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Bel. And so it does. But remember very general idea prevalent that the big is that Dogberry also says and his judg- the great, and that it is size that constiment in such matters you surely will not tutes grandeur. I have heard it constantly question- God is to be worshipped; all boasted, for instance, that the so-called men are not alike; alas! good neighbor." monument to Washington, in the city of And when Leonato says to this, "Indeed, Washington, was the tallest obelisk in the neighbor, he comes too short of you,' "world- as if that was in itself a great recDogberry replies, "Gifts that God gives." ommendation of it as a work of art. Το Mal. "It shall be suffigance!" I will which I have ventured to answer, yes, say no more. Dogberry also is right. perhaps. But it is not, correctly speaking, There are gifts that God gives. If the an obelisk, to begin with, for an obelisk creative power be wanting that moulds the proper should be a monolith. But I am material to its purpose, nothing great ever willing to own that it is the tallest chimney will be achieved. But without the addi- in the world, and, I will also add, the most tional gifts of courage and will, whatever useless and the ugliest. And besides, is the power, it will come to nothing. it has not only no use, but no meaning Bel. It is a common notion that no gen- and no appropriateness as a memorial to eral education or high culture is necessary Washington. We are now also loudly to the artist, but that art is a special fac- called upon to admire the Eiffel Tower ulty, a handicraft, a gift requiring no edu- just erected at Paris, on the ground that it cation save in its practice. No mistake is the highest in the world, and has I could, as it seems to me, be greater. It is know not how many steps and stories. only from the pressure of full and lofty But has mere size any claims on our adstreams that the fountain owes the exul-miration in a work of art? Some of the tant spring of its column. The imagination needs to be fed from high sources, and strengthened and enriched to fulness, before it can freely develop its native force. The mere drilling of hand and eye, the mere technical skill, nay, even the natural bias and faculty of the mind, are not sufficient. They are indeed necessary, but they are not all. It is from the soul and mind that the germs of thought and feeling must spring; and in proportion as these are nourished and expanded by culture do they flower forth in richer hues and forms. It is by these means that the taint of the vulgar and common is eradicated, that ideas are purified and exalted, that feeling and thought are stimulated, and taste refined. Out of the fulness of the whole being each word is spoken, and each act takes the force of the whole man. It is not alone the athlete's arm that strikesit is his whole body. The blacksmith's arm in itself may be stronger, but his blow is far less effective.

smallest are among the grandest that ever were made; some of the largest the most inane and empty. What rare Ben Jonson says of life is equally true of art

In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.

Bel. Yes; and on the other hand, it is not minuteness of finish and elaboration of detail which are primarily to be desired. A great work can afford to be imperfect in detail. Where the grand conception and impression are, there is the great work. But between the claims of realism on the one side and idealism on the other, the true mean seems to be pretty hard to hit.

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Mal. Did I ever say art was easy? Nothing that is great is easy or common. There is no clearly defined road, more than for the bird in the air. One must know it by intuition and feel it by internal conviction. What is it that makes your music Mozartish?" asked some one of that great composer. "I know not," he Mal. Undoubtedly; but on the other answered; "it is as it comes to me." hand, the public, on whose approbation And where does it come from? Ah! who the artist to a certain extent depends, re- knows? That which is force or power quires equally to be educated, for without or individuality in any work is an unconthis the higher fruit of art cannot be tasted scious effluence from the spirit of the or appreciated. While the general edu-artist. He knows not how or whence it cation of the public in art is so deficient, comes. He only knows that it is impecriticism must necessarily be low and rious, and he must obey. ignorant. All that we can ask is, that it be not also arrogant.

Bel. There is no doubt that a taste and knowledge in art are rapidly growing in America.

Mal. Very true; but as yet there is a

Bel. Which do you think the higher art — painting or sculpture?

