from cover to cover. Octave Mirbeau painted in his moments of leisure, and so great an artist as Claude Monet looked upon his brush-work with favour. He owned a large collection of pictures by Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Pissarro, Van Gogh, Rodin, and others, which have been sold since his death. Examine again the description of the garden in Le Jardin des Supplices and you will discover how he turned his other talent to account. With some writers, indeed, the analogy between writing and painting becomes perfectly clear. It is so with Gautier and Huysmans. Beerbohm says of Whistler, "Yes, that painting and that writing are marvellously akin; and such differences as you will see in them are superficial merely." It is obvious, too, that Joseph Hergesheimer approaches his task from the point of view of a painter. He selects and describes exactly as an artist in design might select and describe. He turns to his palette for a touch of cobalt blue or yellow ochre exactly as a painter might turn to his palette. This characteristic of Hergesheimer is so marked that several sagacious reviewers have noted that Java Head and The Three Black Pennys are to all intents and purposes painted. The facts in the case are that Hergesheimer began his career as a painter, painted, indeed, for several years before he began to write at all.
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