“I began by following the antique, but when I went to Italy I was carried away by the great Florentine master, and my work has certainly felt the effects of this passion. “Since then, especially more of late years, I have returned to the antique. [Illustration: LA PIETÀ By Michael Angelo ] “The favorite themes of Michael Angelo, the depths of the human soul, the sanctity of effort and of suffering, have an austere grandeur. But I do not feel his contempt of life. Earthly activity, imperfect as it may be, is still beautiful and good. Let us love life for the very effort which it exacts. “As for me, I ceaselessly endeavor to render my outlook on nature ever more calm, more just. We should strive to attain serenity. Enough of Christian anxiety, in the face of the great mystery, will always remain in us all.” [Illustration: ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE By Rodin Photogravure reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art ] CHAPTER XII ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST I The day before the _vernissage_ (varnishing day), I met Auguste Rodin at the Salon de la Société Nationale in Paris. He was accompanied by two of his pupils, themselves past-masters: the sculptor Bourdelle, who was this year exhibiting a fierce Hercules piercing the Stymphalian birds with his arrows, and Despiau, who models exquisitely clever busts. All three had stopped before a figure of the god Pan, which Bourdelle had whimsically carved in the likeness of Rodin, and the creator of the work was excusing himself for the two small horns which he had set upon the master’s forehead. “You had to do it,” Rodin replied, laughing, “because you are representing Pan. Michael Angelo gave just such horns to his _Moses_. They are the emblem of omnipotence and omniscience, and I assure you that I am flattered to have been so favored by your attentions.” As it was now noon, Rodin invited us all three to lunch with him somewhere in the neighborhood. We passed out into the Avenue des Champs Élysées, where beneath the crude young green of the chestnut-trees the motors and carriages slipped by in shining files, all the brilliance of Parisian life flashing here from its brightest and most fascinating setting. “Where are we going to lunch?” Bourdelle asked, pausing with comical anxiety. “In the big restaurants about here we shall be waited upon by solemn men-servants in dress-coats, which I cannot bear. They frighten me. I advise some quiet little restaurant where the cabbies go.” [Illustration: LA FRANCE By Rodin Presented to the people of the United States of America by the French nation for the base of the Champlain Monument at Crown Point ] “The food is really better there than in these gorgeous places,” Despiau declared. “Here the food is too sophisticated.”