Library of the Worlds Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 | Page 5

while it ignores all normal healthy life, virtuous habits, pure affections, steady labor, honesty, and duty. It is an affectation, and because it is an affectation the school is struck with sterility. The reader desires in the poem something better than a juggler in rhyme, or a conjurer in verse; he looks 'to find in him a painter of life, a being who thinks, loves, and has a conscience, who feels passion and repentance.
The true critic strives for a clear vision of things as they are--for justice and fairness; his effort is to get free from himself, so that he may in no way disfigure that which he wishes to understand or reproduce. His superiority to the common herd lies in this effort, even when its success is only partial. He distrusts his own senses, he sifts his own impressions, by returning upon them from different sides and at different times, by comparing, moderating, shading, distinguishing, and so endeavoring to approach more and more nearly to the formula which represents the maximum of truth.
The art which is grand and yet simple is that which presupposes the greatest elevation both in artist and in public.
* * * * *
MAY 19TH, 1878.--Criticism is above all a gift, an intuition, a matter of tact and flair; it cannot be taught or demonstrated,--it is an art. Critical genius means an aptitude for discerning truth under appearances or in disguises which conceal it; for discovering it in spite of the errors of testimony, the frauds of tradition, the dust of time, the loss or alteration of texts. It is the sagacity of the hunter whom nothing deceives for long, and whom no ruse can throw off the trail. It is the talent of the Juge d'Instruction who knows how to interrogate circumstances, and to extract an unknown secret from a thousand falsehoods. The true critic can understand everything, but he will be the dupe of nothing, and to no convention will he sacrifice his duty, which is to find out and proclaim truth. Competent learning, general cultivation, absolute probity, accuracy of general view, human sympathy, and technical capacity,--how many things are necessary to the critic, without reckoning grace, delicacy, savoir vivre, and the gift of happy phrasemaking!
* * * * *
MAY 22D, 1879 (Ascension Day).--Wonderful and delicious weather. Soft, caressing sunlight,--the air a limpid blue,--twitterings of birds; even the distant voices of the city have something young and springlike in them. It is indeed a new birth. The ascension of the Savior of men is symbolized by the expansion, this heavenward yearning of nature.... I feel myself born again; all the windows of the soul are clear. Forms, lines, tints, reflections, sounds, contrasts, and harmonies, the general play and interchange of things,--it is all enchanting!
In my courtyard the ivy is green again, the chestnut-tree is full of leaf, the Persian lilac beside the little fountain is flushed with red and just about to flower; through the wide openings to the right and left of the old College of Calvin I see the Sal��ve above the trees of St. Antoine, the Voirons above the hill of Cologny; while the three flights of steps which, from landing to landing, lead between two high walls from the Rue Verdaine to the terrace of the Tranch��es, recall to one's imagination some old city of the south, a glimpse of Perugia or of Malaga.
All the bells are ringing. It is the hour of worship. A historical and religious impression mingles with the picturesque, the musical, the poetical impressions of the scene. All the peoples of Christendom--all the churches scattered over the globe--are celebrating at this moment the glory of the Crucified.
And what are those many nations doing who have other prophets, and honor the Divinity in other ways--the Jews, the Mussulmans, the Buddhists, the Vishnuists, the Guebers? They have other sacred days, other rites, other solemnities, other beliefs. But all have some religion, some ideal end for life--all aim at raising man above the sorrows and smallnesses of the present, and of the individual existence. All have faith in something greater than themselves, all pray, all bow, all adore; all see beyond nature, Spirit, and beyond evil, Good. All bear witness to the Invisible. Here we have the link which binds all peoples together. All men are equally creatures of sorrow and desire, of hope and fear. All long to recover some lost harmony with the great order of things, and to feel themselves approved and blessed by the Author of the universe. All know what suffering is, and yearn for happiness. All know what sin is, and feel the need of pardon.
Christianity, reduced to its original simplicity, is the reconciliation of the sinner with God, by means of the certainty that God loves in spite of everything, and that