Mr. Jerrold reports a discussion between Doré and Théophile Gautier, in which the roles of artist and man of letters are strangely reversed. "Gautier and Doré," he says, "disagreed fundamentally on the aims and methods of art. Gautier loved correctness, perfect form--the technique, in short, of art; whereas Doré contended that art which said nothing, which conveyed no idea, albeit perfect in form and color, missed the highest quality and raison d'être of art." What is plain from this is, that Gautier was an artist and cared first of all for art, while Doré was never an artist, properly speaking, at all, and never understood the artist's passion for perfection. To Doré, what was necessary was to express himself anyhow--who cared if the style was defective, the drawing bad, the color crude? The idea was the thing. His admirers can defend him only on this ground, and they adopt of necessity the Philistine point of view. The artists of Doré's time and country were very clear in their opinion. "The painters," says Mr. Jerrold, "said he could not paint." The sculptors admitted that he had ideas in his groups, but he was not sculpturesque. His friends protest against this judgment, and attribute it, _ad nauseam_, to "malevolence" and "envy." What if his technique was less brilliant than that of Hals, they say; what if his shadows are less transparent than those of Rembrandt (and they will make no meaner comparison)? He is "teeming with noble thoughts," and these will put his work "on a level with the masterpieces of the Italian masters of the sixteenth century." It is the conception, the creation--not the perfect painting of legs and arms and heads, the harmonious grouping, the happy and delicate combination of color--by which the observer is held spell bound. All these qualities, which his admirers grudgingly admit that Doré had not, are classed as "mere dexterity," and are not considered worth a second thought.