acquaintance with this road, that two gentlemen of Paris, as difficult
to please as Daubigny and Isabey, should have seen points of excellence
in it.

There are all sorts of ways of being a painter. Perhaps as good as any,
if one cares at all about a trifling matter like beauty, is to know a
good thing when one sees it. That poet of the brush, Daubigny, not only
was gifted with this very unusual talent in a painter, but a good thing
could actually be entrusted in his hands after its discovery. And
herein, it appears to me, lies all the difference between good and bad
painting; not only is an artist--any artist--to be judged by what he
sees, but also by what he does with a fact after he's acquired
it--whether he turns it into poetry or prose.

I might incautiously have sprung these views on the artist on the front
seat, had he not wisely forestalled my outburst by one of his own.

"By the way," he broke in; "by the way, I'm not doing my duty as
cicerone. There's a church near here--we're coming to it in a
moment--famous--eleventh or twelfth century, Romanesque
style--yes--that's right, although I'm somewhat shaky when it comes to
architecture--and an old manoir, museum now, with lots of old furniture
in it--in the manoir, I mean."

"There's the church now. Oh, let us stop!"

In point of fact there were two churches before us. There was one of
ivy: nave, roof, aisles, walls, and conic-shaped top, as perfectly
defined in green as if the beautiful mantle had been cut and fitted to
the hidden stone structure. Every few moments the mantle would be