Jean-François Millet, peasant and painter; . s. I cant think, without emotion, that she used to takecare of me at times when I was ill. * * * God knows, I rememberall the good she has ever done me. I pray for the peace of her poor soul. Barbizon, 25th February, 1869. My Dear Sensier : I find the album you sent me very rich andsplendid in the arrangement of colors; but that is almost all that pleasesme in it. I do not find the natural and the human, which are generally atthe bottom of Japanese art. To me these things are rather a mere matterof curiosity, and for the price that they would cost,
Jean-François Millet, peasant and painter; . s. I cant think, without emotion, that she used to takecare of me at times when I was ill. * * * God knows, I rememberall the good she has ever done me. I pray for the peace of her poor soul. Barbizon, 25th February, 1869. My Dear Sensier : I find the album you sent me very rich andsplendid in the arrangement of colors; but that is almost all that pleasesme in it. I do not find the natural and the human, which are generally atthe bottom of Japanese art. To me these things are rather a mere matterof curiosity, and for the price that they would cost, I would rather haveother Japanese drawings, more natural (if any turn up), or some wood-engravings of the fifteenth century. * * * Sensier wrote, about this time, a series of articles on Rousseau,afterward published under the title Souvenirs sur TheodoreRousseau, and many letters of this date touch upon conversationsbetween the friends. Thore was a devoted partisan of Rousseau,and Sensier asked Millet to give him some notes of their conver-. Shepherdess Knitting. PEASANT AND PAINTER, 197 s^tions; the following letter is a reply to his request. It will seemvery singular, and makes us doubt Millets capacity as a is scarcely a crime to refuse to call Memling by a name he neverbore, or to notice that Rembrandts ** Anatomy Lesson is dififerentlyexecuted from the Cloth-merchants, or to think that the verifica-tion of dates is of great use ; but Thore never said that subject wasall, and he even wrote the contrary: for instance, that a fine drunkardof Van Ostade was worth an army of ill-painted Spartans. We feeltempted to think that Millets recollection served him ill—that inthe excitement of battle, where all talked at once, opinions wereconfused and exaggerated. Barbizon, Feb. ist, 1870. My Dear Sensier : I can scarcely condense into a few words ourconversations with Thore. I shall tell you much more than you ask, and ifyou find anything of use in the heap, pick it
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