JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET
of trouble; you don't know how much you will suffer." Like old Michael Angelo who said that the birthday of a human being should be regarded not as a day of joy but as a day of mourning, Millet was never so sad as on days that seemed to most men joyful, such as the beginnings and endings of years, for then the sadness of his memories mingled with the sadness of his presentiments. "Here is another year finishing to-night," he cries. "How sad! I wish all of you as few years as possible." He says himself that he did not know joy. "The joyful side never appears to me. I do not know what it is. I have never seen it. The most cheerful things I know are calm and silence—" (1851). He shows, however, no symptom of uneasiness or depression; his is a serious and peaceful melancholy that has its secret sweetness for souls of his stamp—"the dark pleasure of a melancholy heart," of which La Fontaine speaks. But with La Fontaine the feeling had a dilettante note. With Millet there was nothing of the kind. He was not an artist observing poverty from afar and in other people while keeping himself carefully sheltered. He knew poverty in his own
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