That Rousseau was musical, is shown in the natural grace of his compositions, and his ideas were simple as the early songs of France are simple, speaking of everyday things with simple heart and voice, and he painted frankly what he saw in precisely the way he saw it. We, who love richness and sobriety of tone, will never tire of Rousseau's beautiful blacks and greys, and probably no one has excelled them for delicacy of appreciation, and perfection of gradation. It will be long before the landscapes will be forgotten, it will be long before the exquisite portrait of the "Child with the Harlequin" will fade from remembrance, we shall remember them all for their loveliness in design, a gift which never failed him, no matter what the subject. Simple arabesque, it was the jungle that taught him this, and therein lay his special power, a genuine feeling for the richness of laces and brocades in full and subdued tones, such as one would find in the elaborate intricacies of tropical foliage, strange leaves intermingled with parrots, monkeys, strange white lilies on high stalks, tigers peering through highly ornate foliage and branches intertwined, all excellently suggestive of that foreign land in which the mind wanders and finds itself so much at home. "Le Charmeur," "Jadwigha," in these are concentrated all that is lovely in the land of legend; and, like all places of legend, replete with imaginative beauty, the places where loveliness and beauty of form congregate, after they have passed through the sensuous spaces of the eye travelling somewhere to an abode where all those things are that are perfect, they live forever. Rousseau was a charming and lovable child, whether he was painting or whether he was conducting his own little orchestra, composed of those people who kept shop around his home, and it is as the child of his time that he must be considered, child in verity among the sophisticated moderns who believed and believe more in intellect than in anything else, many of whom paid tribute to him, and reverenced him, either in terms of sincere friendship, or by occasional visit. The various anecdotes, touching enough, are but further proof of the innocence of this so simple and untutored person. The real amateur spirit has, we like to think, much in its favor, if only for its freshness, its spontaneity, and a very gratifying naturalness. Rousseau was all of this, and lived in a world untouched, he wove about himself, like other visionaries, a soft veil hiding all that was grossly unreal to him from all that was real, and for Rousseau, those things and places he expressed existed vividly for him, and out of them his pictures became true creations. He was the real naif, because he was the real child, unaffected and unspoiled, and painting was for him but the key of heaven that he might open another door for the world's weary eye. PART TWO THE TWILIGHT OF THE ACROBAT