The Chimera replies, "I never stand still. Thou canst never grasp me, thou dread Sphinx." The Chimera gallops through the corridor of the labyrinth, flies across the sea, and holds fast with its teeth to the sailing clouds. The Sphinx lies motionless, tracing the alphabet in the sand with its claws, musing and calculating; and while the sea ebbs and flows, the grain waves to and fro, caravans pass by, and cities fall to decay, it keeps its firm gaze bent fixedly on the horizon. Finally it exclaims, "O phantasy! lift me up on thy pinions, out of my deadly ennui!" And Chimera replies, "Thou unknown one! I am enamored with thine eyes; like an inflamed hyena I circle about thee. Oh, embrace me! Fructify me!" The Sphinx rises up; but Chimera flees in terror of being crushed beneath the stony weight. "Impossible!" says the Sphinx, and sinks into the deep sand. I see in this scene the last confession of Flaubert, his stifled wail over the imperfection of his entire life-work, and this master-work of his life in especial. The Sphinx and the Chimera, science and poetry, desire each other in him, seek each other again and again, circle about each other with passionate yearning and ardor; but the true impregnation of poetry through science he did not accomplish. Not that his principle was unsound or incorrect. On the contrary, the future of poetry is embodied in it; this I most truly believe, for in it was its past. The greatest poets, an Æschylus, a Dante, a Shakespeare, a Goethe, possessed all the essential knowledge of their day, and deposited it in their poetry. True, erudition and scientific culture, in and for themselves, have no poetic value. They can never in the world take the place of poetic sentiment and artistic creative power. When the poetic endowment, however, exists, the gaze is sharpened by an acquaintance with the laws of nature and the human soul, and expanded by the study of history. In our day, when modern science is reconstructed in every direction, however, it is undoubtedly far more difficult than ever to span the materials of science without being overwhelmed, and Flaubert did not possess that native harmony of spirit which renders difficult things easy, and reconciles the profound antitheses of the world of ideas. "La Tentation de St. Antoine" was disposed of in Paris with a merry boulevard jest. Few people, indeed, had the patience to enter thoroughly into the volume, and the public at large was soon ready with its judgment: the book was mortally tedious. How could the author expect that such a work would entertain the Parisians? Now "Madame Bovary" was quite another thing. Why did not Flaubert repeat himself (as all poor writers do)? Why did not he write ten new "Madame Bovarys"?