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canvas; that loneliness that falls so despairingly on a home when the long and happy ties that bound two people in loving companionship during their lives are severed, and one is left alone. There is no hope for the broken-hearted man as he sits amid the ruins of his home, staring out on the meaningless world; no hope now, and nothing to tell of any for the future.

Israels is a profound thinker, and his is the philosophy of the Persian poet:

"There was the door to which I found no key;
There was the veil through which I might not see;
Some little talk a while of Me and Thee
There was, and then no more of Thee and Me."

It is the thought of the East, whence Israels came, but before it had conquered the world through the beautiful life that lit up the country-side of Galilee and poured forth its rays of loving sympathy upon mankind, giving to men the greatest of gifts, Hope!

Omar

Khayyam.

1837-1899.

CHAPTER VIII

JAMES MARIS

"THE favourite utterance of James Maris, 'I think in my material,' affords a clue to his innate sense of art. He was essentially a painter, and the external impressions conveyed to him were of so graphic a character that he at once interpreted in colour whatever came within the range of his observation. With him technique was paramount. The scenes depicted conveyed no special message, were never designed to point a moral, but depend only upon the ability of the beholder to appreciate in the treatment his meaning and intent. His pictures in fact appeal to the very sentiments that gave them birth; they reveal his intimate acquaintance with colour in all its gradations, his splendid contrasts of light and shadow. The charm they exert upon us is due in part to the grandeur of Maris's artistic sense, his power of sympathy, strength of conception, and his glori

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PLATE XXIX. - The Peacock Feather. James Maris.

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ous schemes of colour, and in part to the nobility and loftiness of spirit ever unconsciously reflected in this great artist's work." So wrote the late Th. de Bock in his monumental work "James Maris." on James Maris. It gives a full account of his life and of his manner of work, and is full Bock. of interest and written in a very attractive style.

James Maris settled for a time with his brothers when they were young men in Antwerp, and they afterwards went to Paris, where they lived until after the troubles that followed the Franco-German war. He and William returned to Holland in 1871, expecting only to pay a visit. He rented a house at the Hague, near the canal and bridge and flour-mill he painted so often in his pictures, and he became very soon so enamoured of the scenery of his own country that he decided to dwell there, and not wander any more to other lands. Here he became really himself and found congenial employment, and produced those paintings that have made him so well known.

James Maris is the most varied artist of

By Th. de

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