truth at the moment. I abandon a thesis for
lack of words that shall supply my reasons. I have one thing in the
bottom of my heart, and I find myself saying another. There is the
advantage of living in retirement and solitude. There a man speaks, asks
himself questions, listens to himself, and listens in silence. His
secret sensation develops itself little by little." Then when he is
about to speak of one of Greuze's pictures, he bethinks himself of
Greuze's vanity, and this leads him to a vein of reflection which it is
good for all critics, whether public or private, to hold fast in their
minds. "If you take away Greuze's vanity, you will take away his verve,
you will extinguish his fire, his genius will undergo an eclipse. _Nos
qualites tiennent de pres a nos defauts._" And of this important truth,
the base of wise tolerance, there follow a dozen graphic examples.[47]

[47] x. 342. He says elsewhere of Greuze (xviii. 247) that he is _un
excellent artiste, mais une bien mauvaise tete_.

Gretry, the composer, more than once consulted Diderot in moments of
perplexity. It was not always safe, he says, to listen to the glowing
man when he allowed his imagination to run away with him, but the first
burst was of inspiration divine.[48] Painters found his suggestions as
potent and as hopeful as the musician found them. He delighted in being
able to tell an artist how he might change his bad picture into a good
one.[49] "Chardin, La Grenee, Greuze, and others," says Diderot, "have
assured me (and artists are not given to flattering men of letters) that
I was about the only one whose images could pass at once to canvas,
almost exactly as they came into my head." And he gives illustrations,
how he instantly furnished to La Grenee a subject for a picture of
Peace; to Greuze, a design introducing a nude figure without wounding
the modesty of the spectator; to a third, a historical subject.[50] The
first of the three is a curious example of the difficulty which even a
strong genius like Diderot had in freeing himself from artificial
traditions. For Peace, he cried to La Grenee, show me Mars with his
breastplate, his sword girded on, his head noble and firm. Place
standing by his side a Venus, full, divine, voluptuous, smiling on him
with an enchanting smile; let her point to his casque, in which her
doves have made their nest. Is it not singular that even Diderot
sometimes failed to remember that Mars and Venus are dead, th