The Count of Monte Cristo

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natural history. They descended to the first floor; Albert led his guest
into the salon. The salon was filled with the works of modern artists;
there were landscapes by Dupre, with their long reeds and tall trees,
their lowing oxen and marvellous skies; Delacroix's Arabian cavaliers,
with their long white burnouses, their shining belts, their damasked
arms, their horses, who tore each other with their teeth while their
riders contended fiercely with their maces; aquarelles of Boulanger,
representing Notre Dame de Paris with that vigor that makes the artist
the rival of the poet; there were paintings by Diaz, who makes his
flowers more beautiful than flowers, his suns more brilliant than the
sun; designs by Decamp, as vividly colored as those of Salvator Rosa,
but more poetic; pastels by Giraud and Muller, representing children
like angels and women with the features of a virgin; sketches torn from
the album of Dauzats' "Travels in the East," that had been made in a few
seconds on the saddle of a camel, or beneath the dome of a mosque--in a
word, all that modern art can give in exchange and as recompense for the
art lost and gone with ages long since past.