was the kind of droring I knew ought to be, where a man sets down more
what he feels than what he knows. I knew I was beginning too late, but I
loved that way of working. I saw all the Corots I could, and began to
paint as much as I could his way. I got almost to have his eye, but of
course I never got his hand. Nobody could, I guess, not even an educated
artist like you, or they'd all a don' it.'

* * * * *

"After this awakening John Campbell began the artist's life afresh with
high hopes. His first picture in the sweet new style was honestly called
'Sunrise in Berkshire,' though he had interwoven with his own
reminiscences of the farm several motives from various compositions of
his great exemplar. He signed the canvas Campbell Corot, in the familiar
capital letters, because he didn't want to take all the credit; because
he desired to mark emphatically the change in his manner, and because it
struck him as a good painting name justified by the resemblance between
his surname and the master's Christian name. It was a heartfelt homage in
intention. If the disciple had been familiar with Renaissance usages, he
would undoubtedly have signed himself John of Camille.

"'Sunrise in Berkshire' fetched sixty dollars in a downtown auction room,
the highest price John had ever received; but this was only the beginning
of a bewildering rise in values. When John next saw the picture, Campbell
had been deftly removed, and the landscape, being favourably noticed in
the press, brought seven hundred dollars in an uptown salesroom. John
happened on it again in Beilstein's gallery, where the price had risen to
thirteen hundred dollars--a tidy sum for a small Corot in those early
days. At that figure it fell to a noted collector whose walls it still
adorns. Here Campbell Corot's New England conscience asserted itself. He