The sight of a modern monument throws one into melancholy even while an ancient one has not ceased to enrapture. I visit a small city, and, losing my train, am obliged to wait for the next one. I take a walk about the ancient church, a delicious thing, very simple, but with its Gothic ornaments placed with taste, in a delicate relief that, in the light, provides an enchantment for my friendly glances. In the little nave, which invites to calm, to thought,--thought as soft and composed as the light shadows that move slowly across the pillars,--I settle myself. Ah, I come away charmed. If I had waited in the station, I would have been wearied to death, and would have returned home fatigued and discontented. As it is, I have gained something--the beautiful counsels of moderation and the fine charm of a monument of former days. Art alone gives happiness. And I call art the study of nature, the perpetual communion with her through the spirit of analysis. He who knows how to see and feel may find everywhere and always things to admire. He who knows how to see and feel is preserved from ennui, that _bête noire_ of modern society. He who sees and feels deeply never lacks the desire to express his feelings, to be an artist. Is not nature the source of all beauty? Is she not the only creator? It is only by drawing near to her that the artist can bring back to us all that she has revealed to him. When one says this, the public thinks it a commonplace. All the world believes that it knows that; but it knows it only in seeming, the truth penetrates only the superficial shell of its intelligence. There are so many degrees in real comprehension! Comprehension is like a divine ladder. Only he who has reached the top rounds has a view of the world. The public is astonished or shocked when some one goes against its preconceived notions, against the prejudices of a badly interpreted or degenerate tradition. Words are nothing; the deed alone counts. It is not by reading manuals of esthetics, but by leaning on nature herself that the artist discovers and expresses beauty. Alas! we are not prepared to see and to feel. Our sorry education, far from cultivating in us the feeling for enthusiasm, makes us in our youth little pedants who without result overwhelm ourselves and others with our pretensions. Those who too late, by long efforts, escape this demon of folly arrive only after that education has fatally sapped their strength and has destroyed the flower of enthusiasm that God had planted in them as a sign of His paradise. People without enthusiasm are like men who carry their flags pointed down to the ground instead of proudly above their heads.