The French talent is neither quite happy nor satisfactory in its “Classic,” its “Romantic,” or its “Scientific” manifestations. As a great “classic” or traditional artist you get Ingres. About him at present a considerable cult is in progress of springing up: whether it is a dealer’s manœuvre or a piece of French (and Allied) sentiment it is difficult to say. Probably it is both. But in the teeth of any fashion it should be easy to discern that Ingres, with all his dreary theatrical costume pieces of “classical” subjects is not as satisfactory an artist as Giotto, let us say, nor for that matter, as Raphael. His malicious and meticulous portraits give him a permanent and peculiar place. But it is not the place, nor quite the kind of place, that is being prepared for him. To admire Racine or Corneille, similarly, is an amusing game, but not a scientifically or emotionally exact proceeding. If it is true, for instance, that Racine should be praised for his psychological insight, I prefer to find that without going into such a barren region to look for it. As a “Romantic,” again, the Frenchman is a failure compared to the better equipped romantics of more romantic nations. Delacroix and Géricault are not as satisfactorily romantic as Turner; Victor Hugo’s novels are not as good romances as Hoffman’s or Dostoievsky’s. Dostoievsky is nearer the real and permanent romance of life. Turner is a delightful dreamer, nearer to the reality of romance than an equivalent Frenchman. When he becomes scientific in a reaction against Romance or Traditionalism, as in the case of the Impressionists, or Pointillistes, in painting, the Frenchman becomes _too_ scientific, in that likewise, to be quite real. The next thing you notice, having come to these conclusions, is that a variety of Frenchmen, Stendhal, Flaubert, Villon, Cézanne, Pascal, a big list--who form such a group, if stuck together, as to be more numerous than all the specific successes of another country put together--do not fit into the French national cadre. They are less local than the successes of other modern European countries. Dostoievsky, the most intoxicated of his worshippers must concede, has the blemish of being sometimes altogether too “Russian” to be bearable; too epileptic and heavy-souled. Turner had too much of the national prettiness of the “dreamy” Englishman. French Realism means, if it has a meaning, what these best Frenchmen had: they were almost realler than anything in the modern world. They have made France the true leader-country. But it is not what people generally mean, in this land or elsewhere, when they talk about the “realism of the French.” Reality is what you want, and not “realism.” And to find that, you must watch for some happy blending of the vitality of “Romance,” the coldness of “science,” and the moderation and cohesion of a “classical” mind. _The Uses of Fashion_