s
of clouds.

"One can hardly employ too many means," says Ste. Beuve, "to know a man;
that is, to understand him to be something more than an intellectual
being. As long as we have not asked ourselves a certain number of
questions about such and such an author, and as long as they have not
been satisfactorily answered, we are not sure of having completely made
him out, even were such questions to be wholly irrelevant to the
subjects upon which he has written.

"What did he think upon religious matters?

"How did the aspect of nature affect him?

"How did he behave in regard to women?

"How about money?

"What rules did he follow?

"What was his daily life? etc., etc.

"Finally, what was his peculiar vice and foible? Every man has one.

"Not one of these questions is unimportant in order to appreciate an
author or his book, provided the book does not treat of pure
mathematics; and especially if it is a literary work, that is to say, a
book wherein there is something about every thing."[3]

Be this opinion of an eminent critic our rule and an encouragement to
our efforts.

We are well aware that in France, now-a-days, writers do not like to use
the same materials in describing a character as are used by other
nations, and especially by England. A study of this kind in France must
not be a judgment pronounced upon the individual who is the object of
it, and still less an inquiry. The qualities and defects of a man of
genius do not constitute the principal business of the artist. Man is
now rather examined as a work of art or as an object of science. When
reason has made him out, and intellectual curiosity has been satisfied,
the wish to understand him is not carried out further. The subject is
abandoned, lest the reader may be tired.

This may be good reasoning in many cases; but in the present perhaps the
best rule is "in medio tutissimus." When a good painting is spoilt by
overpolish, to wash the polish off is not to restore it to its former
appearance. To arrive at this last result, however, no pains should be
spared; and upon this principle we must act with regard to Byron. In
psychological studies the whole depends upon all the parts, and what may
at first seem unimportant may prove to be the best confirmation of the
thesis. To be stopped by details (I might almost say repetitions) would
therefore be to exhibit a fear in adducing proof.

Can it be said that we have not sufficiently condemned? To add