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 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY 
 AND PRACTICE AFTER 1849 
 
 A DISSERTATION 
 
 SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY 
 
 OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE 
 
 IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 
 
 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 DEPARTMENT OF ROMANCE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES 
 
 BY 
 
 LANDER MACCLINTOCK 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
 
 CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 
 
 1920 
 
Copyright 1920 By 
 The University or Chicago 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 Published May 1920 
 
 t^CMAMOE 
 
 Composed and Printed By 
 
 The University of Chlcagro Press 
 
 Chlcasro, Illinois, U.S.A. 
 

 PREFACE 
 
 It is the plan of the following study to survey and co-ordinate 
 Sainte-Beuve's theories and practice of criticism during the latter part of 
 his life, after his return from Liege and his "conversion" from romanti- 
 cism. It is my hope to continue somewhat adequately the great work of 
 Michaut's Sainte-Beuve avant les lundis. 
 
 The last generation of students of Sainte-Beuve have carefully ex- 
 pounded the scientific or naturalistic features of his work; but they have 
 often neglected his aesthetic and classical criticism. I have tried to 
 rectify the emphasis here and to exhibit the two aspects of his work in 
 their true proportions. 
 
 I have thought it well to give the critic's ideas and practice in his 
 own words, following his doctrine of significant quotation. This has 
 resulted inevitably in a somewhat broken style, my phrasing being 
 chiefly connecting links to the master's statements. 
 
 My illustrations and embodiments of Sainte-Beuve's categories, 
 descriptions, and judgments are many, and I hope representative and 
 comprehensive; they cannot be exhaustive. After gathering them 
 slowly I have read the entire body of the Causeries and the Lundis 
 rapidly and feel convinced that nothing can be found there contradictory 
 to what is here printed — extensions, corroboration, and applications are 
 abundant. 
 
 It is a great pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to my 
 
 teachers in the Department of Romance Languages at the University of 
 
 Chicago, and to offer my thanks especially to Professor Nitze, under 
 
 whose stimulating teaching and distinguished scholarship I pursued my 
 
 doctoral studies, to Professor Dargan for the benefit of his deep learning 
 
 and keen criticism, and to my father and mother for much help and 
 
 counsel. 
 
 L. M. 
 
 Chicago 
 May 1920 
 
 433074 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Scope of the Study: History of the Subject . . . . i 
 The plan of the book is to collect and classify Sainte-Beuve's 
 utterances on literary criticism written after 1849; from a study of 
 the Causeries du lundi and the Nouveaux lundis to determine whether 
 or not he applied in critical practice the principles he laid down as 
 theory — ^Justification for selecting period 1849-69 for this study — 
 Articles and books which have been important in the treatment of 
 the later and mature Sainte-Beuve are cited and the most significant 
 discussed. 
 
 II. The Functions of Criticism 8 
 
 Difficulties of the subject, of fixing and classifying Sainte- 
 Beuve's thought, due to the fluidity of his mind and the contra- 
 dictory nature of his theories — The functions of criticism are to 
 seek the truth and to destroy false ideas; to aid society morally and 
 aesthetically; to aid the authors while they are living, by criticism 
 and counsel; when they are dead, by defending their fame and 
 spreading abroad their reputation; to aid the reader by telling him 
 what is worth reading and exploring for him, by giving him informa- 
 tion necessary to correct understanding of great works, and by pre- 
 paring his mind for the reception of them; to give expression to the 
 gift of the critic, criticism as self-expression and as artistic creation. 
 
 III. Scientific Criticism 28 
 
 Sainte-Beuve beHeved that the criticism of taste, unaided, was 
 nofadequate to meet modern conditions; there must be a criticism 
 based on scientific principles. He outlines a plan for such criticism. 
 The book is the product of the author, so that we must study the 
 author to understand the book. We must study him in his country, 
 his race, his epoch, his family, his education, and his early environ- 
 ment; at the moment of his first success, and at the time of 
 his dissolution; in his disciples and literary descendants, in his 
 friends, in his enemies, and in his private relations. When we 
 have thus attacked the subject from various points of view we must 
 attempt to sum up the man in a few words and place him in his 
 family of minds. (A discussion at this point of the doctrine of the 
 master- passion and the family-of-minds theories of Sainte-Beuve.) 
 Sainte-Beuve justifies this close study of the author on the grounds 
 
 vii 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 that we ought to know whatever we can and all we can, that merely 
 to enjoy the products of the mind does not satisfy the critical intel- 
 ligence. But the critic must admit that when all these facts are 
 known and placed in their proper relation there is yet something that 
 escapes analysis and can be attained only through critical intuition — 
 individual genius. 
 
 IV. Aesthetic Criticism 46 
 
 Once the critic has explained an author or a work on scientific 
 grounds, there arises the task of estimating the individual work 
 itself. Is it good or bad ? What is good or bad in it ? Sainte-Beuve 
 believed in attempting a final appraisement of a work or an author. 
 He judged on the basis of five criteria: taste (his definition of taste), 
 truth, that is to say, truth to life, tradition (his definition of tradi- 
 tion, his relations to contemporary intellectual and critical move- 
 ments), logic and consistency, morality. 
 
 V. The Qualifications of the Critic 69 
 
 Pope drew the portrait of Sainte-Beuve's ideal critic, but the 
 latter supplements it with additional touches. The main qualifica- 
 tions he asked for were: The true critic is born not made, and must 
 have the critical instinct. He is not an artist who has made a 
 failure, nor should he be an artist at all, for the creative artist 
 necessarily has predilections which prevent his delivering an 
 unbiased judgment. He has a quick and true perception and 
 appreciation of values. He has a faculty of " demi-metamorphosis," 
 of putting himself in another's place. He has perfect independence, 
 an ability to adjust himself to new circumstances, to varying sub- 
 jects and aspects of subjects. The critic should have the weight 
 of authority and the assurance to make himself heard. He must be 
 in possession of a wide field of knowledge. He is free of all moral 
 and social bonds. Ideally he is absolutely impartial, disillusioned, 
 free even from patriotic prejudice — The critics whom Sainte-Beuve 
 admired and who influenced him most. 
 
 VI. Precepts and ProcedSs 83 
 
 A gathering of loosely related principles connected with the 
 critical process: his choice of subject, his preference for minor 
 authors; a definite time auspicious for the criticism of any author; 
 the dangers and difficulties of judging in opposition to accepted 
 opinions and canons; the critic's extensive knowledge and wide 
 background — ^To make a harmony of contemporary and previous 
 thinking and art; the ways of attacking a subject; with fixed ideas, 
 with open mind; limitation and fixing of subject, author to be 
 
CONTENTS ix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 treated for the right things and for all the right things; impartiality, 
 a critical canon; the critic must allow no idea or attitude to deceive 
 him in his search for reality; the critic, like the chemist, at the 
 mercy of his experiment or examination, must not change or 
 exaggerate; "preserving the tone" of the book under consideration, 
 making the criticism as nearly as possible of the same literary 
 atmosphere as its subject; Sainte-Beuve's doctrine of citations 
 from authors studied; Sainte-Beuve's critical vocabulary, two of his 
 important epithets studied, Aitic and Asiatic; Sainte-Beuve's ideas 
 on the function of literature, on genres, and on style. 
 
 VII. Sainte-Beuve's Practice in Criticism io8 
 
 A study of the Causeries du lundi and the Nouveaux lundis on 
 the basis of their subject-matter, to determine on what sort of 
 material he laid most stress. Biographical matter: the history of an 
 individual, his character; historical matter: political history, 
 etudes de moeurs; literary matter: exposition of a work, the pres- 
 entation of another man's ideas and material; literary history, 
 critical discussion and judgment by Sainte-Beuve himself; polemic 
 matter, philosophic matter including aesthetic. The results show 
 that Sainte-Beuve was primarily interested in biography and 
 character studies — Study of his practice, using the outlines of 
 sections III and IV — The conclusion is that Sainte-Beuve kept 
 the general outHnes and even the details of his formulas well in 
 mind, although he made no formal or rigid application of them and 
 varied his method with the nature of his material. 
 
 Bibliography 152 
 
 Index 157 
 
I. SCOPE OF THE STUDY: HISTORY OF THE 
 SUBJECT 
 
 The plan of the following treatise is twofold: it is, in the first place, 
 an attempt to collect from the writing of Sainte-Beuve in his third and 
 last period those passages in which he discusses the science and art of 
 criticism and to present them so arranged and documented as to give a 
 coherent and, as nearly as possible, a complete view of the body of ideas 
 that seemed to him essential for correct critical judgments. One can 
 hardly promise that this arrangement will constitute a "critical method" 
 or that it will take on the formal outline of a system. But it will present 
 in natural connection the main typical dicta, the more or less deliberately 
 formulated rules of procedure which the great critic enunciated. The 
 plan of the treatise includes, in the second place, a study in Sainte-Beuve's 
 own practice — being an attempt to discover whether or not, and to what 
 extent, he applies his own announced ideas. 
 
 The third period of Sainte-Beuve's literary activity extends from 
 the year 1849, the year of his return to Paris after his year's professor- 
 ship in the University of Liege, to 1869, the year of his death. This 
 period is peculiarly inviting to the student of criticism, because it com- 
 prises the work of the master after he had passed through his formative 
 and tentative periods and had reached the full plenitude of his powers. 
 Possessed of a native critical endowment which has probably never 
 been equaled, he had passed through two phases of critical activity — 
 had essayed two definable types of criticism — and had entered, in 1849, 
 that wonderful stretch of twenty years of whose achievement Saintsbury 
 says: "We shall certainly look in vain anywhere for such an example 
 [of criticism] in quality and quantity combined as is presented by the 
 Causeries du lundi and the Nouveaux lundis.'^^ Guido Mazzoni, speak- 
 ing to the same effect, says: "Tutta la serie dei Lundis e uno di quegli 
 sforzi felici dove nulla appare dello sforzo; e stupenda raccolta di fatti 
 e di guidizi, e forse il piii vario ed acuto studio che sia stata intrapresa 
 deir anima umana."^ 
 
 The two critical metamorphoses through which Sainte-Beuve passes, 
 as well as the third and last stage at which he arrived, are described by 
 
 ^George Saintsbury, History of Criticism, III (1904), 318. 
 " Mazzoni, Tra Libri e Carti, p. 379. 
 
2 SAJNIE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 himself in a well-known passage in the introduction to the Causeries 
 du lundi: 
 
 Au Globe d'abord, et ensuite a la Revue de Paris, sous la Restauration, 
 jeune et debutant, je fis de la critique polemique, volontiers agressive, entre- 
 prenante du moins, de la critique d'invasion. Sous le regne de Louis-Philippe, 
 pendant les i8 annees de ce regime d'une Htterature sans initiative et plus 
 paisible qu'animee, j'ai fait, principalement a la Revue des deux mondes; de 
 la critique plus neutre, plus impartiale, mais surtout analytique, descriptive, 
 et curieuse. Cette critique pourtant avait, comme telle, un defaut: elle ne 
 concluait pas. Les temps redevenant plus rudes, — j'ai cm qu'il y avait 
 moyen d'oser plus, sans manquer aux convenances, et de dire enfin nettement 
 ce qui me semblait la verite sur les ouvrages et sur les auteurs.^ 
 
 Here we have his own characterization of the period that we are 
 concerned with — ^he proposes " dire enfin nettement ce qui me semblait 
 la verite sur les ouvrages et sur les auteurs." He would renounce 
 polemic criticism, he would forego purely descriptive criticism, he would 
 now seek the truth ! 
 
 It was in his work on Chateaubriand et son groupe litter aire, of 1849, 
 that he inaugurated his new manner and established his new aim — the 
 attempt to find and to express freely la verite — a manner and an aim 
 that he did not alter during the succeeding twenty years, save as he 
 achieved an ever greater freedom of thought and adopted an ever greater 
 freedom of expression. It is in this volume that we have the first 
 unmistakable foreshadowings of the critical revolution of which Sainte- 
 Beuve was the prophet and the leader. 
 
 It would seem, in view of the general recognition by the critics of 
 the three periods with a radical change of point of view in each period, 
 and especially in view of Sainte-Beuve's own statement outlining them, 
 that no further defense were needed for the plan of studying the third 
 period as a separable unified field. And the period shows an unbroken 
 unity so far as regards his critical theory. The growing freedom in the 
 expression of his opinions may have been due partly to external condi- 
 tions. He became more independent socially and economically; having 
 been appointed a senator with a fairly good salary he was not obliged 
 to write for money, and having attained the dignity of an officer of the 
 empire he may have felt that he was beyond the range of personal spite 
 or professional revenge. But the unifying force that holds the period 
 together is something deeper, more permanent, and more organic than 
 the freedom he enjoyed in expressing his opinions. This deeper unifying 
 
 ' Causeries du lundi, I, 2. 
 
HISTORY OF THE SUBJECT 3 
 
 force we must try to isolate and identify. Levallois says that in spite 
 of the wide variety of Sainte-Beuve's subject-matter, there is a "secret 
 precede et un persistant instinct" which "a preside a I'economie de 
 cette construction et qui en a regie les details."^ When one comes from 
 a fresh and closely consecutive reading of the Causeries du lundi and 
 the Nouveaux lundis, he sees that the unity running through the two 
 series owes little to any external sameness of treatment — indeed there 
 seems to have been almost a conscious avoidance of monotony — but is 
 a matter of unity of thought and point of view, very broad, indeed, and 
 very rich in detail, but definitely consistent. 
 
