The one offers herself; the other promises herself. The one is tenderness directed toward the past; the other smiles toward the future.

In the same gallery of the Luxembourg, there is that other famous head called "La Pensée." What a contrast! It is strangely bound within a block of marble, placed like a living head on a block. And yet it tells only of the slightly resigned calm of meditation, or of melancholy, without bitterness, of long autumn days, with their diffused brilliancy. The outlines are firm, regular, placid, of remarkable moderation in their distinction. The head leans forward, because thought is a weighty product. The brow and the eyes are the dominant features. On them the sculptor has focused all the light not only in the high lights, but in the still surface as well.

The caprice of the artist has covered this head with a light peasant-cap. This hides the details of the hair, and concentrates the glance on the face. "Caprice" expresses the idea badly, for it is taste and the will of the artist that have directed all. These dreamy features express the practical mysticism of women, the effort of in

From a photograph by De Witt C. Ward HEAD OF A YOUNG GIRL

telligent devotion. It makes one think of St. Geneviève, of Jeanne d'Arc, of the overwhelming courage of a weak being carried beyond and out of herself by a great purpose.

"La Pensée" has the striking character that almost all the busts of Rodin assume in the future, and which they owe on the one hand to their intense lifelikeness, and on the other to the atmosphere with which the sculptor surrounds them. There are no hard-and-fast limits which separate them from the circumambient air; on the contrary, they are bathed in it. The "blacks," which give a hard, dry look when used to excess, are handled marvelously. The women's busts, especially, almost start up before us with this slightly fantastic look of life increased tenfold, with the charm of phantoms of marble, monumental, and yet as light as beautiful mists.

These effects of light and shadow perhaps harmonize best with the softness and delicacy of the feminine flesh. They convey to us naturally the mystery of an inner life more secret, more intimate than that of man.

Even with works that are alike, the public does not recognize their common origin. It sees the result of an extraordinary amount of observation and intelligence, yet it does not reflect more than a child. For the public the sculptor, whoever he may be, is a creature of instinct, with a trained eye and hand, but without mind and culture. He is a sculptor, that is all. A common proverb strengthens the belief in this lasting folly. It may be told, then, that the master with whom we are dealing here studies his models not only as a sculptor, but as a writer would; that often his hand drops the chisel for the pencil, in order to set down his observation more exactly, to search even further into nature.

Perhaps the public will at last grasp the fact that the true artist, under penalty of ceasing to be one, must, above all, expend an amount of attention of which other men are incapable, and that it is by the power of attention that the strength of intelligence is measured. For example, Rodin is facing his model, a young woman stretched out in an attitude of repose. He writes, and in his style we find all the power of the great draftsman. He marks

From a photograph by De Witt C. Ward TERRA-COTTA FIGURE BY RODIN. EARLY WORK

the outlines, he specifies the details, slowly, patiently, with pertinacity. He never confuses the impression, always so ready to elude one-the impression, the divine reward of the artist.

PORTRAITS OF WOMEN

BY AUGUSTE RODIN

THE dazzling splendor revealed to the artist by the model that divests herself of her clothes has the effect of the sun piercing the clouds. Venus, Eve, these are feeble terms to express the beauty of

women.

The head leans to one side, the torso to the other, both inclining indolently, gracefully. This body has been glorified. The contours flow, descend, repose, like immortality personified. The breasts follow the same curve. The flowing lines are all

in the same direction. Unchangeable, heaving above the half-opened screen of the dress, the breath scarcely lifts them. It does not stir or agitate them.

The beautiful human monument is bal

anced in repose. It is unassailable. is the gradation of contours.

It

I do not draw them, but I see them in place, and my spirit is content, accustoms itself to the impression. In memory I still make drawings of this model, and these moving lines are repetitions, done over again a hundred times; for I repeat the drawing constantly, like a caress.

This torso resigns itself, like an Ariadne whose contours melt away in the evening, in the dark. But the lightning of day has flashed there. It is there always. It is now the pale gleam of flesh. My mind, carried along, takes this form as its model.

The hand, the arm, support the head, the sidelong glance from which is so full of sweetness. One might call it a "Mona Lisa" reposing. This head feels the need of resting on the supporting hand, a delicate support like the handle of a vase. Like an urn about to pour out its water, its thought, it inclines.

Lying back on the cushion, the head is in high relief. The features are placed according to their due regard, which is the very soul of balance. It has made the eyes symmetrical; the eyebrows straight; the nose, where beauty and symmetry meet, expressive of a wholesome conformity.

