Bernhardt or the silence of Duse as in a face painted by Leonardo or a poem written by Blake.  A dance, performed faultlessly and by a dancer of temperament, is as beautiful, in its own way, as a performance on the violin by Ysaye or the effect of an orchestra conducted by Richter.  In each case the beauty is different, but, once we have really attained beauty, there can be no question of superiority.  Beauty is always equally beautiful; the degrees exist only when we have not yet attained beauty.

And thus the old prejudice against the artist to whom interpretation in his own special form of creation is really based upon a misunderstanding.  Take the art of music.  Bach writes a composition for the violin:  that composition exists, in the abstract, the moment it is written down upon paper, but, even to those trained musicians who are able to read it at sight, it exists in a state at best but half alive; to all the rest of the world it is silent.  Ysaye plays it on his violin, and the thing begins to breathe, has found a voice perhaps more exquisite than the sound which Bach heard in his brain when he wrote down the notes.  Take the instrument out of Ysaye’s hands, and put it into the hands of the first violin in the orchestra behind him; every note will be the same, the same general scheme of expression may be followed, but the thing that we shall hear will be another thing, just as much Bach, perhaps, but, because Ysaye is wanting, not the work of art, the creation, to which we have just listened.

That such art should be fragile, evanescent, leaving only a memory which can never be realised again, is as pathetic and as natural as that a beautiful woman should die young.  To the actor, the dancer, the same fate is reserved.  They work for the instant, and for the memory of the living, with a supremely prodigal magnanimity.  Old people tell us that they have seen Desclee, Taglioni; soon no one will be old enough to remember those great artists.  Then, if their renown becomes a matter of charity, of credulity, if you will, it will be but equal with the renown of all those poets and painters who are only names to us, or whose masterpieces have perished.

Beauty is infinitely various, always equally beautiful, and can never be repeated.  Gautier, in a famous poem, has wisely praised the artist who works in durable material: 

  Oui, l’oeuvre sort plus gelle
  D’une forme au travail
  Rebelle,
  Vers, marbre, onyx, email.

No, not more beautiful; only more lasting.

  Tout passe.  L’art robuste
  Seul a l’eternite. 
     Le buste
  Survit a la cite.