"
That Ernest should give utterance to this opinion was enough to make
Modeste oppose it.
"If that be so, monsieur," she said, "then the man who could discover
a way to mow wheat without injuring the straw, by a machine that could
do the work of ten men, would be a man of genius."
"Yes, my daughter," said Madame Mignon; "and the poor would bless him
for cheaper bread,--he that is blessed by the poor is blessed of God."
"That is putting utility above art," said Modeste, shaking her head.
"Without utility what would become of art?" said Charles Mignon. "What
would it rest on? what would it live on? Where would you lodge, and
how would you pay the poet?"
"Oh! my dear papa, such opinions are fearfully flat and antediluvian!
I am not surprised that Gobenheim and Monsieur de La Briere, who are
interested in the solution of social problems should think so; but
you, whose life has been the most useless poetry of the century,
--useless because the blood you shed all over Europe, and the horrible
sufferings exacted by your colossus, did not prevent France from
losing ten departments acquired under the Revolution,--how can _you_
give in to such excessively pig-tail notions, as the idealists say? It
is plain you've just come from China.
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