ESSAYS  AND  ADDRESSES
His dialectic remains still unrivalled in precision
and clearness, while with him passion appears rea-
sonable and reason is twice reason, so far is this
marvelous writer from seeking after effect.
If now we pass from the domain of literature
into the field of art, and particularly of painting,
—since it is only from the greater manifestations
of intellectual activity that we can define the spirit
of a race and the measure of influence that it exerts
on the world—what do we find? The same phe-
nomena, flowing from the same cause. From Clouet
to Poussin, from David to Puvis de Chavannes,
French tradition perpetuates itself almost without
interruption. It brings into the reproduction of
forms a precision, a clearness, a conscientiousness
which fall little short of actual severity. This we
must realize in order to fully appreciate the lofty
significance of the words spoken by one of our
greatest masters, Mr. Ingres, who claimed this sin-
cerity, this conscientiousness as an honor and who
said, summing up in one expression all the tenden-
cies of our genius : " Drawing is the probity of art."
The same may be said of sculpture ; but here the
very conditions under which the artist labors, the
precision to which he is compelled by the working
of marble, the nature of his resources which de-
prives him of the occasionally deceptive possibilities
of colors, and leaves him naught save the reality of
form, all these facts which make of sculpture an art
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