Ocean encompassed the earth. This craving for accuracy, which I like in principle, has given rise to the necessity of seeking a model for everything which is represented. Painters will not touch a brush, nor sculptors the clay, without a model before them. Following their example, modern novelists carry a notebook in their pocket, to put down what they hear. They all think it ridiculous to work from memory, and yet this was the method among great artists of past centuries. Rubens could not have had models for the thousands of figures he painted. The proof of this is that he painted even landscapes from memory, and there exists one of his, in which the light comes from two opposite sides, which is absurd. And yet the picture is very beautiful. Neither Shakespeare, Molière, nor Balzac witnessed the scenes they describe, nor knew the characters they represent. Schiller confessed that his retired and hard-working life gave him very few opportunities of observing The model may then be necessary, but we must confess it shows a want of power.

men.

The painter, be it Rubens, Vinci, or Titian, has nature impressed on his brain; it suffices him to have seen an object to be able to draw it with a sure hand, even when hidden by time and distance. The poet has no need to see what he writes. He bears in himself the entire soul of humanity, and a slight sign suffices for him to recognise it in any man. It is in him and in the saint that we see most clearly the essential identity of human beings, for both know intuitively, directly and without the necessity of experience, the heart of man. "I should disguise from myself a grave fact," said Saint Juan de la Cruz to his hearers, " did I ignore that your souls form part of mine. You and I are distinct beings in the world, in God is our common origin, thus we are one being and live one life."

For those novelists, whose imagination has not risen to that supreme height of strength to permit them to write without careful daily observation, real data is of absolute necessity, but as a powerful aid to the imagination, I venture to counsel the contemplative, not practical, study of the plastic arts. The novelist ought to frequent museums of painting and sculpture, to accustom

himself to describe by means of clear and precise images. Moreover, it is a means of counteracting the fatal mania for psychological analysis, as artificial as it is false, which now prevails. Neither Cervantes, Shakespeare, nor Molière required such full voluminous pages to make us see a character, to make it live for us, to engrave it profoundly on our memory.

It is only just, however, to show, that if the modern novel has erred in these fanciful analyses which spoil it, it has avoided one rock on which old masters were frequently stranded, and that is, reflections. There is nothing more prejudicial to the beauty of a novel than this philosophising, vulgar when it is not puerile, with which many novelists season their productions. Interpreting at every step the hidden meaning of the incidents narrated, and explaining their significance, is insupportable, and militates against the fundamental principles of art. In the novel it is not the author who should speak, but the incidents and characters, and if the work involve any philosophy the reader should find it out for himself. Not to trust to his perspicacity and give it him hot and strong, as Balzac does, for instance, is to spoil the novel and expose it at once to the critic's just remark, that his philosophy is that of a commercial traveller.

Another important merit of the modern naturalistic school is, in my opinion, the importance given to the description of nature, thus uniting the tie, so long ruptured in literature, between man and the exterior world. Since the Indian and Greek poems, objective beauty has not been so exalted, nor has landscape been word painted in such a perfect manner as the French naturalists do it at present. They have acquired such perfection in this line, their clear and flexible idiom gives them such a large vocabulary, that it seems impossible to present a brighter and more perfect picture of the world about us. The novels of Flaubert, especially, cannot be read without feeling oneself subjugated by that pure and picturesque diction which brings before our eyes so many gracious forms and so many brilliant pictures. Nevertheless, this fortunate quality has been abused. The disciples of that master have brought their love of description to such a pitch that the characters and

situations are hardly visible through such thick foliage. Every art has limits drawn by its own nature. When these limits are attempted to be modified or widened, the result is ruin. The abuse of description in literary works marks an intrusion of painting into the realms of poetry. Every one knows the inimical effects of this intrusion of one art upon another.

The violation of sculpture in the attempt to make it express the same as painting is what has denaturalised it in modern times. Making music express concrete ideas, only fit for poetry, is the cause of its deplorable decadence. It is to be feared that the attention given to the mise en scène will finally produce the same feebleness and mannerism in literature as it has in painting. In the latter we see details, clothes, furniture, etc., represented in a marvellous way, whilst there is no good painter of the person. Great masters like Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Velasquez, and Titian, on the contrary, did not excel in clothes and other accessories, but concentrated their powers and attention on the other points. Moreover, in poetry the excess of physical descriptions points to the predominance of the physiological over the psychological element, the same as the abuse of harmony in music. The brilliant descriptions of the naturalistic school court the imagination, and help on the work, but such novels rarely leave a deep impression on the mind. In like manner the exquisite harmonies of Wagner and his school delight the ear, but they do not move the soul like the eloquent voice of Beethoven, neither do they make one pass alternately from sadness to joy, like the charming music of Haydn.

To attain a perfect harmony between the background and the figures, and generally between all the elements of the composition, one must imitate the Greeks. They alone have possessed the secret of producing beauty in every point without injury to any one of them, exhibiting the greatest richness united to the greatest sobriety of representing in art the profound harmonies that exist in the real world. The little that remains to us in the Greek romantic line is of as much solid value as its architecture, its sculpture, and its tragedy and comedy. Nothing can equal Daphne and Chloe, the celebrated novel by Longus. In it are

united all the perfections of its kind. A simple, interesting story, characters observed with nicety, and presented unaffectedly, exquisite pictures of nature, bright descriptions of customs, a noble and transparent style, all unite to form an enchanting harmony in this beautiful creation. Every word is a Every word is a pencil stroke, every speech an image, every page a brilliant picture, which is stamped for ever on the imagination. What a vein of facile inspiration runs through it all! What freshness and sobriety in the descriptions! What naturalness in the diction! How far removed from the modern emphasis! I aspire to no greater glory in my art than that of calling myself an humble disciple of this immortal work.

This aspiration may perhaps seem ridiculous to modern criticism, or it may be called extravagant. Possibly the preceding remarks will be considered as the expression of a mind incapable of appreciating or understanding either the beauty and the splendour or the profound and powerful thought of the contemporaneous novel. I know that my modest remarks will in no wise influence the prevailing taste. This does not mortify me: firstly, because I have never aspired to exercise the least influence on my times; and secondly, because to change my opinions it would be necessary to change my nature, which is impossible. But nobody should wonder that in my dreamy hours I imagine that, after some years, Europe, fatigued with so much excess, want of proportion, and so much false originality, will once more drink at the crystal fount of Hellenic art. Then our present spurts of strength will be regarded as spasmodic ebullition of a weakened nervous system: they will say that we delighted in representations of physical and moral infirmities, because we were ourselves infirm in body and mind; that we felt ourselves attracted by the deformed and monstrous, because our own evolution was deformed; and that we loved paradox, because our being was paradoxical. And quiting the tortuous paths we trod, and leaving the altars of the Furies, on which we sacrificed, artists of the future will at last walk along the path of moderation, which is the sign of strength, and will deposit the fruits of their intellect at the feet of the Graces. Happy shall I be if I be granted life, long enough to see, albeit from afar, the

promised land! If this be impossible, I am still consoled by the idea that someone reading these lines will approve the spirit of them and accord me his sympathy; and after according a cordial welcome to this kind reader, I will say to him, as the sage Yajnavalkya said to Artabhaga in "el Brahmana de los cien senderos" (The Brahmana of the Hundred Paths): "Give me your hand, friend, this knowledge was only made for you and me.”

C. Palais Valdis