 Another feature of the period particularly enticing to the student 
 of criticism is the fact that as Sainte-Beuve grew older he displayed 
 more and more pride and interest in his art; he took his function as 
 critic more seriously; he interpreted it more profoundly; he philoso- 
 phized more about it; and he analyzed its processes more expertly. To 
 be impressed with the growth of his consciousness of his vocation as a 
 critic, one has only to contrast the low estimate made of the critic in 
 the article, "La critique sous I'Empire"^ written in 1850, with the lofty 
 ideal of the critic, the pioneer of art, the preserver of taste, the aid and 
 co-worker of the artist, presented in the last volume of the Lundis, in 
 an article of 1858.-* 
 
 We are not surprised, then, to find that the Nouveaux lundis con- 
 tain much more critical philosophy than the Causeries du lundi; but 
 this increased amount of theorizing does not represent a change 
 of mind — it is crystallization. Sainte-Beuve was gradually clarify- 
 ing his ideas — ^as an expert he was generalizing from multitudes of 
 specific instances — and the ideas were those that he retained and upon 
 which he proceeded throughout his third period. 
 
 To collect and classify the important and significant dicta that 
 Sainte-Beuve made about criticism and the critic in this, his great period, 
 in all moot and pivotal matters giving his own words; to determine 
 whether or not he observed in practice the principles he laid down in 
 theory — this is the hope and plan of this dissertation. 
 
 From many points of view there has as yet been made no adequate 
 complete study of the works of Sainte-Beuve. Most of his critics do 
 not take sufficiently into account the division of his work into the three 
 
 ^ Jules Levallois, Sainte-Beuve (1869), pp. 100 fif. 
 
 ^Causeries du lundi, I, 371: "M. de Feletz et de la critique litt6raire sous 
 I'empire." 
 
 3 "De la tradition en litterature," ibid., XV, 356 ff. 
 
4 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 periods; even those who are most aware of the division do not bring 
 into clear reHef the radical distinctions between the three sections of his 
 work. Many of the studies are sketchy and merely literary, and there- 
 fore, from the point of view of scholarship, inadequate; many of them 
 become entirely absorbed in the striking, as one may say, the sen- 
 sational aspects of Sainte-Beuve's work to the neglect of its other 
 aspects; many of them present bodies of opinion which, however inter- 
 esting and seemingly sound, are not accompanied by those citations and 
 quotations which would enable the student to verify and test them. 
 
 Those books which, because they contribute something new and 
 characteristic, have been found most useful and suggestive, are con- 
 sidered here in chronological order. 
 
 The article of Edmond Scherer in his £>tiides critiques sur la literature 
 contemporainej^ though written as early as 1863, remains one of the 
 most valuable studies of Sainte-Beuve. But Scherer's view was neces- 
 sarily incomplete, since he wrote before the completion of the critic's 
 work. Besides, his treatment is not of sufficient length or scope to call 
 for extensive analysis or comment. 
 
 Jules Levallois, in his Sainte-Beuve,^ devotes to the Cauteries du lundi 
 and the Nouveaux lundis some twenty-five pages, which, however, are 
 almost exclusively taken up with describing, expounding, and criticizing 
 the account of Sainte-Beuve's method which he himself gives in the 
 Nouveaux lundis.^ This account is important, but seen in the right 
 perspective is by no means sufficiently inclusive or profound to be taken, 
 as Levallois takes it, as the sole basis for the discussion of Sainte-Beuve's 
 method. As a matter of fact, in this famous passage Sainte-Beuve is 
 describing only one phase of his thought — that which finds expression 
 in his naturalistic criticism — and Levallois, apparently assuming that 
 it is an account of the great critic's complete system, has no great 
 difficulty in offering objections to it, finding faults in it. Many of 
 Levallois' objections are specious and would have been modified by a 
 little further reading in Sainte-Beuve himself. It should be self-evident 
 that no consideration of Sainte-Beuve can be adequate that takes as 
 its text any one statement of his critical intention, no matter how 
 emphatic and detailed the statement may be. The passage that Leval- 
 lois is content to examine is interesting and important, but it must be 
 
 * Edmond Scherer, £,ludes critiques sur la littirature coniemporaine, I (1863), 321. 
 
 2 Levallois, Sainte-Beuve (Paris, 1872). 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, III, i ff., article on Chateaubriand. 
 
HISTORY OF THE SUBJECT 5 
 
 supplemented by the examination of scores of passages, some confirma- 
 tory and some contradictory, and must be checked and balanced by a 
 knowledge of the critic's total thinking. 
 
 Brunetiere, in his ^.volution de la critique^^ is very helpful and illumi- 
 nating and more satisfying in his treatment of Sainte-Beuve than is 
 Levallois, because he takes into account the aesthetic side of the critic's 
 work. As a matter of fact, not Levallois only, but most writers on 
 Sainte-Beuve have sacrificed the aesthetic side of his work to the natural- 
 istic and scientific side. Brunetiere, however, makes too sharp a dis- 
 tinction between the two series, Causeries du lundi and Nouveaux lundisj 
 when he asserts that it was only in the later series that Sainte-Beuve 
 put forward final conclusions, when he again refused to allow *'que la 
 critique se reduisit a n'etre que I'expression des jugements; ou des 
 gouts personnels du critique."* This admission Sainte-Beuve did not 
 make once during the whole of his last period, as is amply proved by 
 evidence offered in another connection in this dissertation. 
 
 Brunetiere is sound in his insistence upon the general unity of thought 
 holding the period together. His treatment suffers from the misleading 
 condensation inseparable from the handling of so large a topic in a few 
 pages. 
 
 Emile Faguet's account in the Politiques et moralistes^ is also less 
 extensive than it should be and is not adequately documented. It is 
 a popular account of Sainte-Beuve, attempting to cover the whole of 
 his work in one article. Like all such attempts, it is foredoomed to 
 incompleteness in the treatment of this third period. Faguet, in his 
 reaction against systematizing, falls into the other extreme and writes 
 this statement, for example: "Du reste, a la fin de sa vie, Sainte-Beuve 
 n'etait plus, a proprement parler, un critique, si ce n'est par exception 
 et comme par divertissement." He amplifies by explaining that Sainte- 
 Beuve was a moralist and a psychologist, not a literary critic. He 
 undoubtedly does good service in laying stress on this side of the critic's 
 activities, but his statement is without the proper reservations and seems 
 to imply that Sainte-Beuve was not at all times a critic of literature — a 
 misleading implication, since in this last period, as indeed throughout 
 his career, he was primarily interested in the art of literature and the 
 literary artist. A complete, co-ordinated reading of all Sainte-Beuve's 
 work will, we believe, correct the impression made by Faguet. 
 
 ^ F. Brunetiere, Uevolution de la critique (Paris, 1890), p. 234. 
 
 » Ibid., p. 237. 
 
 3 Emile Faguet, Politiques et moralistes (Paris, 1899), III, 185. 
 
6 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 Gustave Michaut, in the last chapter of Sainte-Beuve avant les lundis,^ 
 gives a study of Chateaubriand et son groupe litteraire. Sainte-Beuve 
 collected the material in this book for a course of lectures which he offered 
 in the year of his professorship at Liege, 1848-49. It is not surprising 
 that some of the ideas which later found full expression in the essays 
 are foreshadowed and some even quite clearly embodied in the Chateau- 
 briand. Michaut examines the critical technique of this volume, con- 
 cluding that, allowing for the larger scope of the book, it is not different 
 in technique from the essays. 
 
 The two poles of Sainte-Beuve's critical world are, according to 
 Michaut, taste and truth, and by them he orients himself, whatever 
 -/- book or man he has before him for study. Though we shall be obliged, 
 after a survey of the great critic's later work, to add to these cardinal 
 standpoints for judgment three more categories of equal importance — tra- 
 dition, logic or consistency, and moraUty — yet this chapter of Michaut's 
 monumental work is penetrating and sound. He analyzes extensively 
 the scientific attitude of Sainte-Beuve and his doctrine of scientific 
 criticism, developing further the ideas of Levallois, both following 
 indeed the outline made by Sainte-Beuve himself in the essay mentioned 
 above.^ 
 
 But Michaut limits himself to the earlier work. His material lies 
 strictly in the years avant les lundis. This present treatise will apply 
 to th^ late work the same sort of intensive study with a view to deducing 
 in addition the principles that Sainte-Beuve developed within the 
 Lundis. As a matter of course, some of the ideas expounded will coincide 
 with those that Michaut found — Sainte-Beuve did not abrogate all 
 his earher principles. It is the hope of this thesis to supplement and 
 complete, not to supersede, the Sainte-Beuve avant les lundis. 
 
 Saintsbury, in his voluminous History of Criticism'^ gives a fairly 
 full account of Sainte-Beuve. As is usual with Saintsbury, the essay 
 is full of whims and subject to affectations, and the sketch is literary 
 rather than technical. But below this surface we find one of the most 
 inspiring accounts of the master that have been written. It is especially 
 valuable for its clear and firm outline of Sainte-Beuve's working prin- 
 ciples and for its picture of the organization of a t3^ical or standard 
 Causerie. 
 
 ^ Gustave Michaut, Sainte-Beuve avant les lundis (Fribourg et Paris, 1903). 
 
 ' Nouveaux lundis, III, i. 
 
 3 Saintsbury, A History of Criticism (Edinburgh and London, 1904), Vol. III. 
 
HISTORY OF THE SUBJECT 7 
 
 There remain for special mention the two latest important books in 
 EngUsh: Sainte-Beuve, by George McLean Harper; and the section 
 on Sainte-Beuve in Irving Babbitt's Masters of Modern French Criticism. 
 Harper's book^ is especially valuable as biography and traces the events 
 of Sainte-Beuve's later life in close connection with his literary produc- 
 tion. Harper is, in many respects, of the school of Sainte-Beuve himself, 
 and lays his main emphasis on the more personal and intimate aspects 
 of his subject. Consequently he makes no extended attempt to gather 
 and systematize all of Sainte-Beuve's ideas on criticism. The earUer 
 chapters, dealing with the critic in his formative period, are more 
 exhaustive and helpful than are the later ones. In these latter there is 
 great compression and the confusion that comes from treating in a small 
 space so vast and complex a subject as the critic's ideas and practice 
 during the last twenty years of his life. 
 
 The chapter in Babbitt's book^ was written from a distinct point of 
 view, that of treating Sainte-Beuve as a naturahstic thinker, a Darwinian, 
 an exponent of the scientific trend of the nineteenth century. But 
 Babbitt has a firm grasp on the versatile and volatile mind of Sainte- 
 Beuve, and he makes clear in a few most trenchant and convincing 
 pages the essential contradiction between the master's humanistic 
 instincts and his scientific convictions which led him to his attempt, 
 or perhaps his dream, of making criticism both a science and an art. 
 Babbitt also discusses from a modern philosophical and Hterary point 
 of view some of the more prevalent of Sainte-Beuve's critical ideas and 
 points out authoritatively and definitely the excellences and defects, 
 the powers and limitations, of the great critic. Babbitt's article contains 
 the most masterly writing yet done concerning the later Sainte-Beuve.^ 
 
 The foregoing fist is brief because only those books were chosen, from 
 among the hundreds that make up the bibliography of the subject, 
 which have contributed something new and distinctive in method, in 
 material, or in philosophy to the discussion of Sainte-Beuve after 1849. 
 
 » George McLean Harper, Sainte-Beuve (London and Philadelphia, 1909). 
 
 ' Irving Babbitt, The Masters of Modern French Criticism (Boston and New York, 
 I9i2),pp. 97ff. 
 
 3 In a discussion and evaluation of Sainte-Beuve's later ideas and practice, it 
 seems questionable to justify and illustrate conclusions by so many quotations of 
 material from his early works, especially the Portraits litteraires, as early as 1832-38. 
 
'/ 
 
 II. THE FUNCTIONS OF CRITICISM 
 
 The attempt to resurvey and unify the thought of a great writer is 
 of course to be approached with modesty and some misgiving. The 
 task is the more formidable if the writer be one so voluminous and so 
 multifarious in his interests as is Sainte-Beuve. He himself knew well 
 the difficulties of such an undertaking: "II est difficile, en general, de 
 ramener a I'unite Toeuvre eparse d'un critique; il est delicat surtout de 
 pr^tendre saisir le point central et le noyau de ces organisations de plus 
 d'etendue que de relief."^ He felt that his own mind was of the kind he 
 described — "de plus d'etendue que de relief." "J'ai Tesprit etendu 
 successivement, mais je ne Tai pas etendu a la fois. Je ne vois bien a 
 la fois qu'un point ou qu'un objet determine."^ But the difficulties are 
 challenging and the possible reward inviting. 
 •^ Our first question then is as to the teaching of the great critic con- 
 cerning the most fundamental problem of criticism, its functions. And 
 because of its constant recurrence and strong emphasis there can be no 
 doubt that Sainte-Beuve regarded as the most important function of 
 criticism the discovery and proclaiming of truth. Nor is this to him so 
 inclusive and formless a task as it might at first appear. When we 
 examine the details of his thinking on this point we find it definite and 
 practical. He had taken for his seal the EngHsh word "truth," which 
 represents both la verite and le vrai. He said» "If I had a motto, it 
 would be the true, the true alone, and as for the good and beautiful, they 
 might fare as best they could. "^ 
 
 But his scientific positivism, as it appears in the search for truth 
 and in sense of fact, is so modified by his philosophy of flux and by the 
 \ humanistic generosity of his sympathies that he has frequent moments 
 \' of misgiving, such as is voiced in this passage: " Qu'est-ce que la verity ? 
 Nous sommes de pauvres esquifs qui ramons sur la mer sans fin. Nous 
 montrons quelque reflet de lumiere sur la vague brisee, et nous disons: 
 c^est la verite.''^ If this has a skeptical pragmatic ring it is because 
 Sainte-Beuve conceived of truth as relative and contingent; it is not 
 
 ' Nouveaux lundis, V, 459. ' Cahiers, p. 39. 
 
