their own business; to begin as they had, and to end as they expected
to. But in John Constable's case, as with all the others, the father's
methods of living did not at all please the son, and having most of
all a liking for picture-making; young John set himself to planning
his own affairs.

Nevertheless, the foundation of John's art was laid right there in the
Suffolk farmer's home and conditions. He was born in East Bergholt,
and the father seems to have believed in windmills, for early in life
the signs of wind and weather became a part of the son's education. He
learned a deal more of atmospheric conditions there on his father's
windmill planted farm than he could possibly have learned shut up in a
studio, French fashion. As a little boy he came to know all the signs
of the heavens; the clouds gathering for storm or shine; the bending
of the trees in the blast; all of these he loved, and later on made
the principal subjects of his art. He learned to observe these things
as a matter of business and at his father's command; thus we may say
that he studied his life-work from his very infancy. All about him
were beautiful hedgerows, picturesque cottages with high pitched roofs
covered with thatch, and it was these beauties which bred one other
great landscape painter besides Constable, of whom we shall presently
speak, Gainsborough.

At last, graduating from windmills, John went to London. He had a
vacation from the work set him by his father, and for two years he
painted "cottages, studied anatomy," and did the drudgery of his art;
but there was little money in it for him, and soon he had to go into
his father's counting house, for windmills seemed to have paid the
elder Constable, considerably better than painting promised to pay
young John.