Surely, never was so large a statue erected in so small a village.  The peasant artist sits there on a bank of mosses, looking over at the old church that squats on the hillside.  In Cherbourg I found more traces of his art and some stories of his life there that would be out of place here.

I found four portraits painted while he was paying court to his first wife.  I found them in a little shoe shop in a by-street, in possession of a distant relative of his first wife.

From Cherbourg I went to Barbizon, where Millet spent the latter part of his life.  I was very graciously received and entertained by his son Francois and his American wife.

To browse among the master’s relics, to handle the old books of his small library, to hold, as one would a babe of tender years, his palette, were small things, judged by the values of the average life:  to me it was one of the most inspiring hours of my career.

Paris was to me an art centre—­little more.  I followed the footsteps of Millet from one place to another.  I sat before his paintings in the Louvre—­I met some of his old friends and gathered material for a lecture on his work.

From Paris I went to London.  The British capital was more than an art centre to me.  It was a centre, literary, sociological and religious.  I was the guest of Sir George Williams one afternoon at one of his parties and met Lord Radstock whom I had heard preach on a street corner in Whitechapel twenty years before.

Besides visiting and photographing the literary haunts of the great masters, I made the acquaintance of the leaders of the Socialist movement.  I went to St. Albans to attend the first convention of the Ruskin societies.  The convention was composed of men who in literature and life were translating into terms of life and labour the teachings of John Ruskin.

From London I went to Oxford and spent a few weeks browsing around the most fascinating city in the world, to me.  My visit was in anticipation of the British convention of the Young Men’s Christian Association to which I was a fraternal delegate from the Young Men’s Association of Yale University.

I was invited to a garden party at Blenheim Palace while at Oxford.  I arrived early and presented my card.  Without waiting I went into the grounds and proceeded to enjoy the beautiful walks.  Before I had gone far, I met a young man who seemed familiar with the place.  I told him that I had once taken the Duchess through part of the slum region of New York, and expressed a hope that she was at home.

“No,” he said, “she is conducting a fair in London for soldiers’ wives.”  My next remark was in the realm of ethics.  I had heard that the father of the present Duke was a good deal of a rake and asked the young man whether that was true or not.  He said he thought it was like the obituary notice of Mark Twain—­very much exaggerated.

“I have been a flunky to some of these high fliers,” I said, “and I know how hard it is to get at the facts and also how easy it is to form a mistaken judgment.”