A true artist abhors the ascription of temperament, keeping within the sanctuary of his soul the ideal that is the mainspring of his creation. The true artist temperament is, in reality, the perception and appreciation of beauty, whether in pigment, form, tone, words, nature, or in the loftier region of moral rectitude. It may exist coevally with a strong religious sense. And it may be gayly pagan. But always for the serious artist the human body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, as Mother Church, profoundest of psychologists, has taught. The dignity of men and women dare be violated only at the peril of their immortal souls. The artistic temperament adds new values to every-day life and character. But its possessor must not parade this personal quality as an excuse for self-indulgence. That he leaves to the third-rate artisan, to the charlatan, to the buffoon who grins through a horse collar, to the vicious who shield their vileness behind a torrid temperament. Now, art and sex are correlated. Sex is the salt of life. Art without sex is flavorless, hardly art at all, a frozen simulacrum. All great artists are virile. And their greatness consists in the victory over their temperaments; not in the triumph of mind over matter--futile phrase--but in a synthesis, the harmonious comminglement of intellect and artistic material. Sensualist your artist may be, but if he is naught else, then his technical virtuosity avails him not. He cannot achieve artistic grandeur. The noblest art is the triumph of imagination over temperament. Too often a rainbow mirage is this entering into wedlock of two congenial souls. When He whispers--it is the marrying month of June and the moon swims above in the tender blue--“Why, dear, it is just as easy for two to live as one on fifty dollars a week,” the recording angel smiles, then weeps. Nor has the hardy young adventurer spiders on his ceiling. He dares to be a fool, and that is the first step in the path of wisdom. But She? Oh, She is enraptured. Naturally they will economize; occasional descents into cheap Bohemias; sawdust, pink wine, pinker wit, pinkest women. No new gowns. No balls. No theatres. No operas. No society. It is only to be Art, Art, Art! So they bundle their incompatible temperaments before an official and are made one. At least they are legally hitched. She plays the piano. He paints. A wonderful vista, hazy with dreams, spreads before them. She will teach a few pupils, keep up her practice, and save enough to study some day with a pupil of a pupil of Leschetizky. He will manfully paint, yes, a few portraits, though landscape is his ambition. But it is hard to resist the bribes of our dear common life. They try, they fail.