 3 Correspondance, II, 41. Of the book on Chateaubriand: " Je n'ai voulu qu'une 
 chose; 6tre vrai et rendre le vrai" {ibid., I, 267). 
 * Causer ies du lundi, XI, 514. 
 
 8 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF CRITICISM g 
 
 philosophic, ideaHstic, unfunctioning truth that he seeks, but la vSriti 
 vraie of the scientist, factual truth and fidelity of detail. This he feels is 
 not easy to find; yet it is less difficult to find it than to secure its accept- 
 ance.^ "Pauvre verite, verite vraie, verite nue, que de peine on a ^ te 
 faire sortir de ton puits et quand on est parvenu a t'en sortir a demi et 
 a mi-corps, que de gens accourus de toutes parts qui ont h^te de t'y. 
 renf oncer. "^ Thus half jestingly does he state the profound and pro- 
 foundly discouraging fact that even in matters purely literary people 
 hate the truth and cling lovingly to illusion.^ /fie was convinced that 
 the large number of persons who were offended by his volume on Chateau- 
 briand were so offended because they were not able or willing to face the 
 truth. "*Je suis convaincu depuis longtemps,' m'ecrivait a ce sujet 
 un etranger qui salt a merveille notre litterature,^ *que pour presque 
 tout le monde, la verite dans la critique a quelque chose de fort deplaisant, 
 elle leur parait ironique et desobligeante; on veut une verite accom- 
 modee aux vues et aux passions des partis et des coteries. '"s It is 
 precisely this "accommodated" truth that Sainte-Beuve often depre- 
 cated, which indeed he condemned as a most pernicious form of falsi- 
 fication. It must be acknowledged here, however, as will be pointed 
 out elsewhere, that in his own practice he sometimes tempered the wind 
 of critical severity with more than a modicum of mercy. 
 
 Ignoring the suffering of those who are deprived of their beloved illu- 
 sions, and disregarding those who may visit their displeasure on the 
 iconoclastic critic, he must make it his first concern to seek with exact 
 and scrupulous care the truth — to handle the facts from which he is to 
 draw his truth as the chemist handles his data; more than once he 
 compares Vanalyse critique with V analyse chimique^ assuming that the 
 two processes might ideally be equally exact.^ 
 
 He embodies these ideas in the following significant passage on the 
 role and activity of the genuine critic: 
 
 Le sage et le critique qui a d'avance purge son esprit de toutes les idoles 
 et de tous les fantomes ... ne continue pasrnoins, chaque jour et a chaque 
 
 ^Nouveaux lundis, VIII, i6i: "La v6rite est difficile k bien 6tablir et k fixer en 
 tout, et particulierement en histoire." 
 " Cahiers, p. 139. 
 
 3 Sainte-Beuve often asked himself whether it were not better to allow a certain 
 amount of this illusion to remain undisturbed. 
 
 4 This is undoubtedly the "friend" whom Sainte-Beuve quotes whenever he has 
 anything to say that he does not dare to say in his own person. It is needless to point 
 out that it is a purely rhetorical device and is quite commonly used by Sainte-Beuve. 
 
 5 Nouveaux lundis, III, 3. ^ Ibid., I, 265. 
 
10 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 instant, de servir a sa maniere ravancement de I'espece, d'6tudier, de chercher 
 le vrai, le vrai seul, de s'y tenir sans le forcer, sans I'exagerer, sans y ajouter, 
 et en laissant subsister, a c6te des points acquis, tous les vides et toutes les 
 iacunes qu'il n'a pu combler.' 
 
 The fact that Saint-Beuve is here speaking of scholarship, of erudi- 
 tion, rather than more narrowly of criticism, does not lessen the weight 
 -f' of the passage; for in his mind there is no chasm between scholarship and 
 criticism, since learning is an essential item in the critic's equipment, 
 and the mastery of the field in which his subject-matter lies a necessary 
 first step in the critic's total procedure. 
 
 The passion for the truth of exactness he recognizes as a distinctively 
 modern trait, the product of the scientific movement; he contrasts the 
 point of view arising from this essentially new procedure with that of 
 the ancients whose ideal in the writing of critical history was beauty: 
 "L^art etait la forme la plus haute sous laquelle I'antiquite aimait ^ 
 concevoir et a composer I'histoire" — the aim and ideal for example of 
 Tacitus and Livy; on the contrary, "la verite est la seule loi decidement 
 que les moderne& aient a suivre et a consulter. La verite, toute la 
 verite done! Passons par la puisqu'il le faut et allons jusqu'au bout 
 tant qu'elle nous conduit."* 
 
 It seems plain in this and in many other passages quite as emphatic 
 that when Sainte-Beuve says la verite he means truth to facts — factual 
 I I ' and scientific, not abstract, truth — truth, that is to say, in the Aristo- 
 telian, not in the Platonic, sense. And with this view of criticism he tends 
 logically to make of it a science rather than an art. That is to say, he 
 views it as a science so far as thought and content go; in matters of form, 
 criticism being a branch of literature, he provides for the element of art. 
 Just here may be found, as Babbitt points out,^ the generating center of 
 that conflict and incongruity so constantly found in Sainte-Beuve^s 
 thinking; it lies in the adjustment or the maladjustment between his 
 humanistic instincts and ideals on the one hand and his scientific con- 
 victions and knowledge on the other. Under the sway of the one he 
 seems to say that criticism is as artistic as poetry; under the sway of 
 the other, that it is as scientific as chemistry. How he effected a har- 
 monious or at least a working compromise between the two views may 
 appear later. Our concern here is with his insistence upon the scien- 
 
 » Nouveaux lundis, IX, 105. 
 
 » Ihid., Ill, 303. 
 
 3 Babbitt, The Masters of Modern French Criticism, p. 135. 
 
I 
 
 THE FUNCTIONS OF CRITICISM 1 1 
 
 tific scrupulousness and completeness called for in gathering the informa- 
 tion necessary for a well-grounded criticism: 
 
 Nous tous, partisans de la methode naturelle en litterature et qui I'ap- 
 pliquons chacun selon notre mesure a des degres differents, nous tous, artisans 
 et serviteurs d'une meme science^ que nous cherchons a rendre aussi exacte 
 que possible, sans nous payer de notions vagues et de vains mots; continuons 
 done d'observer sans relache, d'6tudier et de penetrer les conditions des ceuvres 
 diversement remarquables et I'infinie variete des formes de talent; forgons-les 
 de nous rendre raison et de nous dire comment et pourquoi elles sont de telle 
 ou telle facon et qualite plutot que d'une autre, dussions-nous ne jamais tout 
 expliquer, et dut-il rester, apres tout notre effort, un dernier point et comme une 
 demiere citadelle irreductible.* 
 
 This last sentence gives us an example of those apparent vacillations 
 that seem to overtake the great critic in his most earnest defenses of 
 purely scientific criticism; for here in the implied admission that th^ 
 are reaches of an author's work closed to scientific investigation anv. 
 open only to intuitive penetration he seems to abandon his case fo. 
 science.^ But this admission does not invalidate his claim as to the 
 necessity of gathering, in a strictly scientific way, the facts and all the 
 facts, though this process must in many cases be supplemented by an 
 intuitive activity of the sympathetic critic which functions beyond the 
 horizon of science. 
 
 The establishment of truth has two aspects, complementary and 
 of almost equal importance. Obviously, of course, it brings to light 
 actual facts, verifiable knowledge; but in the second place it destroys 
 false traditions, disposes of untrue and unreal conceptions, blasts 
 baseless illusions, and clears out other useless and dangerous rubbish: 
 "L'histoire (m^me Utteraire) transmise est presque toujours factice; 
 a nous de briser la glace, pour retrouver le courant.''^ It is apparent 
 at once that, just because Sainte-Beuve is a critic and not a Hterary 
 appreciator or expounder, and because he is dealing with a vast num- 
 ber of reputations irregularly and popularly estabHshed, he finds more 
 work to do in the destruction of wrong critical impressions and con- 
 clusions than in the establishment of new facts and fresh points of view. 
 
 » Notice the word "science" used here. Cf. his "science of minds," etc., in the 
 second section. 
 
 ^ On Taine's Histoire de la literature anglaise in Nouveaux lundis, VIII, 88. 
 
 3 Sainte-Beuve did not hesitate to contradict himself. Elsewhere he even speaks 
 of the right of the critic to "dire, redire, et se contredire" {Correspondance, II, 370). 
 
 4 Causeries du lundi, XI, 494. 
 
12 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 This will explain and justify much of his destructive criticism — ^he is a 
 new, critical Cervantes. To find the main current of truth is a prime 
 motive of the critic; to re-estabhsh real facts about a writer and to clear 
 away from his reputation the mass of fictitious legends and merely 
 attributed excellences which grow up about any considerable reputa- 
 tion — "inventions ... que la critique n'admet pas" — this he must do 
 without pity.^ 
 
 The critic's search for truth leads him to go deeper than external 
 superficial facts in the hope of finding the inner mental spirit of the 
 age or the man he is studying. He will refuse to accept for serious con- 
 sideration superficial appearances, absurdities, and falsehoods, even 
 though they bear the stamp of age and long acceptance. These things 
 the critic brushes aside for the sake of going directly at the central, 
 generating, significant features of his book, his man, or his epoch. 
 Sainte-Beuve in his own practice never hesitated at this point.' Indeed 
 he seemed to find a righteous joy in the destruction of traditions which 
 he regarded as embodying falsehood, regardless of their antiquity or 
 their respectability — this in addition to a certain malicious satisfaction 
 he derived from the very process of disillusionment. 
 
 The critic's care for the truth is concerned even with the deUcate 
 and difficult matter of truth to atmosphere. Sainte-Beuve felt that 
 the first step in creatmg the true atmosphere is to find in the man his 
 trait saillant: "C'est ainsi ... qu'il faut, en definitive, juger des grands 
 hommes, sans s'amuser aux accessoires, et en s'elevant jusqu'au point 
 qui domine en eux les contradictions et les travers."^ By placing the 
 emphasis on this salient or distinguishing trait he brings his subject at 
 once into the true light;'' he will not hesitate to tear away the veils of 
 
 ^ Nouveaiix lundis, V, 219. Sainte-Beuve goes on here to express regret that in 
 the interests of the truth these legends which are sometimes most beautiful should 
 have to be destroyed. "Si nous d6truisions la 16gende, il semble que nous devrions 
 •nous mettre en peine de la remplacer aussit6t." But it is the artist in him who feels 
 this regret and the artist is glad for the sacrifice for the benefit of the scientist. 
 
 In another place he expresses a similar doubt as to the expediency of destroying 
 popular beliefs. "II en est des personnages c61dbres comme des choses, la majority 
 des hommes, ne les juge qu'^ un certain point de perspective et d'illusion. Est-il 
 bien n6cessaire de venir miner cette illusion, et de les montrer par le dedans tels 
 qu'ils sont, en leur ouvrant devant tous les entrailles ? Je me le demande, et pourtant 
 je le fais" (Causeries du lundi, XI, 461). 
 
 » Causeries du lundi, XI, 517. > Ibid., Ill, 185. 
 
 < It would have been easy for him, he says, to have made a more favorable portrait 
 of M. Bazin but "je crois que la plus grande faveur qu'on puisse faire k un homme 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF CRITICISM 13 
 
 accumulated legend that obscure the true figure;^ he must display it 
 with its faults and virtues, its limitations and qualifications;' he must 
 disregard affection and predilection — ^all in order that the way may be 
 cleared for the presentation of the particular and characterizing 
 originaUty of the man or the book, "montrer a tous en quoi consistent 
 rinnovation et I'espece de decouverte reelle charmant artiste. "«» He 
 sums up his teaching on this point when he says that he has studied 
 Villemain with a view to presenting him as he is; 
 
 Les gens de lettres, les historians et pr^cheurs moralistes ne sont-ils done 
 que des com6diens qu'on n'a pas le droit de prendre en dehors du rdle qu'ils 
 se sent arrange et defini ? faut-il ne les voir que sur la scene et tant qu'ils y 
 sent ? ou bien est-il permis, le sujet bien connu, de venir hardiment, bien que 
 discretement, glisser le scalpel et indiquer le d^faut de la cuirasse ? de montrer 
 les points de suture entre le talent et I'^me ? de louer Tun, mais de marquer 
 aussi le d^faut de I'autre, qui se ressent jusque dans le talent m^me et dans 
 Teffet qu'il produit a la longue ? La htt^rature y perdra-t-elle ? c'est possible: 
 la science morale y gagnera.^ 
 
 The critic should resolutely clear away from his author this overlay of 
 legend and popular overestimation even at the risk of incurring the repro- 
 bation that Sainte-Beuve says he endured because of his iconoclasm 
 in respect to Chateaubriand. But the honest and fearless critic "ne 
 pretend rien oter que de faux, on ne veut y remettre que la verite de la 
 physionomie et I'entiere <«ssemblance."s 
 
 When he has isolated the trait saillant or has identified the facility 
 mattresse the critic has then the privilege and the duty of placing the 
 author in the great literary scheme, and thus recording for his generation, 
 if not for all time, what he feels to be the truth: 
 
 Le devoir de chaque generation est d'enterrer ses morts et de celebrer 
 plus particulierement ceux qui ont droit a des honneurs distingu6s. Quand 
 
 distingu6 ... c'est de le montrer le plus au vif qu'on peut, et le plus saillant dans les 
 lignes de la v6rit6 {ihid., II, 484). 
 
