a ballet in full movement; and it is remarked that this practice
trained him for presenting the tremulousness of leaves of trees, which
he did so exquisitely.

One learns something of this painter of early dawn and soft evening
from a letter he wrote to his friend Dupre:

One gets up at three in the morning, before the sun; one goes and sits
at the foot of a tree; one watches and waits. One sees nothing much at
first. Nature resembles a whitish canvas on which are sketched
scarcely the profiles of some masses; everything is perfumed, and
shines in the fresh breath of dawn. Bing! the sun grows bright but has
not yet torn aside the veil behind which lie concealed the meadows,
the dale, and hills of the horizon. The vapours of night still creep,
like silvery flakes over the numbed-green vegetation. Bing! bing!--a
first ray of sunlight--a second ray of sunlight--the little flowers
seem to wake up joyously. They all have their drop of dew which
trembles--the chilly leaves are stirred with the breath of morning--in
the foliage the birds sing unseen--all the flowers seem to be saying
their prayers. Loves on butterfly wings frolic over the meadows and
make the tall plants wave--one sees nothing--yet everything is
there--the landscape is entirely behind the veil of mist, which
mounts, mounts, sucked up by the sun; and as it rises, reveals the
river, plated with silver, the meadow, the trees, cottages, the
receding distance--one distinguishes at last everything that one had
divined at first.

In all the world there can hardly be a more exquisite story of
daybreak than this; and so beautiful was the mood into which Corot
fell at eventime, as he himself describes it, that it would be a