We were walking along the rotunda which serves as the atelier. There under the peristyle many charming bits of antique sculpture have found shelter. A little vestal, half-veiled, faces a grave orator wrapped in his toga, while not far from them a cupid rides triumphant upon a great sea-monster. In the midst of these figures two Corinthian columns of charming grace raise their shafts of rose-colored marble. The collection here of these precious fragments shows the devotion of my host to the art of Greece and Rome. Two swans were drowsing upon the bank of a deep pool. As we passed they unwound their long necks and hissed with anger. Their savageness prompted me to the remark that this bird lacks intelligence, but Rodin replied, laughing: “They have that of line, and that is enough!” As we strolled on, small cylindrical altars in marble, carved with garlands, appeared here and there in the shade. Beneath a bower, clothed with the luxuriant green of a sophora, a young Mithra without a head sacrificed a sacred bull. At a green crossway an Eros slept upon his lion-skin, sleep having overcome him who tames the beasts. [Illustration: THE CREATION OF MAN, OR ADAM By Rodin Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art ] “Does it not seem to you,” Rodin asked, “that verdure is the most appropriate setting for antique sculpture? This little drowsy Eros—would you not say that he is the god of the garden? His dimpled flesh is brother to this transparent and luxuriant foliage. The Greek artists loved nature so well that their works bathe in it as in their element.” Let us notice this attitude of mind. We place statues in a garden to beautify the garden. Rodin places them there that they may be beautified by the garden. For him, Nature is always the sovereign mistress and the infinite perfection. A Greek amphora, in rose-colored clay, which in all probability had lain for centuries under the sea, so encrusted is it with charming sea-growths, lies upon the ground at the foot of a box-tree. It seems to have been forgotten there, and yet it could not have been presented to our eyes with more grace—for what is natural is the supreme of taste. Further on we see a torso of Venus. The breasts are hidden by a handkerchief knotted behind the back. Involuntarily one thinks of some Tartuffe who, prompted by false modesty, has felt it his duty to conceal these charms. “Par de pareils objêts les âmes sont blessées Et cela fait venir de coupables pensées.” But surely my host has nothing in common with Molière’s prude. He himself explained his reason. “I tied that around the breast of this statue,” he said, “because that part is less beautiful than the rest.” Then, through a door which he unbolted, he led me on to the terrace where he has raised the eighteenth-century façade of which I have spoken.