Mown them down, far from home."

Mr. Moore speaks of M. Zola's vast imagination. It is vast in the
sense that it sees one thing at a time, and sees it a thousand times
as big as it appears to most men. But can the imagination that sees a
whole world under the influence of one particular fury be compared
with that which surveys this planet and sees its inhabitants busy with
a million diverse occupations? Drink, Money, War--these may be
usefully personified as malignant or beneficent angels, for pulpit
purposes. But the employment of these terrific spirits in the harrying
of the Rougon-Macquart family recalls the announcement that

"The Death-Angel smote Alexander McGlue...."

while the methods of the _Roman Experimental_ can hardly be better
illustrated than by the rest of the famous stanza--

"--And gave him protracted repose:
He wore a check shirt and a Number 9 shoe,
And he had a pink wart on his nose."

SELECTION

May 4, 1895. Hazlitt.

"Coming forward and seating himself on the ground in his white dress
and tightened turban, the chief of the Indian jugglers begins with
tossing up two brass balls, which is what any of us could do, and
concludes with keeping up four at the same time, which is what none of
us could do to save our lives." ... You remember Hazlitt's essay on
the Indian Jugglers, and how their performance shook his self-conceit.
"It makes me ashamed of myself. I ask what there is that I can do as
well as this. Nothing..... Is there no one thing in which I can
challenge competition, that I can bring as an instance of exact
perfection, in which others cannot find a flaw? The utmost I can
pretend to is to write a description of what this fellow can do. I can
write a book; so can many others who have not even learned to spell.
What abortions are these essays! What errors, what ill-pieced
transitions, what crooked reasons, what lame conclusions! How little
is made out, and that little how ill! Yet they are the best I can do."

Nevertheless a play of Shakespeare's, or a painting by Reynolds, or an
essay by Hazlitt, imperfect though it be, is of more rarity and worth
than the correctest juggling or tight-rope walking. Hazlitt proceeds
to examine why this should be, and discovers a number of good reasons.
But there is one reason, omitted by him, or perhaps left for the
reader to infer, on which we may profitably spend a few minutes. It
forms part of a big subject, and t