Here is a very good analysis of the artistic nature: “Il ressent une véritable émotion, mais il s’arrange pour la montrer. Il fait un peu ce que faisait cet acteur de l’antiquité qui, venant de perdre son fils unique et jouant quelque temps après le rôle d’Electre embrassant l’urne d’Oreste, prit entre ses mains l’urne qui contenait les cendres de son enfant, et joua sa propre douleur, dit Aulus Gellius, au lieu de jouer celle de son rôle. Ce melange de l’émotion naturelle et de l’émotion théatrale est plus fréquent qu’on ne croit, surtout à certaines époques quand le raffinement de l’Education fait que l’homme ne sent pas seulement ses émotions, mais qu’il sent aussi l’effet qu’elles peuvent produire. Beaucoup de gens alors, sont naturellement comédiens; c’est à dire qu’ils donnent un rôle à leurs passions: ils sentent en dehors au lieu de sentir en dedans; leurs émotions sont _en relief_ au lieu d’être _en profondeur_.”—_St. Marc Girardin._ I think Margaret Fuller must have had the above passage in her mind when she worked out this happy illustration into a more finished form. She says:—“The difference between the artistic nature and the unartistic nature in the hour of emotion, is this: in the first the feeling is a cameo, in the last an intaglio. Raised in relief and shaped _out_ of the heart in the first; cut _into_ the heart, and hardly perceptible till you take the impression, in the last.” And to complete this fanciful and beautiful analogy, we might add, that because the artistic nature is demonstrative, it is sometimes thought insincere; and insincere it _is_ where the form is hollow in proportion as it is cast outward, as in the casts and electrotype copies of the solid sculpture. And because the unartistic nature is undemonstrative, it is sometimes thought cold, unreal; for of this also there are imitations; and in passing the touch over certain intaglios, we feel by contact that they are not so deep as we supposed. God defend us from both! from the hollowness that imitates solidity, and the shallowness that imitates depth! [Illustration] 124. Goethe said of some woman, “She knew something of devotion and love, but of the pure admiration for a glorious piece of man’s handiwork—of a mere sympathetic veneration for the creation of the human intellect—she could form no idea.” This may have been true of the individual woman referred to; but that female critics look for something in a production of art beyond the mere handiwork, and that “our sympathetic veneration for a creation of human intellect,” is often dependent on our moral associations, is not a reproach to us. Nor, if I may presume to say so, does it lessen the value of our criticism, where it can be referred to principles. Women have a sort of unconscious logic in these matters. [Illustration] 125.