Here again becomes evident the essentially religious character of his art and its point of contact with the religiosity of Rousseau and Corot; Rousseau’s attained through suffering, Corot’s preserving to the end the naïve, painless faith of the child. Inness would be drawn to one by sympathy, to the other by wonder and love. Whence, then, his admiration of Daubigny? The latter had little intensity and less spirituality; an easy man, the lockers of whose houseboat contained good creature comforts. He makes you realize the smile of the earth, and limits his poetry to the quiet comfortableness of the inhabited and cultivated banks of his beloved rivers. Partly it was the perennial boyishness of Daubigny’s heart that, no doubt, captivated Inness. His own soul was quick and eager to the end, undimmed or worsted up to close on seventy years, and its sweet freshness was a triumph over the debilitating effects of frail health, unremitting toil, and protracted struggle. So the genial, simple lovableness of Daubigny’s character may well have brought him encouragement and refreshment. But we may suspect another link of fascination. While Rousseau and Corot were painters of nature, Daubigny was the painter of the country, of the landscape in its intimate relation to the life of man. It is not that he introduces figures, for he seldom does, yet the spirit of mankind broods over almost all his landscapes; and the normal progress of all of us in our love of nature is apt to be from wonderland to the land of intimate affection. A child will be attracted by a gorgeous sunset, and we most of us begin by admiring nature’s grandeur, nor are disinclined to lose ourselves in her infinity. But later comes the more seeing eye, which finds infinite suggestion in little things and a suggestion, also, of infinity, if the mind craves for it. And then comes, too, a craving to be personally something in the midst of this infinity, to attach one’s self to one’s surroundings and share in the common life; so more and more we grow to value those aspects of nature which recall our intimate relation to her, and the simple landscape of the countryside is found to be most companionable. As soon as his circumstances permitted, Inness established himself in a country home at Montclair, N.J., and thenceforth the simple charms of his surroundings afford him all the inspiration that he needs.