silence of the birds. It goes, and the song is resumed."

"We should divide a nation into three classes: the bulk of the
nation, which forms the national taste and manners; those who rise
above these are called madmen, originals, oddities; those who fall
below are noodles. The progress of the human mind causes the level
to shift, and a man often lives too long for his reputation.... He
who is too far in front of his generation, who rises above the
general level of the common manners, must expect few votes; he
ought to be thankful for the oblivion that rescues him from
persecution. Those who raise themselves to a great distance above
the common level are not perceived; they die forgotten and
tranquil, either like everybody else, or far away from everybody
else. That is my motto."[45]

"But Vernet will never be more than Vernet, a mere man. No, and for
that very reason all the more astonishing, and his work all the
more worthy of admiration. It is, no doubt, a great thing, is this
universe; but when I compare it with the energy of the productive
cause, if I had to wonder at aught, it would be that its work is
not still finer and still more perfect. It is just the reverse when
I think of the weakness of man, of his poor means, of the
embarrassments and of the short duration of his life, and then of
certain things that he has undertaken and carried out."[46]

[45] xi. 294.

[46] xi. 102.

These digressions are one source of the charm of Diderot's criticism.
They impart ease and naturalness to it, because they evidently reproduce
the free movement of his mind as it really was, and not as the supposed
dignity of authorship might require him to pretend. There is no
stiffness nor sense, as we have said, of literary strain, and yet there
is no disturbing excess of what is random, broken, _decousu_. The
digression flows with lively continuity from the main stream and back
again into it, leaving some cheerful impression or curious suggestion
behind it. Something, we cannot tell what, draws him off to wonder
whether there is not as much verve in the first scene of Terence and in
the Antinoues as in any scene of Moliere or any work of Michael Angelo?
"I once answered this question, but rather too lightly. Every moment I
am apt to make a mistake, because language does not furnish me with the
right expression for the