A DOG OF FLANDERS. 105

here in chalk was only an old man
sitting on a fallen tree—only that.
He had seen old Michel the wood-
man sitting so at evening many a
time. He had never had a soul to
tell him of outline or perspective, of
anatomy or of shadow, and yet he
had given all the weary, worn-out
age, all the sad, quiet patience, all
the rugged, careworn pathos of his
original, and given them so that the
old, lonely figure was a poem, sitting
there, meditative and alone, on
the dead tree, with the darkness
of the descending night behind
him.

It was rude, of course, in a way,
and had many faults, no doubt ; and
yet it was real, true in Nature, true —