 He says elsewhere that he writes of Tocqueville in order to present the real man 
 and "prendre, autant que je le pouvais, la mesure de I'homme, avant qu'il pass4t 
 k l'6tat de demi-dieu par le fait de I'apoth^ose acad6mique" (Nouveaux lundis, I, 150). 
 
 ^ His own most extensive unveiling was perhaps the Chateaubriand et son groupe 
 litUraire. He says also of C. G. Etienne: "Dans ce qu'on a 6crit jusqu'4 present sur 
 lui, je remarque bien des choses convenues, et commandees, qui masquent un peu la 
 physionomie veritable; je n'ai aucune raison pour ne pas restituer quelque chose ici, 
 d'autant plus qu'il doit s'y mfiler bien des 61oges" (Causeries du lundi, VI, 474). He 
 says the same thing of Raynouard in Causeries du lundi, V, 2. 
 
 ' Causeries du lundi, II, 286. 4 Correspondance, I, 316. 
 
 5 Ibid., VIII, 414. 5 Nouveaux lundis, I, 187. 
 
14 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 je dis c61ebrer, je n'entends pas cette louange unifonne et banale qui tend k 
 grandir et a exhausser un personnage au dela du vrai; la meilleure oraison 
 funebre, la seule digne des gens d'esprit qui en sont I'objet, est celle, qui, 
 sans rien surfaire, va degager et indiquer en eux, au milieu de bien des qualit^s 
 confuses, le trait distinctif et saillant de leur physionomie."^ 
 
 It is also wise "revenir de temps en temps sur les diverses epoques 
 litteraires, m6me celles qui ont ete deja tres-explorees et qui sont censees 
 les mieux connues, pour y constater les changements introduits par le 
 cours des etudes, pour enregistrer les acquisitions reelles et faire justice 
 des pretentions peu fondees."^ 
 
 The first function of criticism, then, is the establishment of truth, 
 basing it upon the fullest collection and consideration of facts, weeding 
 out the irrelevancies and inventions, estabhshing, in a word, history 
 indubitable and as complete as possible. 
 
 This brings us to the second function of criticism, which is, in the 
 phrase of our own day, "social betterment," the actual amelioration of 
 social conditions, the improvement of social institutions, and the develop- 
 ment of a social psychology. These operations take place in two fields, 
 in that of morals and ideas, and in that of aesthetics. 
 
 After every social upheaval literature must help to rebuild the edifices 
 of society, and criticism must aid in this rehabilitation. 
 
 Toutes les fois qu'apres un long bouleversement I'ordre politique se r6pare 
 et reprend sa marche reguliere, Tordre litteraire tend a se mettre en accord 
 et a suivre de son mieux. La critique (quand critique il y a) ... accomplit 
 son ceuvre, et sert a la restauration commune .^ 
 
 Malherbe accompHshed such a task after the Ligue, Boileau after the 
 Fronde. In 1800 it was the critical small change of Malherbe and 
 Boileau "qui remirent le bon ordre dans les choses de I'esprit et firent 
 la police des Lettres."^ Perhaps Sainte-Beuve hoped to render some such 
 social service when after the coup d^etat of 1851 he rallied with such 
 extraordinary promptness, though with none too great cordiality, to the 
 standard of the new empire in his article "Les Regrets," published 
 in 1852.S 
 
 '^ Nouveaux lundis, V, 440. Sainte-Beuve might have added "by pointing out and 
 emphasizing their faculU mattresse." 
 
 ' Ibid., IV, 289. 3 Causeries du lundi, I, 374. 
 
 ^ Ibid., I, 374. Sainte-Beuve does not often admit even this much virtue in 
 neo-classical ideas. 
 
 5 Ihid.y VI, 397. Cf. Harper, Sainte-Beuve, pp. 310 ff., who describes the hatred 
 which Sainte-Beuve brought on himself by this article. 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF CRITICISM 15 
 
 Sainte-Beuve gives -also specific instances of the helpful ministrations 
 of the critic in the case of a diseased mental life, a spiritual malady such 
 as was the mat de Rene. It was St. Marc Girardin, says Sainte-Beuve, 
 who did more than anyone else toward the cure of this particular malady 
 in the minds of the youth of France, both by his writing as a critic 
 and by his lectures at the university.'^ Indeed Sainte-Beuve whimsically 
 complains that Girardin did his work too thoroughly, so that whereas 
 previously every young man longed to die of consumption, in his day 
 every young man desired to become a healthy pere de famille and a 
 deputy at twenty-five. 
 
 The critic is in so real a sense a guardian of the morals of society 
 that he must be depended upon to discountenance infringements of moral 
 law and order. Sainte-Beuve censures Grimm severely for his failure 
 to condemn certain immoral works of the eighteenth century — of 
 Helvetius and Holbach.^ /So seriously does he regard this aspect of the 
 critic's work that we find morahty counted by him as one, though a 
 minor one, of the five pierres-de-touche which he himseK used in testing 
 the excellence of any book, according to which he praised it as helpful 
 or condemned it as dangerous to society/ Of course Sainte-Beuve 
 recognizes the relativity of moral codes and ideals, and he refrained from 
 setting up a hard-and-fast doctrine on which the critic can completely 
 depend.3 
 
 A further service of the critic to society is rendered when he saves 
 it from becoming the prey of the charlatan, from being imposed upon 
 by the egotists, self-seekers, and demagogues. Sainte-Beuve himself 
 possessed in remarkably large measure the "wisdom of disillusion" 
 requisite for the discharge of this duty.4 He feels that he rendered some 
 such service to the public of his day when in his two monumental volumes 
 on Chateaubriand he spoiled the pose of that eminent poseur. It was 
 his delight, as he considered it his duty, to demohsh pedestals. 
 
 But above all, the distinctive service of the critic to his age and his 
 group is that of cultivating taste in Hterature and the other arts; of 
 preserving and making operative in the social mind whatever of good 
 taste and good usage has been handed down from former times; of pro- 
 tecting the best tradition, proclaiming the best models; of constantly 
 indicating the path by which beauty and distinction may be reached.^ 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, I, 17. ^ On morality as a critical touchstone, see p. 67. 
 
 » Ibid., VII, 323. 4 Babbitt, op. ciL, p. 187. 
 
 sCf. Matthew Arnold: "It is the critic's business to see that the intellectual 
 current of his time is broad and large, and that it moves in the right direction." See 
 Essays in Criticism, pp. 1-38; also the article "Sainte-Beuve," Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica. 
 
l6 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 In Sainte-Beuve's judgment the functions of the critic here coincide with 
 those of the scholar and the teacher, since it is equally their task to 
 discover, conserve, and propagate true distinction, to join forces against 
 the legions of the Philistines who know not if there be a tradition. To 
 the critic, however, falls the further task of discovering and proclaiming 
 new achievements in art and of welcoming innovations good enough 
 to be added to the world's storehouse of precious things. 
 
 In his famous essay *'De la tradition en litterature" Sainte-Beuve 
 gives in great detail his sense of the critic's duty toward this large and 
 sacred social inheritance — ^in France inherited even from the mighty 
 Hellenic days. This it is that the critic must help to keep uncorrupted 
 and active. He should be, therefore, an agent, explosive or erosive, in 
 removing those accretions that gather about and disfigure tradition and 
 which from age to age become useless "a chaque renouvellement de 
 siecle, il y a dans la tradition recente qu'on croyait fondee des portions 
 qui s'ecroulent, qui s'eboulent, en quelque sorte, et n'en font que mieux 
 apparaitre dans sa soUdite le roc et le marbre indestructible."^ He 
 draws an interesting picture of this clear tradition which the critic 
 must cherish as the embodiment of urbanity and reason.* 
 
 The Graeco-Roman clarity and intelligence are actuating principles 
 also of the Frenchman: 
 
 Non, la tradition nous le dit ... , la raison toujours doit presider et preside 
 en definitive, m^me entre ces f avoris et ces 61us de rimagination ; ou si elle ne 
 preside pas constamment et si elle laisse par acces courir la verve, elle n'est 
 jamais loin, elle est a c6te qui sourit, attendant Theure ... de revenir. C'est 
 de cette religion litteraire que nous sommes, au milieu m^me des plus vives 
 hardiesses, et que nous voulons ^tre toujours.3 
 
 Not only does the critic guard and preserve this tradition, but by 
 making it audible and active he performs a most important function — 
 cultivating the taste of his public, preparing them to receive and to 
 demand what is good in art. There must be taste to receive as well as 
 to create before there can be a movement, a great productive moment, 
 in any art. In a very real sense the receptivity of the public is as creative 
 as the inspiration of the artist. 
 
 That the critic can and may serve groups and movements of artists 
 is proved by the case of Henri Beyle, the "Uterary hussar," and his 
 
 * Causeries du lundi, XV, 373. 
 
 ^ Ibid., XV, 362. See later, p. 60, where there is a fuller discussion of his 
 attitude toward the classical tradition. 
 3 Ibid., XV, 368. 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF CRITICISM 17 
 
 victorious campaign against the army of the classicists encamped on the 
 right bank of the river PubHc Opinion in favor of the army of the roman- 
 ticists on the other bank of this same stream.^ 
 
 The critic's whole duty is not discharged when he has served the 
 pubhc, his social group. He has also the privilege of serving the indi- 
 vidual artist himself: 
 
 Le critique, s'il fait ce qu'il doit ... est una sentinelle toujours en eveille, 
 sur le qui-vive. Et il ne crie pas seulement holal il aide. Loin de ressembler 
 a un pirate et de se rejouir des nauf rages, il est quelquefois comme le pilote 
 c6tier qui va au secours de ceux que surprend la tempete a I'entree ou au sortir 
 du-port.' 
 
 He was, however, not slow to admit the limitations of the service that 
 the critic can render to the artist — he cannot create genius: 
 
 La critique, a chaque renouvellement de regime, peut essayer et combiner 
 des programmes qu'elle croit utiles; elle peut proposer et recomposer ses plans 
 d'une Htterature studieuse et reparatrice ... c'est son devoir; mais I'imagina- 
 tion, la fleur, Tinspiration de la passion et du sentiment, lui 6chappent: cela 
 nait et recommence comme il plait a Dieu.^ 
 
 He never forgets that ideally "un critique est aussi un praticien qui 
 prend Fart ou il est — et qui en tire le meilleur parti" as did "Diderot, ce 
 critique cordial et rechauffant."'* His admiration of Diderot as a critic 
 had precisely this basis — that the latter was practically always in sym- 
 pathy with the artist, which is on the whole the most fruitful and trust- 
 worthy attitude the critic can take: "Les conseils de critique a artiste 
 sont utiles, mais ils ne valent rien que s'ils sont accompagn6s d'une 
 sympathie intelHgente."s It is in this spirit — ^as friend and well-wisher — 
 that he himself criticized Flaubert's Salammbd: "On n'est jamais jug6 
 que par ses amis, " he exclaims in another connection.*^ 
 
 But this sympathetic attitude must not, of course, blind the critic 
 to the less agreeable aspects of his duty. He must not lend himself 
 to the zealous championship of his artist. He must not be afraid to 
 condemn severely, to point out faults, especially curable faults. Indeed, 
 Sainte-Beuve seems to feel frequently in this later period of his work 
 that when the critic is in perfect agreement with the author there is 
 nothing for him to say. "II en est ainsi de la critique: elle tourne court 
 
 ^ Ibid., IX, 316. This whole passage is very instructive as to the function of 
 the critic. 
 
 'Ibid., XV, 373. 
 
 3 Ibid., V, 381. s ibid.^ p. loo. 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, III, 99. ^ Cahiers, p. 79. 
 
i8 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 et s'en va quand elle est d'accord avec I'auteur."^ The exaggeration 
 in this statement is obvious, but the truth which forms its basis records 
 the change that came over Sainte-Beuve's critical theory as he grew 
 more experienced, and attests the distance he had traveled from the 
 merely inductive criticism of his early romantic period. His insistence 
 on the duty of the critic to serve the pubUc and to act as friend and helper 
 to the author is so striking that one is obliged to feel that Sainte-Beuve 
 was profoundly influenced by the socializing and humanitarian move- 
 ments of his day. In fact we know that at one time he joined the 
 Saint-Simon cult of humanitarianism.=' He recognized the prevailing 
 current of his century: "chaque siecle.a sa marotte, le notre ... a la 
 marptte humanitaire."^ 
 
 The beneficial influence of the critic upon the author may be of the 
 greatest moment. It is to Boileau, to his services as arbiter and critic, 
 that Sainte-Beuve attributes much of the excellence of le grand sUcle. 
 The passage in which he does this is so important in itseK and so 
 adequate a statement of the point under discussion that it may be 
 quoted at some length. 
 ^ Saluons et reconnaissons aujourd'hui la noble et forte harmonie du grand 
 siecle. Sans Boileau, et sans Louis XIV qui reconnaissait Boileau comme son 
 Controleur-general du Parnasse, que serait-il arrive ? Les plus grands talents 
 eux-memes auaient-ils rendu egalement tout ce qui forme desormais leur 
 plus solide heritage de gloire ? Racine, je le Grains, aurait fait plus souvent 
 des Berenice; La Fontaine moins de Fables et plus de Conks; Moliere lui-meme 
 aurait donne davantage dans les Scapins, et n'aurait peut-etre pas atteint 
 aux hauteurs severes du Misanthrope. En un mot, chacun de ces beaux 
 genies aurait abonde dans ses defauts.^ Boileau, c'est-a-dire le bon sens du 
 poete critique, autorise et double de celui d'un grand roi, les contint tous et 
 les contraignit, par sa presence respectee, a leurs meilleures et a leurs plus graves 
 oeuvres. Savez-vous ce qui, de nos jours, a manque a nos poetes, si pleins a 
 leur debut de facultes naturelles, de promesses, et d 'inspirations heureuses? 
 II a manqu6 un Boileau et un monarque eclaire, I'un des deux appuyant 
 et consacrant I'autre. Aussi ces hommes de talent, se sentant dans un siecle 
 
 » Nouveaux hmdis, I, 337. 
 
