most touchingly of his love, neither when he rejoices in its happy
consummation, nor in the hour of utter despair, but when doubt still
tempers hope,--so does the artist labor with prophetic zeal to express
those sentiments of humanity and brotherhood which are not yet organized
into institutions. A careless eye might have perceived little departure
from the old models in these pictures, but a keener one would have
already discovered that Scheffer and his friends worked with a different
aim from that of their predecessors. Not merely to paint a well-composed
picture on a classical theme, but to give expression to thought and
feeling, was now the object. "The Wreck of the Medusa" of Géricault is
full of earnest, if niggling life. Delacroix has followed his own bent
with such independent zeal as has made him the object of intense
admiration to some, of bitter hatred to others. But Ary Scheffer has
taken his rank at the head of the Spiritualist school, and has awakened
a wider love and obtained a fuller appreciation than either of them. The
spirit which found in them its first expression is continually
increasing in power, and developing into richer life. The living artists
of France are the exponents of her genuine Christian democracy.

"The entire collection of Rosa Bonheur's works," says a French writer,
"might be called the Hymn to Labor. Here she shows us the ploughing,
there the reaping, farther on the gathering in of the hay, then of the
harvests, elsewhere the vintage,--always and everywhere labor." Edouard
Frère, in his scenes from humble life, which the skilful lithographer
places within the means of all, represents the incidents of domestic
existence among the poor. "The Prayer at the Mother's Knee," "The Woman
at her Ironing Table," "The Child shelling Peas," "The Walk to School
amid Rain and Sleet," are all charming idyls of every-day life. With yet
greater skill and deeper pathos does the peasant Millet tell the story
of his neighbors. The washerwomen, as the sun sets upon their labors,