is
talking about, or what he means to say. He will tell you the whole story
of the Second Punic War, speaking of a sentimental comedy played at the
Gymnase Theatre, and a low farce of the Palais Royal Theatre will
furnish him the pretext to quote ten lines of Xenophon in the original
Greek. Monsieur Jules Janin is, notwithstanding all this, an excellent
fellow, and a man of great talents; but you must not ask him to work
miracles; in other words, you must not ask him to express briefly and
clearly what he thinks of the play he criticizes, nor to remember to-day
the opinion he entertained yesterday. These are miracles he cannot work.
He hears a piece; he is delighted with it; he says to the author, 'Your
piece is charming. You will be gratified by my criticism upon it.' He
comes home; he sits at his desk. What happens? Why, the wind which blew
from the north blows from the south; the soap-bubble rose on the left,
it floats away towards the right. His pen runs away with him; praise is
thrown out by the first hole in the road; epigram jumps in; and at last
the poor dramatic author, who was lauded to the skies yesterday,
complimented this morning, finds himself cut to pieces and dragged at
horses' tails in to-morrow's paper. Don't blame Monsieur Jules Janin for
it. 'Tis not his fault. The fault lies with his inkhorn; the fault lies
with his pen, which mistook the mustard-pot for the honey-jar; 'twill be
more careful next time. 'Tis the fault of the hand-organ which would
grind away while he was writing; 'tis the fault of the fly which would
keep buzzing about the room and bumping against the panes of glass; 'tis
the fault of the idea which took wings and flew away. The poor dramatic
author is mortified to death; but, Lord bless your soul! Monsieur Jules
Janin is not guilty."

"What do you think of Monsieur Sainte-Beuve? Is he as unfaithful a
critic as Monsieur Theophile Gautier and Monsieur Jules Janin?" I asked,
rather timidly.

"Monsieur Sainte-Beuve has received from Heaven (which he has ceased to
believe in) an exquisite taste, an extraordinary delicacy of tact,
admirable talents of criticism, relieved, and, as it were, fertilized,
by rare poetical faculties. He possesses and exercises in the most
masterly manner the art of shading, of hints, of hesitations, of
insinuations, of infiltrations, of evolutions, of circumlocutions, of
precautions, of ambuscades, of feline gambols, of ground and lofty
tumbling, of strategy