rs on her head the cap of Liberty; her
breasts are sixfold, as the Egyptians carved them--for the Egyptians
foresaw Fourier; her feet are resting on two clasped hands which embrace
a globe,--symbol of the brotherhood of all human races; she tramples
cannon under foot to signify the abolition of war; and I have tried to
make her face express the serenity of triumphant agriculture. I have
also placed beside her an enormous curled cabbage, which, according
to our master, is an image of Harmony. Ah! it is not the least among
Fourier's titles to veneration that he has restored the gift of thought
to plants; he has bound all creation in one by the signification of
things to one another, and by their special language. A hundred years
hence this earth will be much larger than it is now."

"And how will that, monsieur, come to pass?" said Gazonal, stupefied at
hearing a man outside of a lunatic asylum talk in this way.

"Through the extending of production. If men will apply The System, it
will not be impossible to act upon the stars."

"What would become of painting in that case?" asked Gazonal.

"It would be magnified."

"Would our eyes be magnified too?" said Gazonal, looking at his two
friends significantly.

"Man will return to what he was before he became degenerate; our
six-feet men will then be dwarfs."

"Is your picture finished?" asked Leon.

"Entirely finished," replied Dubourdieu. "I have tried to see Hiclar,
and get him to compose a symphony for it; I wish that while viewing my
picture the public should hear music a la Beethoven to develop its ideas
and bring them within range of the intellect by two arts. Ah! if the
government would only lend me one of the galleries of the Louvre!"

"I'll mention it, if you want me to do so; you should never neglect an
opportunity to strike minds."

"Ah! my friends are preparing articles; but I am afraid they'll go too
far."

"Pooh!" said Bixiou, "they can't go as far as the future."

Dubourdieu looked askance at Bixiou, and continued his way.

"Why, he's mad," said Gazonal; "he is following the moon in her
courses."

"His skill is masterly," said Leon, "and he knows his art, but
Fourierism has killed him. You have just seen, cousin, one of the
effects of ambition upon artists. Too often, in Paris, from a desire to
reach more rapidly than by natural ways the celebrity which to them is
fortune, artists borrow the wings of circumstance, they think they make
themselv