hat according to M. de Pontmartin himself, whose
authority, however, upon this point we may take the liberty of
rejecting, there should be "few men more generally hated." Mere jealousy
can have nothing to do with it. "There is not," remarks M. Scherer, "the
trace of a literary rivalry to be found in his whole career." The truth
is, that M. Sainte-Beuve has, on all the subjects he has examined,
convictions which are strong, decided, earnestly and powerfully
maintained. But he differs from the rest of us in this, that he not only
professes, but enforces, a perfect freedom of opinion, a perfect
equality in discussion. In religion he attaches more importance to the
sentiment than to the creed. In morals he sets up a higher standard than
conventionalism. In politics, as we shall presently see, he has even
given in his adhesion to a system; but, treating politics, like
medicine, as an experimental science, he refuses to see in any system an
article of faith to be adopted and proclaimed irrespective of its
results. In questions of literature and art he declines to apply any
test but the principles of art, the literary taste "pure and simple." In
all matters he prefers to look at the practical rather than the dogmatic
side, to study living forces rather than dead forms. Hence the charge of
indifference. He would better please those who differ from him, were he
one-sided, narrow, rancorous. It is because his armor is without a flaw
that they detest him.[D]

We have spoken frequently of M. de Pontmartin. It is time to speak of
him a little more definitely. As M. Sainte-Beuve has remarked, "the
subject is not a difficult one." He belongs to the old aristocracy, and
takes care that his readers shall not forget the fact. In religion and
politics--with him, as with so many others, the two words have much the
same meaning--he adheres consistently and chivalrously to causes once
great and resplendent, now only fit subjects for elegies. As a writer,
he is a master of the _critique spirituelle_,--that species which is so
brilliant in display, so unsubstantial in results. He sparkles and
glows; but his light only directs the brown nightingale where to find
its repast. Armed cap-a-pie, glittering with epigram, rhetoric, and
irony, he entered the lists against M. Sainte-Beuve, ostensibly to
defend the reputation of Chateaubriand, provoked in reality by the
causes already noticed. We have no space for the controversy that
ensued. It is worth