A good author, and one who writes with care, often has the
experience of finding that the expression which he was a long time
in search of without reaching it, and which at length he has found,
is that which was the most simple, the most natural, and that
which, as it would seem, should have presented itself at first, and
without effort.

We feel that the quality of La Bruyere is such as to fit him for the
admiration and enjoyment of but a comparatively small class of readers.
He was somewhat over-exquisite. His art at times became
artifice--infinite labor of style to make commonplace thought seem
valuable by dint of perfect expression. We dismiss La Bruyere with a
single additional extract,--his celebrated parallel between Corneille
and Racine:--

Corneille subjects us to his characters and to his ideas; Racine
accommodates himself to ours. The one paints men as they ought to
be; the other paints them as they are. There is more in the former
of what one admires, and of what one ought even to imitate; there
is more in the latter of what one observes in others, or of what
one experiences in one's self. The one inspires, astonishes,
masters, instructs; the other pleases, moves, touches, penetrates.
Whatever there is most beautiful, most noble, most imperial, in the
reason is made use of by the former; by the latter, whatever is
most seductive and most delicate in passion. You find in the
former, maxims, rules, and precepts; in the latter, taste and
sentiment. You are more absorbed in the plays of Corneille; you are
more shaken and more softened in those of Racine. Corneille is more
moral; Racine, more natural. The one appears to make Sophocles his
model; the other owes more to Euripides.

* * *

Less than half a century after La Rochefoucauld and La Bruyere had shown
the way, Vauvenargues followed in a similar style of authorship,
promising almost to rival the fame of his two predecessors. This writer,
during his brief life (he died at thirty-two), produced one not
inconsiderable literary work more integral and regular in form,
entitled, "Introduction to the Knowledge of the Human Mind"; but it is
his disconnected thoughts and observations chiefly that continue to
preserve his name.

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, though nobly born, was poor.
His health was frail. He did not receive a good education in hi