 " Michaud, op. cit., p. 294. ' Cauteries du lundi, III, 16. 
 
 4 This is exactly what happened in the case of Le Sage: "Qu'on se figure Moliere 
 n'ayant pas k c6t6 de lui Boileau pour I'exciter, le gronder, lui conseiller la haute 
 com^die et le Misanthrope; Moliere faisant une infinite de Georges Dandin, de Scapin, 
 et de Pourceaugnac en diminutif. C'est la le malheur dont eut a souffrir Le Sage, qui 
 est une sorte de Moliere adouci. II n'eut pas k ses c6t6s I'Aristarque et s'abandonna 
 sans r6serve aux penchants de sa nature, et aussi au besoin de vivre qui le commandait " 
 {ibid., II, 371). 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF CRITICISM 19 
 
 d'anarchie et d'indiscipline, se sont vite conduits a Tavenant; ils se sont 
 conduits, au pied de la lettre, non comme de nobles genies ni comme des 
 hommes, mais comme des ecoliers en vacances. Nous avons vu le resultat.' 
 
 The excesses that Chateaubriand permitted himself in the Memoirs 
 d'outre-tombe occur because he lacked the critical offices of his 
 Aristarchus, Fontanes, who had saved him from similar mistakes in 
 his other works.^ Honore de Balzac, too, the superabundant and 
 flamboyant, stood in sad need of a friendly critic-mentor. "Un Aris- 
 tarque vrai, sincere, intelligent, s'il avait pu le supporter, lui e^t et6 
 pourtant bien utile; car cette riche et luxueuse nature se prodiguait 
 et ne se gouvernait pas."^ He expresses the wish that his own counsels 
 may be of service to Flaubert and save him in the future from some of 
 the extravagances of Salammbo: *'S'il lui arrivait seulement de tenir 
 compte, dans un Hvre futur, d'une ou deux observations essentielles 
 que nous lui aurions faites avec tout un public ami, ce serait un resultat."^ 
 He had little confidence in the power of the artist to control his own 
 exuberance,s and for this reason he attributes so much value to the 
 restraining influence of a firm and sympathetic critic. 
 
 The author is partly dependent on the good offices of the critic in 
 the matter of the estabhshment and advancement of his reputation. 
 It is often within the province of the critic to redress the balance for 
 an author who is not receiving the credit due him. Sainte-Beuve felt 
 himself to be reaching a helping hand to Scherer when he wrote: 
 "M. Scherer lui-meme avait peut-etre besoin d'etre signale ... et j'ai tenu 
 a le faire sans retard; c'etait justice a la fois et plaisir; j'aime assez 
 k sonner le premier coup de cloche, comme on sait."^ He performs with 
 equal pleasure the same service for many other authors,^ exercising the 
 function he claimed for the critic — the discovering and proclaiming of 
 new talent or of the less well-known aspects of recognized talent. Indeed, 
 a favorite type of essay with him is that which handles some unknown 
 aspect of a well-known writer. He liked to introduce a famous novelist 
 as a writer of plays, a philosopher or statesman as an epistolary writer, 
 or more frequently some great artist or other celebrity merely as a man, 
 approaching him by the intimately biographical path. 
 
 ' Ibid., Wl, 511. 
 
 ' Ibid., I, 436; see also Chateaubriand et son groupe litteraire, II, 118 flf. 
 3 Ihid., II, 456; cf. also p. 457. sBabbitt, op. cit., p. 182. 
 
 < Nouveaux lundis, IV, 72. ^ Causeries du lundi, XV, 66. 
 
 7 E.g., Mme de Swetchine; see Nouveaux lundis, I, 210. 
 
20 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 This service, so valuable to a living author, may be useful in the case 
 of one no longer living — by "placing" him definitely. His own genera- 
 tion is too close to him adequately to bring to light the real facts about 
 him. Too often a writer's memory is laden with undeserved and unes- 
 sential reproach. Sainte-Beuve proposes to perform the task that the 
 writer's own generation cannot fulfil, for instance for Beranger's cor- 
 respondence which he thinks had been misunderstood and misjudged.* 
 Something like this he did for Grimm; ^ for Mme de Stael who had so 
 much critical influence for good and who had received so little credit.^ 
 Writing of the President Jeannin he says: "Pour moi, je n'ai voulu, 
 selon mon habitude, que payer ma dette envers une memoire a la fois 
 considerable et non toutefois populaire et vulgaire."^ 
 
 The effect of the reviving of forgotten writers and the rediscovery 
 of neglected works is sometimes profound; the restoration of Bossuet 
 was of the nature of a triumph. "La restitution de Bossuet ... estassez 
 considerable en soi; c'est une assez belle conquete de la critique 
 historique."s 
 
 The importance which Sainte-Beuve attributed to this process of 
 rehabiUtation and the pleasure he had in bringing to light neglected or 
 forgotten aspects of art or qualities of men explain in part the fact so 
 often noticed concerning him, that he neglected the greatest, choosing 
 minor writers for his subjects. Certain critics have even inferred from 
 this that he was incapable of rising to the high level upon which the 
 great artists should be criticized. But instead of inabihty or perversity 
 in him there are other considerations suflScient to explain Sainte-Beuve's 
 choice. In the first place there are cases in which he is interested in 
 the author as a representative and a product of his society.^ And it is 
 a well-known fact that a minor writer offers a clearer and simpler example 
 in this case than a great one, since the great man is more than a mere 
 expression of an epoch. In the second place, the critic may have occu- 
 pied himself with less well-known men because it was they who needed 
 recognition and introduction, whereas the supreme geniuses did not.7 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, I, 165. " Causeries du lundi, VII, 307. 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, II, 292. 
 
 ^Causeries du lundi, X, 178. He ijiakes a similar statement concerning the 
 reputation of Mme de Swetchine. Nouveaux lundis, I, 210. 
 
 s/6i^., 11,356. 
 
 ^ Cf. Babbitt, op. cit., p. 155; Harper, op. cit., p. 321, and injra, "Precepts and 
 Proc6d6s," p. 85. 
 
 ' Causeries du lundi, IV, 515. 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF CRITICISM 21 
 
 What he says of Montesquieu he feels to be true of all writers of first 
 rank: "II en a ete excellemment parle par des maitres, et il est inutile 
 de venir repeter faiblement ce qui a ete bien dit une fois."* Sainte- 
 Beuve found a very congenial task in his essays on the hterary women 
 of the eighteenth century, reclaiming for literature all those who were 
 influential either through their writing or through their salons. 
 
 J'ai cru et je crois encore payer une dette delicate, remplir un devoir de 
 politesse ... envers des personnes rares, si brillantes a leur heure, si f^'tees 
 et meritant de I'^tre, mais dont la memoire, pour peu qu'on neglige, d'en 
 receuillier avec quelque precision les temoignages et les traits distinctifs, se 
 dissipe de loin, s'efface peu a peu et s'evanouit.^* 
 
 But it is equally the duty of the literary critic to allow the merciful " 
 pall of oblivion to cover those minor writers who have neither originality 
 nor representative value. (Sainte-Beuve would have deplored the prac- 
 tice of modern scholars who unearth and perpetuate insignificant 
 writers, better forgotten. The critic here needs much learning and well- 
 trained powers of discrimination, for the mere fact that he occupies 
 himself with a bygone or neglected name assures for it some prominence 
 and a certain measure of immortahty • he should therefore select with 
 much care only those who are worthy .^j *'Et enfin fut elle en pure perte, 
 cette insistance de la critique, meme lorsqu'elle n'approuve pas, est 
 encore une maniere d'hommage. ... "^ 
 
 TcLSum up what Sainte-Beuve conceived to be the critic's service 
 to the artist: (i) he may actually improve the author's production by 
 counsel and advice; (2) he may establish or augment the author's 
 reputation, of the living as of the dead; (3) he prepares the public to 
 receive and appreciate the author's work; (4) he especially works to 
 revive and re-estabhsh those undeservedly neglected or forgotten. 
 
 The critic's service to the reader^ begins in helping him to choose good 
 reading and continues in assisting him to grasp and then to appreciate 
 the thing he has chosen. 
 
 L'art de la critique, en un mot, dans son sens le plus pratique et le plus 
 vulgaire, consiste a savoir lire judicieusement les auteurs, et a apprendre aux 
 autres a les lire de meme, en leur epargnant les t^tonnements et en leur 
 degageant le chemin.* 
 
 » Ibid., VII, 41. 3 Ibid., p. 296. 
 
 ' Nouveaux lundis, IV, 163. ■♦ Ibid., p. 72. 
 
 s Causeries du lundi, VI, 321. He calls critics serviteurs du public. 
 ^Ibid., I, 278. Again he says: "Le critique n'est qu'un homme qui sait lire I 
 et qui apprend d lire aux autres^' {Portraits litter aires, III, 546), 
 
22 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 The critic or expert is able to save the reader the difficult labor 
 of choosing among those works that have survived or are worthy to 
 survive in the evolutionary struggle. 
 
 La posterite, de plus en plus, me parait ressembler a un voyageur press^ 
 qui fait sa malle, et qui ne peut y faire entrer qu'un petit nombre de volumes 
 choisis. Critique, qui avez Thonneur d'etre pour la posterite du moment un 
 nomenclateur et un secretaire,^ et, s'il se peut, un bibliothecaire de confiance, 
 dites-lui bien vite le titre de ces volumes qui meritent que Ton s'en souvienne, 
 et qu'on les lise; h^tez-vous! le convoi s'apprete, deja la machine chauffe, 
 la vapeur fume, notre voyageur n'a qu'un instant.^ 
 
 The critic is finally a sentinel, an outpost on the lookout for new 
 talents, and to his sharpened critical senses he must add a certain gift 
 of divination, that he may perceive promise when fulfilment is still far off. 
 
 II est des organisations delicates ... qui sentent vingt-quatre heures a 
 I'avance les changements de temps, qui les devinent en quelque sorte; tel 
 doit 6tre I'esprit du critique par rapport au jugement du pubHc. II faut que 
 sa montre avance de cinq minutes au moins sur le cadran de I'Hotel-de-Ville.^ 
 
 Yet this does not mean that the critic is in any sense a prophet or a 
 soothsayer: "Le critique n'a pas le don de deviner le talent cache qui 
 n'a pas encore jailU."4 
 
 The critic further serves the reader by virtue of the fact that he is 
 able as a scholar and an expert to sum up and condense a book or a 
 larger corpus of material so as to convey to the reader knowledge that 
 the latter could never gather for himself. The critic constitutes himself 
 a guide through a difficult and. inaccessible region: "Rien n'est agreable 
 et piquant comme un guide famiUer dans des epoques lointaines. On 
 y apprend d^une maniere facile mille choses nouvelles; les reflexions 
 naissent a chaque pas d'elles — memes,"s etc. His duty to the reader may 
 be merely that of informing him, the discharge of his office of scholar; 
 it may be pedagogical or editorial, as when he sums up, interprets, 
 rearranges, or otherwise prepares the material for the mental digestion 
 
 ^ Elsewhere he uses this same phrase about the critic, "Le critique n'est que le 
 secretaire du public, mais un secretaire qui n'attend pas qu'on lui dicte, et qui devine, 
 qui d6m61e et r^dige chaque matin, la pens6e de tout le monde" {Causeries du lundi^ 
 I, 373). 
 
 2 Ihid., IV, 515. Cf. also, where he uses this same figure of the reader resembling 
 a traveler, ihid., VII, 89, and Voltaire's "on ne va pas k la post6rit6 avec de si gros 
 
 iges." 
 
