useful. That
is true, but the sun is not an object of art. Besides, how many times
Victor Hugo denied his own doctrine by writing verses which were merely
brilliant descriptions or admirable bits of imagination?

We are, however, talking of art and not of literature. Literature
becomes art in poetry but forsakes it in prose. Even if some of the
great prose writers rendered their prose artistic through the beauty and
harmony of their periods and the picturesqueness of their expressions,
still prose is not art in its real nature. So, crude indecency aside,
what would be immoral in prose ceases to be immoral in verse, for in
poetry Art follows its own code and form transcends the subject matter.
That is why a great poet, Sully-Prudhomme, preferred prose to verse when
he wanted to write philosophically, for he feared, on account of the
superiority of form to substance in poetry, that his ideas would not be
taken seriously. That explains as well why parents take young girls to
hear an opera, when if the same piece was played without music they
would be appalled at the idea. What Christian is ever shocked by _La
Juive_ or Catholic frightened away from _Les Huguenots_?

Because prose is far removed from art, it is unsuited to music, despite
the fact that this ill-assorted union is fashionable to-day? In poetry
there has been an effort to make it so artistic that form alone is
considered and verse is written which is entirely without sense. But
that is a fad which can't last long.

Sometime ago M. de Mun said:

"Not to take sides is what the author is inhibited from doing. Art, to
my way of thinking, is a setting forth of ideas. If it is not that--if
it limits itself solely to considerations of form, to a worship of
beauty for its own sake, without regard to the deeds and thoughts it
brings to light, then it seems to me no better than the vain effort of
an unproductive cleverness."

The eminent speaker is absolutely right as far as prose is concerned,
but we cannot agree with him if poetry is considered.

Victor Hugo, in his marvellous ode, _La Lyre et La Harpe_ brings
Paganism and Christianity face to face. Each speaks in turn, and the
poet in his last stanza seems to acknowledge that both are right, but
that does not prevent the ode from being a masterpiece. That would
not be possible in prose, but in the poem the poetry carries all before
it.

[Illustration: M. Saint-Saens in his Later Years]

Why is it that genius