than in the sustenance and
inspiration she furnished for Rousseau's genius. You feel the point of
view in his picture, but it is apparently that of nature herself as well
as his own. It is not the less personal for this. On the contrary, it
is extremely personal, and few pictures are as individual, as
characteristic. Occasionally Diaz approaches him, as I have said, but
only in the very happiest and exceptional moments, when the dignity of
nature as well as her charm seems specially to impress and impose itself
upon the less serious painter. But Rousseau's selection seems
instinctive and not sought out. He knows the secret of nature's
pictorial element. He is at one with her, adopts her suggestions so
cordially and works them out with such intimate sympathy and
harmoniousness, that the two forces seem reciprocally to reinforce each
other, and the result gains many fold in power from their subtle
co-operation. His landscapes have in this way a Wordsworthian
directness, simplicity, and severity. They are not troubled and dramatic
like Turner's. They are not decorative like Dupre's, they have not the
solemn sentiment of Daubigny's, or the airy aspiration and fairy-like
blitheness of Corot's. But there is in them "all breathing human
passion;" and at times, as in "Le Givre," they rise to majesty and real
grandeur because they are impregn