The poet's love of truth was evidently as ardent and as vehement as it had been when he had written his first novel. Now, however, in the presence of this victory over death and the past, it seemed absurd to speak of Flaubert's photographing. Therefore this new book yielded a more correct standpoint for the "realism" of its predecessor. That Flaubert could not be classed among those who were copyists of accidental truth, became clear. It was seen that his accuracy of description and information was rooted in a peculiar precision of imagination. He evidently possessed in an equally high degree the two elements that constitute the being of the artist: the gift of observation and the power of investing with form. He had the bias and the capacity for the study of nature and for historic study, the scrutinizing eye which no relation between details escaped. To speak now of photography in connection with him was impossible. For study implies activity, ardor, and an eye for the essential; while photography, on the other hand, is something passive, mechanical, and totally indifferent to the distinctions between essential and non-essential matters. And Flaubert, furthermore, had the temperament of the artist, that condition of mind which heats red-hot everything acquired by observation, marking it with its own stamp, and which reveals itself as style through the impress given. For what is style but the sensated result of the temperament, the medium by means of which an author compels the reader to see as he has seen! Style marks the difference between the artistically truthful delineation and a good photography, and style is omnipresent with Flaubert.