It should hardly need to be said that the art of Théophile Gautier is a leisure-class art. These orgies are possible only in a slave civilization; they presuppose the fact that the masses shall toil to heap up wealth for a privileged few to destroy in a night of riot. At the very opening of “Mademoiselle de Maupin” the author portrays his hero, living at ease with a valet to serve him, and nothing to do but be discontented. “My idle passions growl dully in my heart, and prey upon themselves for lack of other food.” He is consumed with imaginings--all, needless to say, having to do with pleasures which he does not mean to earn. “I wait for the heavens to open, and an angel to descend with a revelation to me, for a revolution to break out and a throne to be given me, for one of Raphael’s virgins to leave the canvas and come to embrace me, for relations, whom I do not possess, to die and leave me what will enable me to sail my fancy on a river of gold,” etc. His dream finally takes the form of a woman, and he spends many pages in detailing her qualities. Needless to say, she belongs to the rioting classes. “I consider beauty a diamond which should be mounted and set in gold. I cannot imagine a beautiful woman without a carriage, horses, serving-men, and all that belongs to an income of a hundred thousand a year; there is harmony between beauty and wealth.” Of course this dream-woman must be entirely subject to the sensual desires of man. “I consider woman, after the manner of the ancients, as a beautiful slave designed for our pleasure.” Victor Hugo was exiled by Louis Napoleon; while Gautier, having “no political opinions,” remained in Paris and accepted financial favors from the tyrant. What he considered his master work was published at the age of forty-five, a volume of verse whose title explains its character, “Enamels and Cameos.” The art of poetry has become identical with that of the goldsmith; words are tiny jewels, fitted together with precise and meticulous care. Words have beauty, quite apart from their meaning, and the proper study for mankind is the dictionary. Poetry should have neither feeling nor ideas; while as for the subject, the more unlikely and unsuitable it is, the greater the triumph of the poet. This is not an effort to caricature Gautier’s doctrine, it is his own statement, the theme of one of his poems. But on no account are you to take this poem for propaganda!