Degas is a pessimist. He has always been a realist, and the realist in this troubled world cannot look through rosy spectacles; acute pessimism becomes the natural result, especially when a great city is the venue. He is the analyst and ironist of the Impressionist group, with whom he has a sympathy of temperament rather than a sympathy of technique. At the present moment there are few artists better known in Paris, yet few who have received so small an amount of official acknowledgment. He has never received an official commission, has refused all decorations, his chief works are to be found in foreign countries. Yet an enthusiastic French critic has summed up the opinion of the art world of France in the striking phrase, “Degas is one of the greatest draughtsmen who have ever lived.” Ten years ago, when the writer was a student in Paris, the name of Toulouse-Lautrec was known only in connection with various daring and flamboyant posters advertising the exotic attractions of the “Moulin Rouge” and the “Divan Japonais,” and also through extraordinary sketches which appeared from time to time in Aristide Bruant’s feuilleton “Le Mirliton.” Now and again one found a sketch, with his signature, pinned up in an artistic cabaret of the Batignolles quarter. Few had seen him, nobody seemed to have any wish to discover his whereabouts. In the studios he was almost invariably spoken of with contempt as half a fool. He was celebrated in a way, and yet unknown. He was by no means a fool, for few men have possessed a brighter intellect. His semi-retirance and evident reluctance to appear amidst the crowd were partly owing to a temperament of ultra-refinement, and still more directly the result of a terrible personal misfortune. The story of his life is romantic.