what you are to a few of us at this moment,--a great man. The only
question is how to get along till then."

"I have just finished," resumed the great artist, his face expanding
like that of a man whose hobby is stroked, "an allegorical figure of
Harmony; and if you will come and see it, you will understand why it
should have taken me two years to paint it. Everything is in it! At
the first glance one divines the destiny of the globe. A queen holds a
shepherd's crook in her hand,--symbolical of the advancement of the
races useful to mankind; she wears 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.