Mal. Neither or either. The cup is nothing. It is what you put into it that is of value. Each art has its great difficulties, and it is not easy to say which has

Mal. It is far less understood and far less popular, certainly. A picture appeals to a much larger number than does a statue. To feel and understand the beauty of the statue requires more knowledge and more culture. Few are capable of criticising it in its execution with intelligence. Its refinements of treatment, its delicate modelling, its picked truth to nature, are for the most part lost on the crowd. The public appreciate neither its anatomical accuracy nor its subtle expression of the human form; because the naked figure is so rarely seen, and so unfamiliar, that few are able to say whether it is right or wrong. All the finest parts of the execu tion are "caviare to the general." The public are only capable of understanding the expression and the pose.

the greater. Still, in one sense, sculpture | since then there have been scarcely any is the higher art, in my estimation for great sculptors to compare with the great the reason that, while its means are far painters. I do not speak of the present more limited, its requisitions are greater time, for that would be invidious; but up and higher. It is at once more positive to our time there is scarcely a sculptor, and more ideal. It has the highest re- except Michel Angelo, entitled to be quirements and the poorest means. Its called great, or whose works are to be ends are more difficult, its beginnings far placed beside those of the renowned paintmore easy. To mould the pliant clay into ers. Nay, even Michel Angelo himself some sort of material resemblance to any was perhaps greater in fresco than in marform is not difficult it is in the grasp of ble. This would seem to show that sculp. almost every one. But to conceive a great ture is at least a more difficult art than statue and embody a noble idea not painting. At all events, Michel Angelo, simply by imitation of the model, but by a so excellent in both arts, gave the higher grand treatment of form, and a noble char- rank to sculpture. acter of design and expression, - this is doubtless as difficult a task as can be set to an artist. There is every grade, from a mud pie of a child to the work of Phidias. But, on the other hand, painting has the great requirements of tone and harmonious coloring which are avoided in sculpture, so that these difficulties nearly balance each other. Again, painting is more illusory, more imitative, more literal in its aims. It may please and enchant by literal reproductions of actual facts in nature. The whole field of genre, the facts and incidents of daily life, and the wide range of landscape, are open to it; while in sculpture a higher and more restricted class of subjects is demanded, and a nobler treatment of forms. It cannot stoop to genre without losing its true characteristics. It has only form to deal with, it is true, but that form must be ideal in its character, and while in nature, must also be above nature. If it content itself with copying the model, it degenerates into commonplace, and abdicates its highest functions. The pure imitation which pleases in painting by creating a partial illusion, is denied to sculpture. Besides, a statue must be right, harmonious, and effective from every point of view and in every light and shade. And, last, sculpture is restricted for the most part to a single figure, or at most to two or three, and into this everything must be put. In a word, it is the most material and the most ideal art. Each, however, has its great difficulties, and it is idle to put one above the other.

Bel. One thing at least is certain, that many more artists have attained great excellence in painting than in sculpture. The great sculptors are very few; the great painters many. Setting aside the Greeks, with whom the two arts seem to have been nearly balanced, as far as history informs us, there is no doubt that

Bel. The taste for sculpture seems to be growing of late, and especially among the Americans. They buy more statues, I am told, than any other nation. The English seem to care little for it, and to prefer painting. How do you account for this?

Mal. You have only to breathe the English atmosphere, and see the English landscape, to understand this. Everything is color in England- and even more, water-color. The atmosphere is thick and humid, and obliterates form. Everything is saturated or washed in color. On the contrary, the American atmosphere is tense and dry, revealing the outlines of everything, and insisting on form. The distances are clear- the far-off hill is drawn sharply on the sky. The trees are not blotted as in England, but defined and etched upon it. The form asserts itself far more strongly than the color. So it is in Greece, where sculpture attained its largest proportions and its finest expression.

Bel. That is ingenious - but is it true? Mal. I think so. You will see these characteristics in the minds and in the per

Bel. You seem to make out your case. Certainly there is a great difference between the general appearance of the English and the American. There is something charming in the one as of a rose, and in the other of a lily. Where the English have the advantage over the Americans is in their voices and intonations. An English woman's voice is a pleasure to hear

so sweet and low, and pleasant in its modulations- while the Americans whine with a high-pitched voice. I wish they would correct this. You know them "as the blind man knew the cuckoo by the bad voice."

