something about the pleasure of choosing one's own particular picture
from a gallery. It was amusing to indulge the same humour in the Mesdag
Museum: perhaps even more so than at the Ryks, for one is certain
that by no means could Vermeer's little picture of "The Reader,"--the
woman in the blue jacket--for example, be abstracted from those
well-guarded walls, whereas it is just conceivable that one could
select from these crowded little Mesdag rooms something that might
not be missed. I hesitated long between a delicate Matthew Maris, the
very essence of quietude, in which a girl stands by a stove, cooking;
Delacroix's wonderful study of dead horses in the desert; a perfect
Diaz (No. 114), an old woman in a red shawl by a pool in a wood, with
its miracle of lighting; a tender little Daumier, that rare master;
a Segantini drenched in sincerity and pity; and a bridge at evening
(No. 127) by Jules Dupré. All these are small and could be slipped
under the overcoat with the greatest ease!

Having made up my mind I returned to each and lost all my decision. I
decided again, and again uncertainty conquered. And then I made a
final examination, and chose No. 64--a totally new choice--a little
lovely Corot, depicting a stream, two women, much essential greenness,
and that liquid light of which Corot had the secret.

But I am not sure that the Diaz (who began by being an old master)
is not the more exquisite picture.

For the rest, there are other Corots, among them one of his black night
pieces; a little village scene by Troyon; some apples by Courbet,
in the grandest manner surely in which apples ever were painted; a
Monticelli; a scene of hills by Georges Michel which makes one wish
he had painted the Sussex Downs; a beautiful chalk drawing by Millet;