temperament exist, it never discovered itself in a manner more
clearly defined and more decided than with Pope. Men ordinarily
become classic by means of the fact and discipline of education; he
was so by vocation, so to speak, and by a natural originality. At
the same time with the poets, he read the best among the critics,
and prepared himself to speak after them.

* * * * *

"Pope had the characteristic sign of literary natures, the faithful
worship of genius.... He said one day to a friend: 'I have always
been particularly struck with this passage of Homer where he
represents to us Priam transported with grief for the loss of
Hector, on the point of breaking out into reproaches and invectives
against the servants who surrounded him and against his sons. It
would be impossible for me to read this passage without weeping over
the disasters of the unfortunate old king.' And then he took the
book, and tried to read aloud the passage, 'Go, wretches, curse of
my life,' but he was interrupted by tears.

* * * * *

"No example could prove to us better than his to what degree the
faculty of tender, sensitive criticism is an active faculty. We
neither feel nor perceive in this way when there is nothing to give
in return. This taste, this sensibility, so swift and alert, justly
supposes imagination behind it. It is said that Shelley, the first
time he heard the poem of 'Christabel' recited, at a certain
magnificent and terrible passage, took fright and suddenly fainted.
The whole poem of 'Alastor' was to be foreseen in that fainting.
Pope, not less sensitive in his way, could not read through that
passage of the Iliad without bursting into tears. To be a critic to
that degree, is to be a poet."

Thanks, eloquent and judicious scholar, so lately gone from the world of
letters! A love of what is best in art was the habit of Sainte-Beuve's
life, and so he too will be remembered as one who has kept the best
company in literature,--a man who cheerfully did homage to genius,
wherever and whenever it might be found.

I intend to leave as a legacy to a dear friend of mine an old faded
book, which I hope he will always prize as it deserves. It is a
well-worn, well-read volume, of no value whatever as an _edition_,--but
_it belonged to Abraham Lincoln_. It is his cop