translation which will satisfy the sense of style of which we have spoken.  When Art has satisfied this sense of style, the object of artistic expression has been attained; nothing more can be asked.  But it is not the “vain effort of an unproductive cleverness,” as our M. de Mun has said; it is an effort to satisfy a legitimate need, one of the loftiest and most honorable in human nature—­the need of art.

If this is so, why should we demand that Art be useful or moral?  It is both in its own way, for it awakens noble and honest sentiments in the soul.  That was the opinion of Theophile Gautier, but Victor Hugo disagreed.  The sun is beautiful, he used to say, and it is useful.  That is true, but the sun is not an object of art.  Besides, how many times Victor Hugo denied his own doctrine by writing verses which were merely brilliant descriptions or admirable bits of imagination?

We are, however, talking of art and not of literature.  Literature becomes art in poetry but forsakes it in prose.  Even if some of the great prose writers rendered their prose artistic through the beauty and harmony of their periods and the picturesqueness of their expressions, still prose is not art in its real nature.  So, crude indecency aside, what would be immoral in prose ceases to be immoral in verse, for in poetry Art follows its own code and form transcends the subject matter.  That is why a great poet, Sully-Prudhomme, preferred prose to verse when he wanted to write philosophically, for he feared, on account of the superiority of form to substance in poetry, that his ideas would not be taken seriously.  That explains as well why parents take young girls to hear an opera, when if the same piece was played without music they would be appalled at the idea.  What Christian is ever shocked by La Juive or Catholic frightened away from Les Huguenots?

Because prose is far removed from art, it is unsuited to music, despite the fact that this ill-assorted union is fashionable to-day?  In poetry there has been an effort to make it so artistic that form alone is considered and verse is written which is entirely without sense.  But that is a fad which can’t last long.

Sometime ago M. de Mun said: 

“Not to take sides is what the author is inhibited from doing.  Art, to my way of thinking, is a setting forth of ideas.  If it is not that—­if it limits itself solely to considerations of form, to a worship of beauty for its own sake, without regard to the deeds and thoughts it brings to light, then it seems to me no better than the vain effort of an unproductive cleverness.”

The eminent speaker is absolutely right as far as prose is concerned, but we cannot agree with him if poetry is considered.

Victor Hugo, in his marvellous ode, La Lyre et La Harpe brings Paganism and Christianity face to face.  Each speaks in turn, and the poet in his last stanza seems to acknowledge that both are right, but that does not prevent the ode from being a masterpiece.  That would not be possible in prose, but in the poem the poetry carries all before it.