 3 Portraits contemporains, V, 457. 
 < CahierSy p. 143. s Causeries du lundi, VIII, 495. 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF CRITICISM 2$ 
 
 of the reader;^ or psycho-social, as when he prepares the mind of the 
 reader for the reception of what literature has to give him.* "Mais 
 les hommes pour la plupart ne savent pas eux-m^mes quel jugement 
 porter; ils ont besoin d'une marque exterieure qui les rassure.*'^ 
 
 The critic has an unmistakable duty in those cases, by no means 
 rare, where he becomes possessed of important information or vital 
 points of view which are not common property. **I1 me semble que 
 quand on sait quelque chose de particuUer et d'un peu nouveau sur 
 Racine, on n'est pas libre de le garder pour soi et qu'on le doit a tous."4 
 This is particularly true if it happens, as it often does, that the important 
 knowledge Ues imbedded in some obscure or esoteric place, difl&cult 
 of access to the popular reader, so that to his social obligation the critic 
 must add a pedagogical or exegetical duty.s 
 
 But the reader, and especially the pubHc of readers, may be indif- 
 ferent or even hostile to the critic and anything but grateful for his 
 assistance. Sainte-Beuve was frequently deeply discouraged by this — 
 so deeply that he has words in which he questions the value of his art: 
 "II n'est pas invitant de s'aller engager dans un long combat, dans une 
 joute inegale, non-seulement avec la certitude d'etre finalement vaincu, 
 mais de plus avec I'assurance qu'on sera declare inferieur a tous les 
 moments du duel."^ In such moods he bitterly resented the refusal 
 of the public to be guided, as well as the arrogant assumption of the 
 chance ignoramus, who considers himself as good a judge of literature as 
 the trained expert.' It must have been in some such mood that he wrote 
 the essay "De Feletz et de la critique litteraire sous Tempire,"* which 
 has been made so much of by students as a repudiation by Sainte-Beuve 
 
 ^ This informational function he himself exercises, for example, in the case of the 
 Provencal poet Jasmin. " II y a toute une moiti6 de la France qui rirait si nous avions 
 la pr6tention de lui apprendre ce que c'est que Jasmin, ... mais il y a une autre 
 moiti6 ... qui a besoin ... qu'on lui rappelle ce qui n'est pas sorti de son sein," etc. 
 {Causeries du lundi, IV, 309). 
 
 * "Ce n'est pas une rehabilitation que je viens tenter, mais il est bon de mettre 
 des idees exactes sous de certains noms qui reviennent souvent" {ibid., IV, 121). 
 He is going to speak again of Saint-Simon's Mimoires. "II ne pent 6tre question ici 
 que de rappeler et de fixer avec nettete quelques-uns des points principaux acquis 
 d^sormais et incontestables " (ibid., XV, 423). "Je voulais seulement, sur ce terrain 
 litteraire qui est neutre ... amener les uns et les autres k Hie plus justes," etc. 
 {Nouveaux lundis, I, 81). 
 
 5 Cahiers, p. 72. ^ Nouveaux lundis, V, 334. 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis; X, 356. ' Ibid., p. 335. 
 
 s See also p. 76. * Causeries du lundi, I, 373. 
 
24 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 of his office as critic* He indubitably takes in this essay a low view of 
 his art and calling. He goes so far as to say that criticism of itself can 
 do nothing unless the public is already friendly, that the critic is merely 
 the secretary of the public, divining what the public thinks or desires 
 and giving it that. Nevertheless this is not his normal doctrine, rather 
 a mere houtade written in an hour of discouragement and disgust. 
 
 A summary of his views of the relation of the critic to the reader 
 displays these points: he gives aid and guidance in the selection of 
 things worth knowing; he purveys information — knowledge and point 
 of view — otherwise difficult of access; he prepares the mind of the reader 
 for the reception of great works; he regrets and resents the slowness 
 of the untrained reader to accept the guidance of the expert. 
 
 Finally the function of criticism is to afford a medium for the crea- 
 tive faculty of the critic himself, to constitute that opportunity of 
 self-expression indispensable for the born critic. Central in Sainte- 
 Beuve's critical theory was the doctrine that there is a native critical 
 faculty. So important is this doctrine that it will have to be approached 
 from several sides within this dissertation. Criticism, he says, is a 
 temperamental thing, a disposition of the mind, not a profession.^ He 
 himself could not avoid being a critic; it was his call, his daemon. 
 "Comment ai-je eu des mon enfance une vocation litteraire si pro- 
 noncee?" His bent was, he feels, an inheritance from his father and 
 "des I'enfance j'aimais les livres, les notices litteraires, les beaux extraits 
 des auteurs."^ He tried to be a poet but his instinct was stronger than 
 his will or his ambition. Though he at first regretted his failure as 
 poet, as he grew older he became more and more convinced that he was 
 essentially and by nature a critic: 
 
 A mes yeux, il n'est point d'honneur plus grand pour une intelligence 
 humaine que de saisir et d'embrasser rensemble de v6rites qui constituent les 
 lois des nombres et des mondes. Apres la gloire de faire des d6couverts ... il 
 n'est rien de plus honorable, que de se rendre compte directement de ces 
 d^couvertes ... et de les pleinement comprendre.^ 
 
 This particular passage he writes apropos of the pleasure he derives 
 from penetrating the thoughts and sympathizing in the discoveries of 
 the astronomer Arago; and he receives the same delight always in the 
 
 ' Gayley and Scott, Literary Criticism, p. 35. 
 
 'This is discussed more fully infra, "The Qualifications of the Critic." 
 
 ' Cahiers, p. 64. 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis, II, 92. 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF CRITICISM 25 
 
 presence of masterpieces of pure literature. When asked why he 
 dehghted to study the women of the past, he repUes; 
 
 Plaisir desinteresse de la curiosite critique! demiere jouissance de ceux 
 qui ont beaucoup vecu dans leur chambre, qui out beaucoup lu et peu agi! 
 Quoi de plus doux et de plus innocent, en effet, que de s'occuper ... d'une 
 existence disparue, de ressaisir une figure nette et distincte dans le passe ... 
 de donner tons ses soins, px)ur la recomposer et la montrer aux autres, etc.^ 
 
 No one who realizes the full significance of such a statement, remembering 
 that it is the voice of a born and predestined critic, could indorse for a 
 moment Balzac's phrase applied to Sainte-Beuve, podte avorti. 
 
 As a sort of corollary of the doctrine that criticism is self-expression, 
 the free and spontaneous activity of a native impulse, Sainte-Beuve is 
 led to declare that criticism is itself a creative activity: "La critique, 
 telle ... que je voudrais la pratiquer est une invention et une creation 
 perpetuelle."* He explains what he means by the phrase creation 
 perpetttelle: 
 
 Le plus beau r61e pour le critique c'est quand il ne se tient pas uniquement 
 sur la defensive, et que, denongant les faux succes il ne sait pas moins discemer 
 et ... premouvoir les legitimes. C'est pour cela qu'il y a dans le critique un 
 poete; le poete a le sentiment plus vif des beautes, il hesite moins a les main- 
 tenir.3 
 
 The critic is a creator also in the sense that, taking a passage or a citation 
 from his author as a point of departure, he discovers beauty and signifi- 
 cance, present only by impUcation or even by mere possibility, which 
 it may not have occurred to the author to utter.4 It is clear that Sainte- 
 Beuve anticipated in many respects the more modern ideas of creative 
 criticism. 
 
 "Depuis que la critique est nee ... elle n'aime guere les ceuvres de 
 poesie entourees d'une parfaite lumiere et definitives; elle n'en a que 
 faire. Le vague, I'obscur, le difiScile, s'ils se combinent avec quelque 
 grandeur, sont plut6t son fait."s Because, then, the critic can explain, 
 can create, can think his own thoughts within the horizon of the book: 
 
 Nos idees sur les poetes ont, en effet, change presque entierement, depuis 
 quelques ann^es ... il s'agit du fond m^me ... et des principes habituels 
 en vertu desquels on sent et Ton est affecte. ... Autrefois, durant la periode 
 litteraire reguliere, dite classique, on estimait le meilleur poete celui qui avait 
 compose I'ceuvre la plus parfaite, le plus beau poeme, le plus clair, le plus 
 
 ^ Portraits LiiUraires, III, 546. •* Causeries du lundi, III, 305. 
 
 3 Chateaubriandf II, 116. ^ Nouveauxlundis,X., sgi. 
 
26 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 agreable a lire. ... Aujourd'hui on veut autre chose. Le plus grand poete 
 pour nous est celui qui, dans ses oeuvres, a donne le plus a imaginer et a r^ver 
 a son lecteur. ... Le plus grand poete n'est pas celui qui a le mieux fait; c'est 
 celui qui suggere le plus ... il ne lui (la critique) d^plait pas de sentir qu'elle 
 entre pour sa part dans une creation.^ 
 
 Diderot set the example in France of this creative and interpretative 
 criticism. It was said of him that he never met a wicked man or read a 
 bad book. "Car si le livre etait mauvais, 11 le refaisait, et 11 Imputait, 
 sans y songer, a Tauteur quelques unes de ses propres Inventions ^ lui 
 meme. II trouvait de Tor dans le creuset, comme Talchimiste, parcequ'U 
 Vy avalt mis."* 
 
 The creative activities of the critic find scope and occasion also in 
 presenting the masterpieces of the classics; there is here legitimate need 
 for Imaginative Interpretation, and the classics must be, as It were, 
 retranslated Into the consciousness of each new generation. Salnte- 
 Beuve In a very Illuminating passage indicates the province and limita- 
 tions of such creative writing. He Is speaking of Don Quixote: 
 
 Certes je suis trop critique pour nier les droits de la critique. On peut de 
 loin, a distance, et en envisageant I'ensemble d'une ceuvre, en embrassant 
 d'un coup d'ceil les consequences qu'elle a eues, ... on peut y reconnaitre autre 
 chose et plus que I'auteur tout le premier n'6tait tent6 d'y voir, et plus, certaine- 
 ment, qu'il n'a songe a y mettre. Ulliad et UOdyssee signifient et repr6- 
 sentent pour nous assur^ment plus de faits et d'idees a la fois que pour les 
 chantres homeriques qui les ont r^citees par branches, et pour ces populations 
 primitives qui les ont entendues. Mais cette part legitime de pensees et de 
 reflexions qu'ajoute incessamment I'esprit humain aux monuments de son 
 heritage intellectuel, cette plus-value croissante qui a pourtant ses llmites, 
 doit 6tre soigneusement distinguee de Toeuvre elle meme en sol, bien que ceUe-ci 
 la porte et en soit le fond. Elle ne doit point surtout ^tre imputee et pr^tee a 
 I'auteur primitif par une confusion de vues et une projection illusoire de per- 
 spective. Sachons bien que nous devenons, a la longue, des coop^ateurs, des 
 demi-createurs dans ces types consacres, qui, une fois livr6s a I'adniiration, se 
 traduisent et se transforment incessamment. Sachons que nous y ajoutons, 
 de notre chef, des intentions que I'auteur n'a jamais eues, comme par compen- 
 sation de toutes celles qu'il a eues en effet, et qui nous echappent.^ 
 
 The critic is demi-crSateur and coopercUeur by virtue of the fact that 
 he is constantly reinterpreting masterpieces in the light of new ideas, 
 stating universal ideas in terms of the modern consciousness, bringing 
 out meanings Implicit in the material but of which the original author was 
 scarcely conscious, and continually re-thinking the material in order 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, X, 390. 
 
 ' Causeriei du lundi, III, 300. » Nouveaux lundis^ VIII, 36. 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF CRITICISM 27 
 
 to disclose all that the author meant to put into it. "La critique a 
 fort raisonne de nos jours et de tout temps sur la pensee fondamentale 
 qui se montre ou se derobe dans Don Quichotte, et il n'en pouvait etre 
 autrement; c'etait son droit. Que serait la critique si elle ne raisonnait 
 pas?"' 
 
 Would it not be fair to say that Sainte-Beuve's ideas of the function 
 of criticism may, in general, be summed up in the two passages which 
 follow? "Renouveler les choses connues, vulgariser les choses neuves: 
 un bon programme pour un critique."^ "La critique pour moi ... c'est 
 le plaisir de connaitre les esprits, non de les regenter."^ 
 
 To conclude, however, more in detail and in the order of the material 
 offered in this section, the functions of criticism in Sainte-Beuve's 
 view are: (i) to seek the truth, and as a pendant to this (2) to destroy 
 false traditions and legends, to overturn fallacious and fictitious stand- 
 ards, to expose illusory ideals and sentiments; (3) to serve society 
 morally and artistically by cultivating taste and by maintaining the 
 right traditions; (4) to serve the author by actual reproof and advice, 
 by enhancing his reputation, by introducing him to an audience, and 
 if he be dead by rehabihtating him if he is undeservedly forgotten; 
 (5) to serve the reader and the reading public by giving them actual 
 information and points of view they could not get for themselves, 
 by selecting for them their reading or guiding them in a wise selection, 
 by preparing their minds for the reception of what is good; (6) and to 
 satisfy the passion of the critical genius for self-expression and artistic 
 creation. 
 
 * Ibid.f p. 29. 
 
 ' Causeries du lundi, XI, 512. 3 Cahiers, p. 11. 
 
III. SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM 
 
 A man of Sainte-Beuve's wide outlook and knowledge of his intel- 
 lectual age, of his keen curiosity, could not have failed to feel the per- 
 vading scientific movement of his century. As a matter of fact, he was 
 profoundly interested in it and felt that its methods and principles 
 in the largest and most detailed observation of facts, its emphasis on 
 heredity, environment, evolution, and on new aspects of causation must 
 all be applied in criticism. He had himseK studied medicine, and he 
 said of his training in this subject: "It is to this [study of medicine] 
 that I owe the philosophical spirit, the love of precision and of physio- 
 logical reality, and whatever good methodical procedure my writings, 
 even my Uterary writings, possess!"^ While we see in this some exag- 
 geration of the value of his studies in medicine, we may well believe that 
 they helped to enhance in him instincts, powers, and habits that devel- 
 oped his scientific, ''physiological" criticism. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve was aware that in adopting certain points of view of 
 science he was not conforming to the historic and conventional French 
 technique of literary criticism; he was quite aware that he was breaking 
 with the Boileau-La Harpe tradition, and directing his art into paths 
 which these masters could not have trodden. He intended to make 
 literary criticism as nearly a science as could be; he endeavored to base 
 his opinions on facts and, as far as possible, to determine the exact and 
 efficient causes of his phenomena, all in consonance with what he 
 regarded as the modern spirit: 
 
 Nous sommes deja si loin de ces temps (ceux de Louis XIV), que, pour 
 bien juger d'un homme, d'un auteur qui y a vecu, il ne suffit pas toujours de 
 lire ses productions, il faut encore les revoir en place, recomposer I'ensemble 
 de Tepoque et Texistence entiere du personnage.^ 
 
 He thinks, it appears, that it is no longer sufficient, having read a 
 book, to deliver one's verdict on it as good or bad on the strength of 
 4" one's internal response alone — things are not the same in this scientific 
 age as in other times — the unsupported and undefended conclusions of 
 taste have lost authority; we must have more than opinions; we must 
 have facts and explanations. 
 
 ^ Harper, Sainte-Beuve, p. 72. 
 ' Causeries du lundi, I, 453. 
 
 28 
 
SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM 29 
 
 La temperature morale n'est plus la meme; le climat des esprits est en 
 train de changer. D'ou je conclus, ... que la litt6rature critique se trouve en 
 pr6sence d'un monde nouveau ... il y a necessite pour elle de se renouveler 
 d'ailleurs. ... Plusiers ecrivains, ... ont done senti le besoin de varier et 
 d'accroitre leurs moyens, de perfectionner leurs instruments ... afin de pouvoir 
 lutter avec les autres arts^ rivaux et pour satisfaire a cette exigence de plus 
 en plus positive des lecteurs qui veulent en tout des resultats. De la I'idee 
 qui est graduellement venue de ne plus s'en tenir exclusivement a ce qu'on 
 appelait la critique du gout, de creuser plus en avant qu'on n'avait fait encore 
 dans le sens de la critique historique, et aussi d'y joindre tout ce que pourrait 
 fournir d'elements ou d'inductions la critique dite naturelle ou physiologique.' 
 
 Here the word is uttered! La critique naturelle ou physiologique 
 must be united with the critique historique and the critique de goUt pur 
 to make the new synthetic art of the new age. It is not the office of 
 the newly added elements to supplant the old, but to give the new 
 combination a firm foundation, to make of it a science.^ It is noticeable 
 that Sainte-Beuve never excludes taste from a share in his judgment; 
 but he reduces it from the position of supreme arbiter to that of one of 
 a tribunal of arbiters. 
 
 The first step in the critical process is to gather the facts, all the 
 facts, about an author and his book. Then on the basis of these facts 
 with the aid of our own literary feeling we may form and deliver an 
 opinion. Since we must have the aid of this personal literary feeling, 
 criticism cannot ever be called a pure science but must retain elements 
 of art and demands the service of an artist. ^ Nevertheless, Sainte- 
 Beuve warns us repeatedly that this artist must bring to bear on his 
 subject-matter as much of scientific method as he can; he must reduce 
 the margin of the operation of personal taste. Such a worker using 
 such a system would be the ideal critic. "II y a lieu plus que jamais 
 aux jugements qui tiennent au vrai gout, mais il ne s'agit plus de venir 
 porter des jugements de rhetorique. Aujourd'hui I'histoire litteraire 
 se fait comme I'histoire naturelle, par des observations et par des col- 
 lections.s" Out of this scientific attitude toward criticism comes his 
 
 ' Notice, however, that here he classifies criticism as one of the arts. 
 
 " Nouveaux lundis, IX, 69. 
 
 3"Corneille a 6te, dans ces demi^res ann6es, et il est plus que jamais, en ce 
 moment, Tobject d'une quantite de travaux qui convergent et qui fixeront ddfinitive- 
 ment la critique et les jugements qu'elle doit porter sur ce pere de notre th64tre. Les 
 jugements de gout sont depuis longtemps 6puis6s et ils ne seront pas surpasses" (ibid., 
 VII, 199)- 
 
 4 Cf. ibid., IX, 69; III, 67. 5 Portraits litter aires, III, 546. 
 
30 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 distinctive contribution to literary theory. "I am," he says elsewhere, 
 "a botanist of minds"; and he felt that his critical essays were all studies 
 of specimens, of which, however, because science was not far enough 
 advanced, he was not yet able to make a satisfactory classification: 
 
 ... elle [la science du moraliste] en est aujourd'hui au point ou la botanique en 
 6tait avant Jussieu, et Tanatomie comparee avant Cuvier, a I'etat, pour ainsi 
 dire, anecdotique. Nous faisons pour notre compte de simple monographies, 
 nous amassons des observations de detail; mais j'entrevois des liens, des 
 rapports, et un esprit plus etendu, plus lumineux et reste fin dans le detail, 
 pourra decouvrir un jour les grandes divisions naturelles qui repondent aux 
 families d'esprits.^ 
 
 In effect, this esprit plus itendu, plus lumineux will be able to make 
 criticism approach the character of a natural science. 
 
 Indeed to Sainte-Beuve a science of criticism was already emerging.^ 
 The critic says that he is beginning to see "des liens, des rapports," 
 and that with the wide application of the historical method the con- 
 nections will become clearer. The latter half of the important article, 
 "Qu'est-ce qu'un classique,"^ is devoted to making a general classifica- 
 tion of the families of minds as he saw them.-* It is only in modern times 
 and under the influence of the spirit of scientific investigation and in the 
 light of our consequently wider knowledge that classification so definite 
 has become possible or conceivable. 
 
 It was Chateaubriand who inaugurated in France the type of 
 comparative-historical criticism, and he, was followed by Saint-Marc 
 Girardin and others.^ Of his own method Sainte-Beuve says: "J'aime, 
 au reste, a marier ces productions, par quelque cote parentes, bien 
 plutot qu'a les opposer: La Bible de Royaumont, le Tilemaque, Rollin, 
 rHomire de Mme Dacier, me paraissent aller bien ensemble pour la 
 couleur."^ This describes the comparative-historical aspect of that 
 scientific criticism which Sainte-Beuve desired to found. He regards 
 this point of view as a distinctive contribution of his own age. It is a 
 
 ' Nouveaux lundis, III, 17. 
 
 ^ We are just arriving, he thinks, by the use of the historical method at a point 
 where we can really judge. "Les critiques (d'autrefois) ... ne s'informaient pas 
 assez k I'avance de tout ce qui pouvait donner a leur jugement des garanties d'exacti- 
 tude parfaite et de v6rit6" {Causeries du lundi, XV, 375). 
 
 3 Ibid., Ill, 38 ff., dating from 1850. 
 
 ^This correspondence in ideas between the "Chateaubriand" article of 1862 
 {Nouveaux lundis, III) and the "Qu'est-ce qu'un classique " article of 1850 {Causeries 
 du lundi. III) is a clear indication of the unity of his thought during this period. 
 
 5 Causeries du lundi, I, 12. ^ Ibid., IX, 491. 
 
SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM 31 
 
 step toward the explanation of an author and his book on the basis 
 of fact. It will help to insure us against being made the dupe of an 
 unfounded and extravagant admiration, and will save the author from 
 becoming the victim of an ill-founded hostility: 
 
 ... qu'y a-t-il de plus legitime que de profiter des notions qu'on a sous la main 
 pour sortir definitivement d'une certaine admiration trop textuelle a la fois 
 at trop abstraite et pour ne pas se contenter meme d'une certaine description 
 generale d'un siecle et d'une epoque, mais pour serrer de plus pres, d'aussi 
 pres que possible ... I'analyse des caracteres d'auteurs aussi bien que celle des 
 productions ?^ 
 
 It is not sufficient to explain the book — one must go back of that and 
 explain the author. This notion of the obligation to study the author 
 behind the book is also, Sainte-Beuve says, a product of his own century. 
 He traces in a sentence the history of this idea in France. Mme de Stael 
 gave it currency 'in her De la litter ature; certain of the journalist critics, 
 notably those on the Glohe^ and later M. Villemain, follow her lead. 
 Nowadays "on essaye de faire un pas de plus et toutes les fois qu'on le 
 pent, d'interroger directement, d'examiner I'individu-talent dans son 
 education, dans sa culture, dans sa vie, dans ses origines."^ 
 
 More recent critics have been more thoroughgoing than Mme de 
 Stael, who merely outlined the method. Among those who followed 
 on the road faintly blazed by her, Sainte-Beuve mentions Michelet, 
 Renan, Taine, Eugene Heron; and he adds: '*J'y suismoi-meme entre 
 depuis bien des annees, et en affichant si peu d'intention systematique, 
 que beaucoup de mes lecteurs ou de mes critiques ont suppose que 
 j'allais purement au hasard et selon ma fantaisie."^ He himself espe- 
 cially developed the path of biographical criticism. But as he here 
 unmistakably implies, he did not proceed au hasard or selon sa fantaisie; 
 and, though we may find no hard-and-fast method, we shall expect to 
 find, to use Taine's distinction, a definite critical procedure. 
 
 It would seem clear from the foregoing statements chosen from many 
 of Uke tenor that Sainte-Beuve reaUzed the need of a scientific criticism; 
 that he recognized certain aspects of it in recent and contemporary 
 critics; that he outlined its aspects or qualities; that he believed him- 
 self to be an exponent of it. The peculiarly "scientific" principle of his 
 critical performance we now know had to do with the gathering and 
 sifting of data and with the placing of the author and the book in the 
 proper genus. This we shall follow in detail in this section. The more 
 
 ' Nauveaux lundis, IX, 71. 
 
 » Ihid. 3 Ihid. 
 
32 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 peculiarly aesthetic critical activities that succeeded these naturalistic 
 steps in his total process will occupy us later. 
 
 In the article of 1862' on Chateaubriand Sainte-Beuve gives a detailed 
 account of the side of his work we are now to study. This authoritative 
 account we will follow in detail, reinforcing it with striking passages of 
 confirmation or amplification from sources other than the "Chateau- 
 I briand."^ As a text for the whole discussion the following passage 
 might be taken: "Tout a son prix aux yeux de la critique qui sent I'art 
 comme I'expression presque directe de la nature et de la vie."^ Thus 
 Sainte-Beuve sees his first task in finding out all he can about life, that 
 — life of which the book is the living expression. We shall try to repro- 
 duce in our presentation of Sainte-Beuve's analysis the thoroughly 
 logical order of his procedure. 
 
 First, he says the work of art cannot be separated from its author — 
 "tel arbre, tel fruit" — consequently the first requirement toward the 
 appreciation of a book is the understanding of its author.^ One may like 
 or dislike a book, but one cannot fairly and finally judge it without a 
 knowledge of its sources — the author and his life. Inevitably, then, the 
 study of literature leads to the study of psychology .s There are, of 
 course, cases where the complete study of an author is impossible — the 
 great writers of antiquity, for example, who appear to us as titanic 
 torsos and scattered limbs, and whom therefore we can only partially 
 know. Even in this case, however,, we must take all the more pains to 
 gather all that we can lay our hands on in the way of facts. In the case 
 of the moderns we can, of course, get at the essential circumstances of 
 their lives and environment. -"La biographie bien comprise et bien 
 maniee est un instrument sur pour initier a I'histoire des hommes et des 
 temps, meme les plus eloignes de nous."^ Sainte-Beuve gives in the 
 following passage an impressive summary of his scientific-biographical 
 method: 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis, III, 15 flf. 
 
 ' There are several articles which are full of this naturalistic criticism and from 
 which the most of the supporting quotations are taken. They are: (a) "De la 
 tradition en litt6rature," Causeries du lundi, XV (1858), 2; (b) article on Deschanel's 
 Essai de critique naturelle in Nouveaux lundis, IX, 62 ff.; (c) on Taine's Histoire de la 
 literature anglaise in Nouveaux lundis, VIII (i 864) . Only items from Nouveaux lundis, 
 III, 15 ff., come from the article "Chateaubriand." 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, II, 289. 
 
 4 "Les d^fauts et les qualit6s du livre s'expUquent trSs-bien par la manifire dont 
 il fut compos6, et par la nature d'esprit de I'^crivain" {Causeries du lundi, VII, 207). 
 
 5 "L*6tude morale," as he often calls it. ^ Causeries du lundi, I, 289. 
 
SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM 33 
 
 "Si Ton connaissait bien la race (physiologiquement), on aurait un 
 grand jour sur la qualite secrete et essentielle des esprits; mais le plus 
 souvent la race est obscure et derobee."^ 
 
 It is clear, then, that he would start with the most fundamental 
 things, studying the writer first "dans son pays natal, dans sa race." 
 It need not be more than mentioned that Sainte-Beuve uses the term 
 "race" to designate a national, not an ethnical, stock,' although there 
 seems to be some lack of clarity on this point in his thinking. The 
 adjectives he uses are purely national, even regional — the English race, 
 the French, the ItaUan, even the Breton and Gascon — yet he also states 
 that if we know a race physiologically we could determine mental char- 
 acteristics, a statement which seems to concern an ethnic unit. But 
 Sainte-Beuve did not, to the best of my belief, make any, certainly not 
 a consistent distinction between racial and national. The race of a 
 writer, as he used the word race, will account, on a purely physical, 
 even physiological, basis, for many of his essential quaUties. A French- 
 man qud Frenchman has certain characteristics that predetermine in 
 him many fundamental quahties as writer, as reader, and as critic.^ 
 This element of race is often hidden and elusive, "une racine obscure 
 et derobee"; nevertheless we must keep in mind the genius of each 
 country: 
 
 Ne demandons pas tout a fait a chaque pays les memes precedes; Virgile 
 nous I'a dit, Nee verro terrae ferre omnes omnia possunt. Chaque terroir 
 a son fruit auquel il se complalt. ... Assemblons, s'il se peut, tous les fruits 
 dans notre collecte finale, et n'en ecartons aucun; mais que chaque nation 
 conserve, dans cette 6mulation commune, le coin de genie qui lui est propre.* 
 
 Another fundamental thing of equal importance with his race in 
 determining and conditioning an author is his epoch. "Nul exemple," 
 he says of Cervantes, "ne me parait plus propre a montrer a quel point 
 les hommes meme energiques, de trempe et de volonte sont assujettis et 
 soumis au milieu oil ils vivent," etc.s Only certain ages could have 
 produced certain books and they could have produced no other kind 
 of books. So "pour bien juger des hommes de ce temps ... il importe ... 
 
