It is too early yet to fix definitely the position of Rodin in art. There is much sifting of his works to be done, for of all artists with a wide reputation, he was perhaps the most variable. Still he may be called one of the greater artists, and so is amongst the rare exceptions mentioned, for he executed one or two hideous figures, the most notable being La Vieille Heaulmière.[a] This cannot properly be described as a work of art because it is revolting to the senses: it is merely a species of writing--a hieroglyph, and Rodin's own apology for it is a direct condemnation, since a work of sculpture cannot be good if general opinion does not approve of it. He says[b]: What matters solely to me is the opinion of people of taste, and I have been delighted to gain their approbation for my La Vieille Heaulmière. I am like the Roman singer who replied to the jeers of the populace, _Equitibus Cano_. I sing only for the nobles; that is to say for the connoisseurs. The vulgar readily imagine that what they consider ugly is not a fit subject for the artist. They would like to forbid us to represent what displeases and offends them in nature. It is a great error on their part. What is commonly called "ugliness" in nature can in art become full of great beauty. In the domain of art we call ugly what is deformed, whatever is unhealthy.... Ugly also is the soul of the vicious or criminal man.... But let a great artist or writer make use of one or other of these uglinesses, instantly it becomes transfigured: with a touch of his fairy wand he has turned it into beauty: it is alchemy: it is enchantment. Rodin then goes on to refer to the description of ugly objects by the poets, in support of his argument that they may be represented by the painter! It was his error in confusing the objects of the literary with those of the plastic arts, that led him to carve La Vieille Heaulmière, for he admitted that he wished to put into sculpture what Villon had put into a poem. Professor Waldstein properly pointed out that, this being so, the observer of the sculpture should be provided with a copy of the poem when in front of the statue, adding[c]: and even then the work remains only the presentation of a female figure deformed in every detail by the wear and tear of time, and of a life ending in disease and nothing more. It is the worst form of literary sculpture, of which we have had so much by artists who represent the very opposite pole of the modern realists.