The public pays little attention to these sublime masses because it is told that they are not _finished_. Not finished? Or infinite? That is the question. Far from weighing them down, the marble that envelops them throws about them the charm of the indeterminate and by means of this unites them with the atmosphere. The parts that are wholly disengaged enable one to divine those that remain hidden; they are veiled without being obliterated, like mountain-tops among the clouds; and this half-mystery, instead of diminishing, increases the harmony of the bodies trembling with life under their mantle of stone. In the presence of an effect so marvelous, so calculated, one cannot cease from asking if it was really death or if it was not rather the sovereign taste of the workman that arrested the chisel. While he was fashioning his statues out of the marble itself, with that fury that has passed into legend, did he not find himself, face to face with these unexpected effects which the material offered him of itself, in the midst of one of those happy situations by which the talent of the masters alone enables them to profit? However that may be, Rodin was struck as if by a revelation. What the progress of his work had tardily disclosed to Michelangelo was soon to become for his disciple a principle of decorative art. Instead of disengaging his figures entirely, he was to leave them half submerged in the transparent marble. This method, which has become famous to-day, seemed an unheard-of thing to those who were unfamiliar with the Florentine blocks; but Rodin has never failed to acknowledge the paternity of the sculptor of "The Thinker." Following in his steps, many artists have employed this method at random, without possessing the essential qualities that enable one to control these effects, and under their powerless chisels the enchanting device no longer possesses any meaning. [Illustration: THE THINKER.] Rodin himself waited until he possessed a thorough knowledge of marble and the manner of treating it; it was a stroke of fate by which he rediscovered the phenomena of envelopment that had so transported him in the Municipal Museum. He had by that time the wisdom to guard himself from doing anything inconsistent with his material. He followed out the suggestions it gave him, and developed an infinite variety in the methods of handling it. On his return from Italy he continued to be haunted by the unsurpassable vigor of Michelangelo's workmanship. He sought to discover what was the outstanding gift that conferred upon him this power and this mysterious empire over the spirit. Until then, with the majority of artists of the modern school, he had believed that the chief quality of sculpture lay in seizing the _character_ of the model; but he came to see how many works concerned only with expressing character fail of real significance. Since 1830 how many romanticists have sacrificed to character without leaving any works that are lasting!