er
minds see as they have seen, feel as they have felt? He must get to the
centre before he can trace the limits and imperfections. Once there,
once identified with his object, he can observe its irregularities
without being irritated or perturbed. As for that Rhadamanthine
criticism which sits aloof from its object, and treats every aberration
from a straight line as something abnormal and abominable, he leaves it
to the immaculate. In truth, such criticism, with all its pretences to
authority, is open to this fatal objection,--it tends to destroy our
relish for literature; instead of stimulating the appetite, it creates
disgust.[C] How different is the effect produced by the _Portraits_! Of
all criticism they have the most power to refresh our interest in
familiar topics, and to kindle curiosity in regard to those with which
we are unacquainted. They serve as the best possible introduction to the
study of the works themselves, to which, accordingly, they have in many
cases been prefixed. They put us in the proper disposition for _tasting_
as we read. Often they are guides with which we could hardly dispense.
M. Sainte-Beuve is never more happy than in dealing with complexities or
contradictions, with characters that puzzle the ordinary observer, with
harmonies which are hidden in discords. Of women, it has been well said,
he writes "as if he were one of them." Like Thackeray, like Balzac, he
knows their secret. So, too, the spirit of a particular epoch or a
particular school is seized, its successive phases are distinguished,
with a nicety defying competition. Especially is this applicable to the
developments of the present century. Who, indeed, was so competent to
describe its parties and conflicts, its emotions and languors, as one
who had shared in all its transitions, in all its experiences?

The style of the _Portraits_ might form the subject of a separate study.
Abjuring antithesis and epigram on the one hand, pomp and declamation on
the other, it has yet none of the limpidity, the rapid flow, the
incisive directness, of classical French prose. On the contrary, it is
full of shadings and undulations. It abounds in caressing epithets, and
in figures sometimes elaborated and prolonged to the last degree,
sometimes clustered and contrasted like flowers in a bouquet. After a
continuous reading a sense of luxury steals over us; we seem to be
surrounded by the rich draperies and scented atmosphere of a boudoir.
Yet th