For instance, neither Reynolds, Landseer nor Meissonier was a genius.  These men were strong, sane, well poised—­filled with energy and life.  They were receptive and quick to grasp a suggestion or hint that could be turned to their advantage—­to further the immediate plans they had in hand.  They had ambition and the ability to concentrate on a thing and do it.  Just what they focused their attention upon was largely a matter of accident.  They had in them the capacity for success—­they could have succeeded at anything they undertook, and they were too sensible to undertake a thing at which they could not succeed.  They always saw light through at the other end.

“I have success tied to the leg of my easel by a blue ribbon,” said Meissonier.

They succeeded by mathematical calculation, and the fame, name and gold they won was through a conscious laying hold upon the laws that bring these things to pass.

They chose to paint pictures, and the entire energy of their natures was concentrated upon this one thing.  Practising the art, day after day, month after month, year after year, they acquired a wonderful facility.  They knew the history of art—­its failures, pitfalls and successes.  They knew the human heart—­they knew what the people wanted and what they didn’t.  They set themselves to supply a demand.  And all this keenness, combined with good taste and tireless energy, would have brought a like success in any one of a dozen different professions.

And these are the men who give plausibility to that stern half-truth:  a man can succeed in anything he undertakes—­it is all a matter of will.

But you can not count Gustave Dore in any such category.  He stands alone:  he had no predecessors, and he left no successors.  We say that the artist has his prototype; but every rule has its exception—­even this one.

Gustave Dore drew pictures because he could do nothing else.  He never had a lesson in his life, never drew from a model, could not sketch from Nature; accepted no one’s advice; never retouched or considered his work after it was done; never cudgeled his brains for a subject; could read a book by turning the leaves; grasped all knowledge; knew all languages; found an immediate market for his wares and often earned a thousand dollars before breakfast; lived fifty years and produced over one hundred thousand sketches—­an average of six a day; made two million dollars by the labor of his own hands; was knighted, flattered, proclaimed, adored, lauded, scorned, scoffed, hooted, maligned, and died broken-hearted.

Surely you can not dispose of a man like this with a “bon mot”!

Comets may be good or ill, but wise men nevertheless make note of them, and the fact that they once flashed their blinding light upon us must live in the history of things that were.

* * * * *

An Alsatian by birth, and a Parisian by environment, Dore is spoken of as of the French School, but if ever an artist belonged to no “school” it was Gustave Dore.