When a woman is very beautiful, she has the head of a lion. From the lion is copied that splendid regularity of the eyes, which the oval of the face accentuates. The tawny mane is also lion-like in its regularity and majesty, without any other expression.

Arches are formed of all the parts of the eye without effort. The hinges of the eyes open and close. The open mouth keeps back neither the thoughts nor the words that have been spoken. There is no need for her to speak. Her age, her thoughts, all is a confession here-the features, the arch of the frank, noble mouth, as well as the form of the nose and the sensitive nostrils.

And this infantile glance under a woman's eyelid! Our soul demands that, by an agreement with the heavens, the feminine glance be celestial.

How I bathe in the calm beauty of these

eyes, with their regular drawing! How they themselves declare their tranquil joy! Sometimes eyes like these seem to be inhabited by spirits. They close, and I see the horizontal lashes, the lower lid, which just rests against the upper. I see as a whole the soft oval of these long eyes, the double circle of the lids themselves, and the circle beneath, so modest now, but which one calls the circle of love.

The eyeball in moving shows the clear pupil, and all about it press the circles of the delicate lids. The soul finds a refuge in these secret hiding-places, and throws out its circles of attraction like a lasso. This sensual soul is the soul of beautiful portraits.

The cheeks curve against the socket of the eye; the double arch of the brows prolongs itself back of them. The surface of the cheeks extends to the extremity of the nose, forms a double depression by the sinking of the cheek, which grows hollow toward the convex lip, and surrounds the mouth and the two lips. These facial lines and surfaces all stop at the chin, toward which all the curves converge.

The facial expressions proceed from, spread, and move in another circle. They all disappear in the cheeks, just as do the movements of the mouth. One curve passes down from the ear to the mouth; a small curve draws back the mouth and also the nose a little. A circle passes under the nose, the chin, to the cheek-bones; a deep curve, which starts back to the cheek-bone, cuts in a small hollow to the eyebrow. The features are distinct; but when they move, they merge into one another. The smile passes over the face by a circle defining the mouth. The edge of the mouth is defined by a mezzotint at the point of union.

The loose hair surrounds the cheek, and the head seems like a golden fleece on a distaff. It hangs like loosened garlands. How beautifully these garlands of hair are arranged, with the profile in a three-quarter view, standing out against the fine, tawny hair! The impressive harmony between the flesh and the hair! They seem altogether in accord; they lend each other languor and charm; they are united and separated at the same time. These drooping clusters of chestnut-blond hair are a frame. One might call them long flowers hanging from the edge of a vase.

The neck no longer holds erect the head, which moves in ecstasy. It drowns itself in the wavy flow of hair, which becomes undone at the moment. This inundation of hair, so to say, what a generalized expression of opulence it is! Before its beauty I feel imbued with love. I am seized with enthusiasm aflame with it. This gold, this dull copper, are like a field of grain, a field of corn, where the sheaves are of gold bound together. These sheaves, slightly disordered in their lengthening curves, turning in all directions, imitate the tone of subdued flesh tints.

In this veil, transparent and colored like a dead leaf, the ear is hidden in this shadow, where the hair flies back at random in strands, twists about, and re

turns.

O head, beautiful ornament, drooping against the edge of the couch like a lovely motive in architecture at the edge of a console! You express the prolonged weakness of a lovely languor. The shoulder extends its beautiful curve before the face, resting on its side; the line rises, passes near the nose, descends, and shows the red line of the mouth, just as the bees continually enter and go out of the opening of the hive. The face turns, but the eye returns to me, passes by me, and again gazes

upon me.

In it there is the softness of the dog's eye, a spirit which becomes motionless when the tyranny of passion has disappeared. When passion is in control, she sucks like a vampire that delicate flesh, which is the model of calm, the exquisite remainder of calm.

This crown of beauty is not made for one woman alone, but for all women. They do not know it, and yet all in turn attain this beauty, as a fruit ripens. This calm is more potent in them than in the most beautiful statues. They are unaware of it, and the men who are near them are unaware of it also. They have not been taught to admire. They have not been educated in the science of admiration.

When, in the galleries of the Louvre, magnificent rooms where are gathered the collections of antiques, day enters through the windows and lightly touches these beautiful sculptures which are the adornment of great palaces, do they understand any better? Do they realize the collaboration between the sculptor and the light?