"He explained the matter to me with zest. 'By morning you've half
forgotten the look of things. All night you've seen only dreams that
don't have any true form, and when the first light comes, nothing shows
solid for what it is. The mist uncovers a little here and there, and you
wonder what's beneath. It's all guesswork and nothing sure. Take any
morning early when I look out of my attic window to the North River.
There's nothing but a heap of fog, grey or pink, as there's more or less
sun behind. It gets a little thick over toward Jersey, and that may be
the shore, or again it mayn't. Then a solid bit of vi'let shows high up,
and I guess it's Castle Stevens, but perhaps it ain't. Then a pale-yellow
streak shoots across the river farther up and I take it to be the
Palisades, but again it may be jest a ray of sunshine. You see there
really ain't no earth; it's all air and light. That's what a man that
can't drore ought to paint; that's what my namesake, Cameel Corot, did
paint better than any one that ever lived.'

"At this point of his confession John Campbell glared savagely at me for
assent, and set down a sadly frayed and noxious stogy on Nickerson's
black walnut. I hastened to agree, though much of the doctrine was heresy
to a realist, only objecting: 'But one really has to draw a scene such as
you describe just like any other. In fact, the drawing of atmosphere is
the most difficult branch of our art. Many very good painters, like my
master, Courbet, have given it up.' 'Corbet!' he replied contemptuously;
'he didn't give it up; he never even seen it. But don't I know it's hard,
sir? For years I tried to paint it, and I never got nothing but the fog;
when I put in more I lost that. They're pretty, those sketches--like
watered silk or the scum in the docks with the sun on it; but, Lord,
there ain't nothing into 'em, and that's the truth. At last, after
fumbling around for years, I happened to walk into Vogler's gallery one
day and saw my first Corot. Ther' it was--all I had been trying for. It