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Impromptu Games 73
and the person who has guessed the most characters wins the game and may perhaps be awarded a prize.
Sometimes votes are cast for the one who has described the character of his selection in the most interesting manner, and another prize is given.
The following example is given: "I see before me a Breton peasant, a gentle soul, brought up on the Bible and taught Latin by the parish priest. Ready at duty's call on the death of his father to turn farmer, he is prevented by his old grandmother, who believes in his talent for painting. He goes to Paris and is laughed at as a rustic setting up for originality. The romantic school, then at its height, disgusts him.
" He is robbed and bullied, becomes self-conscious and awkward; the pictures of the old masters are his only friends. For years he paints pictures at five or ten francs apiece. At length some artists of note begin to hold out their hands to him and help him to his best by their sympathy. He even now sells his drawings for a pair of shoes, and lives with his wife on thirty francs for a fortnight. He finally goes to a little village in a beautiful forest, breaks from the slavery of conventional art, and draws people as he sees them. He lives there twenty-seven years. Still, his greatest picture is rejected by the Salon. Finally glimpses of prosperity come, and just before his death from consumption comes the great news from Paris, 'The world recognises your genius; your pictures are selling for high prices!' He lives only long enough to know it."
Perhaps the indication of Millet's career is too clearly given in this instance, but one is at liberty to be as mysterious as he pleases—consistent with correctness. |
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