The Man with the Hoe

He was the painter-poet of the toiler in the fields.

Among his best-known canvases are the Angelus, the Gleaners, the Sower, and the Man with the Hoe, Eugène Fromentin, an artist and critic of eminent rank, gave this judgment on Millet.

An original painter, a lofty soul, a melancholy spirit, a nature truly rustic, has said of the country and country people, of the severity, the melancholy, and the nobility of their work, things which no Dutchman would ever have dreamed of looking for.

Fromentin had elaborately criticized the great artists of Holland.

He spoke of the touching or sympathetical in biblical history, and of subjects he would like to or intended to paint.

The theme which most appealed to him in the New Testament was where Joseph and Mary are turned away from the door of the inn before the birth of the child, and in his description of the scene as he had conceived it, I saw the picture painted with all the tenderness and pathos of his art.

The Man with the Hoe.

Sancier sent Millet the animated versions on his Man with the Hoe.

So he becomes an individual, not a mere rote thinker of others' thoughts and not a mere parrot of other men's ideas.

Edwin Markham could never have written The Man with the Hoe had he lived only in the city.

He would never have seen deeply enough, and he would never have dared brave the conventional prejudices of the civilized world as he did in his poem had he been city-bred.

But because he thought nakedly before God and his own soul, he was compelled to see the monstrousness of making a man, a son of God created in his image, a mere clod of clay.

He was the painter-poet of the toiler in the fields.

Among his best-known canvases are the Angelus, the Gleaners, the Sower, and the Man with the Hoe.

Eugène Fromentin, an artist and critic of eminent rank, gave this judgment on Millet.

An original painter, a lofty soul, a melancholy spirit, a nature truly rustic, has said of the country and country people, of the severity, the melancholy, and the nobility of their work, things which no Dutchman would ever have dreamed of looking for.

He spoke of the touching or sympathetical in biblical history, and of subjects he would like to or intended to paint.

The theme which most appealed to him in the New Testament was where Joseph and Mary are turned away from the door of the inn before the birth of the child, and in his description of the scene as he had conceived it, I saw the picture painted with all the tenderness and pathos of his art.

the man with the hoe sancier sent millet the animated versions on his man with the hoe millet responded all this gossip about my man with the hoe seems to me very strange and i am grateful to you for reporting it to me certainly i am surprised at the ideas which people are so good as to impute to me i wonder in what club my critics have ever seen me they call me a socialist but really i might reply with the poor carrier from auvergne they call me a saint simonian that's not true i do not even know what it means is it then impossible simply to accept the ideas that come into one's mind at the sight of the man who eats bread by the sweat of his brow there are people who say that i see no charms in the country i see much more than charms there infinite splendors i see as well as they do the little flowers of which christ said i say unto you that even solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these I see very well the aureoles of the dandelions and the sun spreading his glory in the clouds over the distant worlds, but nonetheless I see down there in the plain the steaming horses leading the plough, and in a rocky corner a man quite worn out, whose toil began with dawn, and who tries to straighten himself and take breath for a moment.

The drama is surrounded with splendor.

This recording is in the public domain.

live in the present for tis all thou hast and covet not the treasure thou hast spent use every moment as it were thy last what though the future shall be opulent with golden privilege and sparkling joy thou canst not know thou shalt inherit these a fateful breath may all thy hopes destroy seize thou thine instant opportunities live in the present give not one regret to what thou couldst not if thou wouldst recall nor seek to span the gulf before thee set with bridge of futile fancy soon to fall live in the present every day express the oil of gladness sweet experience holds the oil of patience faith and holiness these each pure moment like a flower enfolds with these anointed shall thy soul give forth a perfume grateful as a spikenard poured by the poor woman kneeling on the earth upon the sacred feet of christ the lord The Man with the Hoe by Louis V. F. Randolph.

