onet knew how to
_draw_ before he handled pigment. Some lansdcape painters do not; many
impressionists trust to God and their palette-knife; so the big men
are sufferers. Monet, it may be noted, essayed many keys; his
compositions are not nearly so monotonous as has been asserted. What
does often exhaust the optic nerve is the violent impinging thereon of
his lights. He has an eagle eye, we have not. Wagner had the faculty
of attention developed to such an extraordinary pitch that with our
more normal and weaker nerves he soon exhausts us in his flights. Too
much Monet is like too much Wagner or too much sunshine.

The breezy effect with the poplars painted flat is an example very
unlike Monet. The church of Varengeville at Dieppe (1880) is a classic
specimen; so is the Pourville beach (1882). What delicate greens in
the Spring (1885)! What fine distance, an ocean view, in the Pourville
picture! Or, if you care for subdued harmonies, there is the ice floe
at Vetheuil (1881).

The London pictures tell of the older artist--not so vigorous, a vein
of tenderness beginning to show instead of his youthful blazing
optimism. Claude Monet must have had a happy life--he is still a
robust man painting daily in the fields, leading the glorious life of
a landscapist, one of the few romantic professions in this prosaic
age. Not so vain, so irritable as either Manet or Whistler, Monet's
nerves have never prompted him to extravagances. Backbiters declare
that Monet is suffering from an optical degeneration--poor, overworked
word! Monet sees better, sees more keenly than his fellow-men. What a
misfortune! Ibsen and Wagner suffered, too, from superior brains. If
Monet ever suffered seriously from a danger to his art it
was--success. He was abused in the beginning, but not as severely as
Manet. But success perched on Monet's palette. His pictures never seem
to suggest any time but high noon, in spirit, at least. And he is
never sad. Yet, is there anything sadder under the sun than a soul
incapable of sadness?

In his very valuable contribution to the history of the cause,
Theodore Duret, the biographer and friend of Whistler and Manet has in
his Les Peintres Impressionistes held the scales very much in favour
of Manet's priority in the field over Monet. It is true that in 1863
Manet had drawn upon his head the thunderous wrath of Paris by
exhibiting his Dejeuner sur l'Herbe and Olympe--by no means a
representative effort of the painte