For a time Rodin's friends hoped that America, the nation of work par excellence, would seize upon this idea. They pictured the philanthropists of the New World in characteristic fashion pouring forth millions for this work of universal art and national glorification; they saw Rodin being called to the United States, gathering about him not only American artists, but all the intelligent forces of the world of culture. They saw the Tower of Labor, with its angels bestowing their benediction over some formidable industrial city, New York, Pittsburgh, or Chicago. This might have been the starting-point for a new era of art, for nothing is more contagious than the realization of beauty in actual form. Doubtless the writers of France did not discuss the matter long or forcibly enough, and the Tour de Travail, which might have been the ardent expression of a whole race, will remain the idea of a solitary genius, a last offshoot of the masters of the Middle Ages. But if the hour has not yet struck for the construction of the modern cathedral, at least we possess, thanks to the man who dreamed of erecting it, the secrets and principles of those who constructed the cathedrals of bygone days. * * * * * To acquire a thorough and fruitful understanding of the cathedrals, we must break away from the narrow and cold spirit of the present day. The spirit of our time does not harmonize in architecture with the monuments of the past. First let us contemplate the whole. The church is a cliff. The construction of the slender side springing up is quite in the spirit of our race. The Gothic towers are stones set up like Druidic monuments. The church is laid out like a dolmen, and the towers are the menhirs. Like the menhirs, they have beautiful, flexible lines; they possess the eloquence of natural outlines, which are never cold or meager. The line of the Gothic tower is slightly curved, swelling like that of a barrel. A straight line is hard and cold. The Greeks perceived that; they refrained from straight lines, and the columns of their temples also show a slight swelling. The two sides of the Gothic tower are not alike. The architects considered that preferable to obvious symmetry. Look at the Tour Saint-Jacques in Paris. One of the sides shows a long, sloping hollow, making it look quite different from the other, which, again, is like stones set on high. The hollowed line permits protuberances, details of ornamentation that soften and harmonize with the line of the ensemble. It has been restored, and therefore from near at hand seems cold, for our workmen have lost the science and art of modeling. But the beauty of the general structure remains; they could not detract from that.