Read for LibriVox.org. who least requires the pity of his kind who least desires your condescending aid he who with plough and hoe has conquered earth piled high her treasures gathered by his toil then sent them far to fill his fellow-men with cheer and strength in every walk of life perchance his soul has groveled as has yours losing for long that intercourse sublime which even humble minds may have with heaven forgetting in less worthy things absorbed the themes most fit to stir his deepest life whose soul can soar forever with the lark piercing the blue and pouring forth her notes in tireless ardor toward the smiling sun twofold our nature is earthy of earth and holding kinship with the angels too who loiters or who labors in the mart the factory the farm or else where'er the foot of man may wander may forego his sonship's privilege and dwell with swine far from the portals of his father's house least apt are they to be imbruted souls whose lives here spent beneath the azure arch shun competition's strife and tricky trade peace is this temple of the open sky trust is its roof-tree freedom is its thought and purity its atmosphere benign its cult the sweet paternity of god here nature blends her tuneful harmonies and whilst one prays the spirit dove descends the sturdiest strongest bravest men are they who gather nourishment and fortitude and lofty purpose from god's great outdoors the while through straight brown billows of the soil they drive the plough or when the sun and rains divinely sent faithful and diligent have ripened well the wisely planted seed garner in autumn all the gladdening gold least apt are these the children of the soil to suffer long a needless tyranny and if they cling to honored customs loved and homes in which their fathers lived and died shall any dare defame them for their choice or foist on them a pity they would scorn ye who would fain behold our world transformed either by fierce upheavals or by dreams commiseration for the worker's spare tis he who labours patiently and well at humbler or at higher tasks or both whose slow accumulations bless mankind with stepping-stones of means for progress sure and themes for poets or for angels song there is no scale that weighs the wage for work the worlds are weighted that sail the universe the tireless journeys of celestial spheres eclipses movements balances returns the dizzy whirl in great cotillion swift of suns and satellites athwart the sky all these are measured by the master mind with times and compensations furnished forth not so the measurements of groping men of what is meet as labours just return and though man's mind may weigh the heavenly orbs and dean predict the straying comet's course he cannot if he would declare the mead exact and just for service here or there and so he bargains barters or controls and gains the best result at cheapest hire supply demand with ignorance and chance are factors in the fluctuating wage conventions come rates grades and sliding scales they cut the tangles but they fail to mark true lines of value for the worker's day and every worker's value varies too the standards shift as do the drifting sands the hourly sport of fickle ocean's waves alas the reeling reckoning of man on things that touch his duty and the right for truth the sage and priest make futile quest the good physician guesses remedies the judge but gropes and staggers at the law the daft reformer tilts at windmills still and with distorted eye the christian reads the very text that points the way to life if thus we live as in the dawn of truth the night still struggling for the mastery shall workers then denounce the elements or as by fierce delirium beset strike blindly out heeding and wrecking not what blows thus given may shatter and destroy so that like samson desperate and blind they might but wreak revenge in ruin's crash shall we be blameless if we warm and nurse the serpent anarchy to work our woe nay rather turn we to the fairer side of mysteries which faith must find yet dim for who can doubt that even ill-got gains damning the getter to the lowest depths by providence transmuted serve his plans the greedy grasp but for a moment holds the world of life inherits every hour houses and lands parks monuments and roads inventions schemes and purposes of power which dead hands can but drop and leave behind and if the stout-armed toiler proved a man in larger sense and moved by larger heart if as he seized the elements of strength whilst still in plenitude of worthy will he gave back freely to his weaker kin the well-earned product of his toil and thought then twice blest he who could both win and give the wealth that else might not have learned to bless patience shall conquer all not fierce recoil when man shall reach the topmost peaks of joy and in serenest mind look back on life shall dread destruction or impatience stand the almoner of grace and goodly gifts nay rather shall a stately christly form emerge upon the path so bravely trod and with a voice of gracious dignity proclaim i labor, am the friend of man, his teacher, guard, companion to the end.

By me his great achievements all are one.

So he becomes an individual, not a mere rote thinker of others' thoughts and not a mere parrot of other men's ideas.

Edwin Markham could never have written The Man with the Hoe had he lived only in the city.

He would never have seen deeply enough, and he would never have dared brave the conventional prejudices of the civilized world as he did in his poem had he been city bred.

But because he thought nakedly before God and his own soul, he was compelled to see the monstrousness of making a man, a son of God created in his image, a mere clod of clay.

He was the painter-poet of the toiler in the fields.

Among his best-known canvases are the Angelus, the Gleaners, the Sower, and the Man with the Hoe.

Eugène Fromentin, an artist and critic of eminent rank, gave this judgment on Millet.

An original painter, a lofty soul, a melancholy spirit, a nature truly rustic, has said of the country and country people, of the severity, the melancholy, and the nobility of their work, things which no Dutchman would ever have dreamed of looking for.

He spoke of the touching or sympathetical in biblical history, and of subjects he would like to or intended to paint.

The theme which most appealed to him in the New Testament was where Joseph and Mary are turned away from the door of the inn before the birth of the child, and in his description of the scene as he had conceived it, I saw the picture painted with all the tenderness and pathos of his art.

the man with the hoe sancier sent millet the animated versions on his man with the hoe millet responded all this gossip about my man with the hoe seems to me very strange and i am grateful to you for reporting it to me certainly i am surprised at the ideas which people are so good as to impute to me i wonder in what club my critics have ever seen me they call me a socialist but really i might reply with the poor carrier from auvergne they call me a saint simonian that's not true i do not even know what it means is it then impossible simply to accept the ideas that come into one's mind at the sight of the man who eats bread by the sweat of his brow there are people who say that i see no charms in the country i see much more than charms there infinite splendors i see as well as they do the little flowers of which christ said i say unto you that even solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these I see very well the aureoles of the dandelions and the sun spreading his glory in the clouds over the distant worlds, but nonetheless I see down there in the plain the steaming horses leading the plough, and in a rocky corner a man quite worn out, whose toil began with dawn, and who tries to straighten himself and take breath for a moment.

The drama is surrounded with splendor.

So he becomes an individual, not a mere rote thinker of others' thoughts and not a mere parrot of other men's ideas.

Edwin Markham could never have written The Man with the Hoe had he lived only in the city.

He would never have seen deeply enough, and he would never have dared brave the conventional prejudices of the civilized world as he did in his poem had he been city bred.

But because he thought nakedly before God and his own soul, he was compelled to see the monstrousness of making a man, a son of God created in his image, a mere clod of clay.