Mal. They sing better than the English, because the English never can fully utter their voice and throw it out.

sons of the people, as well as in their art. The American is slenderer and more nervous in his material organization, more metaphysical in his intellect, more irritable in his temperament, than the Englishman. His sharp, thin air acts always on him as a stimulus. It will not let him rest, but whips him on. The brilliant sunshine is like a wine that intoxicates him. It eats away his flesh, turns muscle into tendon, and refines and quickens his perceptions. So we find him always inquiring, investigating, questioning, inventing, working. His perceptions dominate his sentiments. He is always organizing and reorganizing, and inventing, and putting things into shape. Everything runs to form rather than to color in his mind. He must have things definite and decided. The En- Bel. Certainly the American girls are glishman has more equipoise. His sus- sometimes very handsome, and they genceptibilities are more blunted; he is less erally have a refinement of look and feanervous and more contented, calmer- ture, if not of manner. In their ways, too, minded, and steadier of purpose. He has there is a certain wild wilfulness and indehis loyal sentiments, his fixed habits, his pendence which, when it does not go too regular formulas of life and thought, his far (as it frequently does), is very attractive. quiet prejudices, and, in a word, his inertia Mal. The English have had at least of nature. He is fonder of facts than of one great sculptor - Flaxman. He was metaphysics. He is full of general im- a man of rare genius and a most refined pressions, and does not like to be dis-imagination—almost a Greek born out of turbed in them. His sentiments dominate his time and country. His illustrations and color his perceptions and opinions. to Homer and Eschylus are full of reHis face and figure are vaguer in outline strained grace and simplicity, and admithan the American's, and fuller of color.rable in their character and composition. He is fitter for a picture than for a bust. Much of this difference undoubtedly is to be attributed to the influences of climate; for even the unmixed English blood in America has already lost its type, and developed a new one. Take an English girl, and put her beside an American girl whose ancestry is pure English, and there is a remarkable difference between them in shape, nature, and color. The American, as a rule, is slenderer, fairer, and slighterlimbed, thinner featured, and more vivacious and excited in manner. The English girl is fuller, rosier in color, heavier in build, and calmer. The voice of the American is thin and high, that of the English girl is rich and low. But where you will find the greatest physical difference is in the feet and hands. The American's foot is small, thin, high-arched, and tendonous in the ankle. The English girl's is plump, flat, and full in the ankle. There is the same difference in the hands. Take a cast from an American and an English foot, and any one can distinguish them with half an eye. All the attachments, as they are called, are longer and more tendonous in the American than in the English.

His illustrations of Dante are very inferior to them, though full of talent. His life, however, was spent in making monuments and allegorical figures for which he had no taste, but which the public demanded. But he will be remembered by the ideal works which the public refused and rejected. I think, for only one of his outlined compositions did he ever receive a commission, and that was for the Mercury and Pandora which is among his drawings from Hesiod.

Bel. His power seems to have been best exhibited in his outlines. In the technical parts of his art, and in his modelling and manipulation, he was as clumsy as he was refined and poetic in his conceptions. At least, so I should judge from the modelled bas-reliefs of his which I have seen. Mal. It is very true. He did not model well at least, all the casts from his models that I have seen are carelessly executed, and, in fact, mere sketches. But perhaps I have not seen any of what he could consider his finished models.

Bel. You were reproaching modern art the other day for its slavish following of nature, and saying that we could never attain a high development of art so long

Mal. Exactly! That is what is wanted in art-the consecration, and the poet's dream—and without it there is no real art in the highest sense of the word. Bel. One moment before you go on.ited to that fact. Yet even that one fact These lines of Wordsworth reminded me of a passage in Shelley which very closely