ich gives to the poor the
force to labour, and to the miserable the force to live.
Blessed be infancy, which chases the demon!--Blessed be
infancy, which keeps alive in each family the sentiment of
hope, indispensable to run as the air and the light!

Amongst the faults of his contemporaries, M. Girardin remarks a
disposition to _materialize_ the expression of passion, depicting it
constantly by violent physical distortions; and also, a tendency to
carry that expression to the extremity of rage, where, as he finely
observes, all distinction between the various passions is lost, and man
deserts his rational nature.

According to the ancient classic imagination, when passion becomes
excessive, the man disappears; and this, he adds, is the foundation of
what we call the philosophy of the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid.

In the course of this censure he makes use of a common-place expression,
which, we think, includes a common-place error, and therefore we pause
for a moment to take notice of it. "It is the pretension of modern art,"
he tells us, "to say all. What then is left to the imagination of the
public? It is often well to trust to the spectator to complete the idea
of the poet or the statuary."

This is a mode of expression frequently made use of. Even Lessing has
sanctioned it, when in his _Laocoon_, he speaks of "the highest
expression leaving nothing to the imagination."

The leaving something to the imagination can mean this only, that the
expression of the artist is suggestive, and kindles thought, and in fact
conveys more than is found in its literal interpretation. Now, whatever
is highest in art, and especially in poetry, is pre-eminently
suggestive; and the highest expression does in fact leave most, or, in
other words, suggest most, to the imagination. M. Girardin, in common
with many others, speaks of this suggestive quality, the characteristic
of the highest form of art, as if it were the result of a voluntary
surrender of something by the poet to the reader, as if it were an act
of moderation on his part. Surely the poet does not proceed on the
principle of saying half, and permitting us to say the other half--out
of compliment, perhaps, to our understanding, and as a little bribe to
our vanity. The more vivid and powerful his expressions, the more must
he leave, or rather the more must he give, indirectly as well as
directly, to the imagination of the reader. He will sometimes even