Undoubtedly, man does not live by bread alone; he must, also (according to the Gospel), live by the word of God; that is, he must love the good and do it, know and admire the beautiful, and study the marvels of Nature. But in order to cultivate his mind, he must first take care of his body,—the latter duty is as necessary as the former is noble. If it is glorious to charm and instruct men, it is honorable as well to feed them. When, then, society—faithful to the principle of the division of labor—intrusts a work of art or of science to one of its members, allowing him to abandon ordinary labor, it owes him an indemnity for all which it prevents him from producing industrially; but it owes him nothing more. If he should demand more, society should, by refusing his services, annihilate his pretensions. Forced, then, in order to live, to devote himself to labor repugnant to his nature, the man of genius would feel his weakness, and would live the most distasteful of lives.
They tell of a celebrated singer who demanded of the Empress of Russia (Catherine II.) twenty thousand roubles for his services: “That is more than I give my field-marshals,” said Catherine. “Your majesty,” replied the other, “has only to make singers of her field-marshals.”
If France (more powerful than Catherine II.) should say to Mademoiselle Rachel, “You must act for one hundred louis, or else spin cotton;” to M. Duprez, “You must sing for two thousand four hundred francs, or else work in the vineyard,”—do you think that the actress Rachel, and the singer Duprez, would abandon the stage? If they did, they would be the first to repent it.
Mademoiselle Rachel receives, they say, sixty thousand francs annually from the Comédie-Française. For a talent like hers, it is a slight fee. Why not one hundred thousand francs,
