Among the things I regret, such as not looking upon the face of Loti, is not having had the opportunity to listen to the conversation of Anatole France, or rather, his monologues. They who had that opportunity tell me he was even greater there than in his writing, whose finished, scornful, scholarly paganism, gives me little, shining gold grains of joy. Nicholas Ségur writes enchantingly of the conversation of France.
Great artists, perhaps, possess the power to live always on the crest of emotions, which create or transform worlds for them at will. That is an element of genius. Other people rise to it under pressure of something extraordinary.
I have found pleasure in looking upon the backs of athletes, in bronze, marble, flesh, and the bodies of great beasts, such as tigers, lions, panthers. I have loved them partly for their beauty, and partly for their intensity. They are proud, powerful moments made tangible. They are highly perfected things where power focusses. Sometimes they are terrible. Then they possess the too keen beauty of bewilderment.
The sculptor Bourdelle has caught this fascinating something which fascinates, by blending beauty with terror. Then the two are elevated to uncontested power.
I saw some prose of Bourdelle, just a few lines, which charmed me more than the work of his chisel. He was holidaying in happiness. I surprised him.
Sometimes Millet’s letters are finer than his paintings or etchings. And I know Fromentin’s work with the pen surpassed the brush.
Another person I longed to look upon in the flesh was Vivekânanda, who left a princely life of mediæval splendor in the Orient to come to America to teach The Way.
In his young manhood, in India, when the insensitive, dazzled crowd caught sight of him in the street, they thought that he must be a God, because no human being could be at once so superb and so beautiful. And with one acclaim they shouted: SIVA!
All gifts had been lavished upon him, both physical and mental. He danced the sacred dances of his magic and ancient land like a master. His singing voice was glorious and trained, and beyond normal in range and power. His stature and strength were unusual. He was brilliant and learned. And he renounced everything to become a priest.