With all this variety, however, the true value of Corot's work lies in the expression of the spirit of the man himself. It is often possible, and it is always theoretically desirable, to separate the personality of a painter from his production in any critical consideration of his achievement. It is at least only fair to believe that the light which shines from so many canvases is the true expression of many a life which is clouded to our superficial view. With Corot, however, it is impossible to make this separation. Every added detail of his life--and they are so numerous that in the difficulty of a choice they must remain unrecorded here--gives a new perception of his work. A youthful Virgilian spirit to the day of his death, as old at his birth as the classic source from which he sprang, he invented a method essentially his own, in which to express his new-old message. In our work-a-day, materialistic age, like a thrush singing in a boiler-shop, he is the quiet but triumphant vindication of the truth that all great art has its roots firmly implanted in the earth of Hellenic civilization, though its expression may be, as in Corot's case, through an art unknown to the Greeks, and even, as in the case of the one greater man of this century than Corot--Millet--by the presentation of types which the beauty-loving sons of Hellas disdained to represent. Millet's work must be considered later in these papers, but it is useful here to make this passing comment, that with Corot he represents what is best in our modern art; that the greatest quality of our modern art is its steadfast reliance on nature; and that, paradoxical as it may seem, they are alike in taking only that from nature which is serviceable to the clarity of their expression, being in this both at odds with the common practice of modern painting, which usually adopts a more servile attitude towards nature. Corot painted out of doors constantly; but in the maturity of his art his work was only based upon the scene before him, a practice dangerous to the student, and fraught with difficulty to the master. In the fever of production; in the almost childish joy which the long neglected painter felt when dealers and collectors besieged his door; and, finally, in the necessity which arose for large sums of money to carry on works of charity, which were his only dissipation, and which it was his pride to sustain without impairing the patrimony which in the course of time he had inherited, and which he left intact to his relatives, Corot undoubtedly weakened his legacy to the future by over-production. In addition, his work became the prey of unscrupulous dealers (as there is nothing easier to imitate superficially than a Corot), and the mediocre pictures signed by his name are not always of his workmanship. Such works apart, his art has given us a message from the purest source of poetry and painting, couched in a language which