 ' Cahiers, p. 70. 
 
 ' "Les Francais, eL travers toutes les formes de gouvemment et de societe qu'ils 
 traversent, continuent, dit-on, d'etre les memes, d'offrir les m^mes traits principaux 
 de caractere" {Causeries du lundi, VII, i). 
 
 3 Mme Necker is not French, and so he says it is hard to understand and treat 
 of her {ibid., IV, 173). 
 
 < Nouveaux lundis, XI, 182. s Ibid., VIII, 38. 
 
34 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 de se bien rendre compte du courant general, immense, qui entrainait 
 alors la nation";^ for, "Oui, t6t ou tard le milieu s'impose! telle scene, 
 tels acteurs ! "^ Since, then, certain men and certain ideas are the product 
 of certain centuries we must as one of the first steps study these centuries. 
 
 After indicating these steps, the study of the author's race and 
 native country, and of his epoch, Sainte-Beuve makes a digression,^ in 
 which occur more than one of those strange shifts of focus often found in 
 his thinking. He seems to be overtaken by a misgiving that what he 
 has said is too strong or too narrow. In many cases these misgivings 
 take the form of allowances or reservations more or less sweeping; in 
 other cases they amount to irreconcilable contradictions. The digres- 
 sion that we have now come to in the Chateaubriand article is to the 
 effect that criticism, no matter how exact it may be, will in some respects 
 always remain an art, though perhaps only temporarily not a science. 
 With the lapse of time and the exercise of limitless patience, after vast 
 amounts of constatation, of just observing and recording facts, the Jussieu 
 of physiological criticism may arrive — he who may be able to determine 
 with completeness and exactness the families of intellects and the prin- 
 ciples for their study. We are in a stage of the mere recording of facts; 
 only at some later day will come the person who will definitely develop 
 criticism into a science. 
 
 Moreover — another misgiving — there must always be in criticism 
 some admixture of art because the doctrine of causation will always break 
 down in the presence of mind, because in their intellectual activities 
 men possess ce qu'on nomme la liberie, defying analysis and defeating 
 expectation. No matter how logically we have constructed our chain 
 of cause and effect, this liberie may break it. This constitutes the factor 
 of individuality, and no closeness or fulness of study of his ancestry and 
 surroundings, of his race, milieu el momenl can finally account for a 
 man's genius, for that something in him which no other man, though he 
 
 ^Causeries du lundi, VIII, 334. Cf. "on a besoin a chaque instant, quand on 
 6tudie aujourd'hui RoUin, de se reporter k cette situation d'alentour," etc. (ibid., VI, 
 264). "Pour bien appr6cier et go<iter, comme je le fais, cette correspondance de 
 Sismondi, il faut absolument se d^placer un peu, se figurer la situation des 
 correspondants telle qu'elle 6tait, les revoir dans leur monde et k leur point de vue" 
 (Nouveaux lundis, VI, 49). See also Causeries du lundi, IV, 540; VIII, 116. 
 
 'Nouveaux lundis, IX, 323. A man cannot with impunity be different from the 
 essential product of his age. "C'est un malheur en tout cas pour un homme d'esprit 
 et de talent de prendre ainsi k contre-sens I'^poque dont il est contemporain, et le 
 r^gne dont il serait un serviteur naturel et distingu6" {Causeries du lundi, X, 399). 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis. III, 17. 
 
SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM 35 
 
 come out of the same circumstances of time and place, possesses. At 
 this point, says Sainte-Beuve elsewhere, begins the weakening of 
 la critique physiologique: 
 
 ^ Quelque soin qu'on mette a penetrer ou a expliquer le sens des oeuvres, ... . 
 il y aura toujours una certaine partie inexpUquee, inexplicable, celle en quoi L 
 consiste le don individual du genia; at bian qua ca genia evidemmant n'opera 
 point an Tair ni dans la vida, qu'il soit at qu'il doiva etra dans un rapport 
 axacta avac las conditions da tout genre ... on aura toujours una place tres 
 suffisanta ... o^ logar ca principal ressort, ce motaur inconnu, le centre et le 
 foyer da I'inspiration superiaura, ou da la volonte, la monada inaxprimable.' 
 
 The genius, the irreducible personality of an author, cannot be perceived 
 by the intellect, nor explained by any analytical process; it must be JL. j,^' 
 felt by the critical faculty, itself an irreducible intuition. The critic 
 who has not this faculty cannot write a truly discerning work — la monade 
 inexprimable escapes him. In this quarter, Sainte-Beuve says in another 
 place, we will find the failure of Taine's Histoire de la liUerature anglaise^ 
 which, though a great book, is not trustworthy as literary criticism 
 because Taine does not succeed in getting at the distinctive qualities 
 of genius, trying as he does to explain all the men and the whole mai^ 
 merely on the basis of race, milieu^ et momenta Every author, even 
 when not a great genius, is unique in the world. **La nature n'a fait 
 qu'une fois un Shakespeare."^ In another place Sainte-Beuve com- 
 pares the mind of the race to a great river in an image whose details 
 suggest unmistakably that he was a scientific thinker, a Darwinian, a 
 pre-Bergsonian, as one might say, in his doctrine pf the flux. But he 
 is careful to point out certain features in which the analogy B^etween the 
 river and human history fails: 
 
 "L'esprit humain," dites-vous, "coule avec las 6v^nements comme un 
 fleuve" ... je dirai hardimant non en ce sens qu'a la difference d'un fleuve 
 I'esprit humain n'est point compose d'una quantite de gouttas semblables. II y <■ 
 distinction da qualite dans bian das gouttas. ... Et an general, il n'est qu'une 
 ^me, une forme particuliera d'asprit pour faira tal ou tel chef-d'oeuvre. ... 
 Supposaz un grand talent da moins, supposaz la moule ou miaux la miroir 
 magiqua d'un saul vrai poete brise dans la barcaau a sa naissance, il ne s'en 
 rencontrara plus jamais un autre qui soit exactement le mama ni qui en ^ 
 tianna liau. II n'y a de chaqua vrai poete qu'un exemplaira.^ 
 
 ^ Ibid., EX, 70. " Ibid., VIII, 66 ff. 
 
 3 Ibid., Ill, 230. He means this not to contradict but to supplement his 
 family-of-minds theory. 
 
 4 Ibid., VIII, 86. ^ 
 
36 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 \ It is the affair of the critic to get at this unique personality — "grain of 
 ^ originahty." In view of the fact that genius transcends the laws of 
 inheritance and environment and defies the ordinary working of causa- 
 . tion, and the fact that the critical faculty is also a somewhat personal 
 and unaccountable gift, criticism, thinks Sainte-Beuve in the Cahiers, 
 must always remain an art, documented, to be sure, and based on scien- 
 tific principles, but in the main an art, demanding the services of a 
 talent pecuUar in the critic, as poetry demands a poet and philosophy a 
 philosopher. The ideal critic Sainte-Beuve thus describes: 
 
 ... quelqu'un qui ait ce genre d 'esprit, cette facilite pour entendre lesgroupes, 
 les families litteraires, qui les distingue presqu'a premiere vue; qui en saisisse 
 I'esprit et la vie; dont ce soit veritablement la vocation; quelqu'un de propre 
 a etre un bon naturaliste dans ce champ si vaste des esprits.^ 
 
 Thus far the digression in the Chateaubriand article; Sainte-Beuve 
 now resumes his main theme. The studies in the race, the epoch, and in 
 the larger natural and social background, while of essential impor- 
 tance, make, as it were, the frame for the portrait of the man, which the 
 critic now proceeds to paint. 
 ^^ The next step, then, is to look into his immediate surroundings, the 
 "purely biographical relationships." 
 
 II faut etudier tout individu distingue, dans la mere, dans la soeur, dans 
 le frere, dans les enfants m^me, il s'y retrouve des lineaments essentiels qui 
 sont souvent masques dans celui qui les combine en lui et les rassemble ... 
 le f ond se retrouve plus a nu et a I'etat simple dans les parents." 
 
 In his immediate family are to be found many of the elements that 
 enter into the great man, to be separated out and shown "plus a nu et a 
 r6tat simple."^ One must then study his parents, more particularly 
 ^his mother ("all great men," says Sainte-Beuve, "have had remark- 
 able mothers"); one must look at his sisters, his brothers, and lastly, 
 at his children.4 Having thus completed the circle of kinship, one takes 
 up the life of the man himself, his childhood, his education, and then — a 
 matter of supreme importance — "le premier milieu, le premier groupe 
 
 » CaUerSy p. 70. 
 
 " Ibid. But he contradicts his own theory when he refuses to follow Michelet 
 in studying the father and mother of Le Due de Bourgogne, saying: "Les lois qui 
 pr6sident aux transmissions h6r6ditaires sont k peuie entrevues, bien loin d'6tre de 
 tout point 6claircies; le seront-elles jamais?" {Nouveaux lundis, II, 116). 
 
 3 Unless otherwise indicated, these i(!eas are from the article "Chateaubriand," 
 Nouveaux lundis, III, 18 £E. 
 
 4 Ibid., Ill, 21. 
 
SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM 37 
 
 d'amis et de contemporains," which he frequented, among which he 
 first found himself, from the midst of which he brought forth the first 
 blossom of his talent. Every great writer retains to the end of his career 
 the records of these early associations; the friends of that period are 
 likely to remain the friends of a Hfetime; the enemies, his lifelong 
 enemies. This first group to which the youthful author is likely to 
 belong (although "les tres grands individus se passent de groupe") is 
 not a fraternity or any other formal association; it is ^^'association 
 naturelle, et comme spontan^de jeunes esprits et de jeunes talents non 
 pas precisement semblables et de la meme famille, mais de la m^me 
 volee, du meme printemps, eclos sous le meme astre, et qui se sentent 
 nes avec des varietes de gout et de vocation, pour une oeuvre commune."^ 
 Such a groupe was that of Boileau, La Fontaine, and Moliere; such that 
 of the first Romantic Cenacle; another was the critical circle that 
 gathered around Jeffrey and the Edinburgh Review; Sainte-Beuve names 
 other similar groups. 
 
 At this point in the "Chateaubriand" article occurs another digres- 
 sion to this effect: When the critic examines a work in the light of facts 
 of this nature, when, in the words of Sainte-Beuve, *'he becomes a disciple 
 of Bacon in Uterary history," he is not so likely to be taken in, admirer 
 de coti, and inventer des heauies a faux, as he is if he confines himself to 
 the judgments of pure rhetoric. And yet, he adds with a characteristic 
 vacillation, this sort of judgment has its place: 
 
 II est dangereux de s 'engager trop avant dans ces minuties d'examen 
 interlin6aire [he has just been criticizing in detail the style of Bossuet] et d'en 
 pretendre rien conclure sur les precedes du genie; il y faudrait, en tout cas 
 apporter un tact que tout le monde n'a pas. Tout grammairien n'est pas un 
 critique.' 
 
 Here the fair impUcation is that, though dangerous, such criticism is 
 legitimate and needful. In another passage we find this: "Ce genre 
 de critique de detail me plait peu — mais ..." and he proceeds with 
 a veritable orgy of purely rhetorical criticism.^ "Je ne renonce pas S. -4" 
 Quintillien, je le circonscris,"^ he writes, meaning that he does not dis- 
 approve of the criticizing of style and rhetoric but that he rather limits 
 its exercise and gives it a secondary place. As a matter of fact Sainte- 
 Beuve placed more emphasis on purely aesthetic criticism than these 
 passages would lead us to suppose, as will appear in the section of this 
 
 » Ibid., p. 21. 3 Ibid., VII, 358. 
 
 'IHd., II, 33^' ^IHd., Ill, 24. 
 
i 
 
 38 SAINTE'BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 dissertation that deals with that side of his thought. In a measure 
 he continues the French tradition of criticism which before the nineteenth 
 century had been mainly rhetorical and stylistic. 
 
 Again Sainte-Beuve takes up the thread of his main discussion: 
 We have made our study, he says, of the young author's groupe. The 
 next step that will greatly reward us is to study him at the propitious 
 moment of his first success; this takes him before he shall have acquired 
 any mannerisms or aUen peculiarities, when his talent is at its simplest. 
 The second auspicious moment — a very instructive one for criticism — 
 is "I'heure ou il se gate/ou il se corrompt,^oii il dechoit, ou il devie."' 
 At this time the excess of the writer's virtue, the exaggeration of his 
 excellence becomes a fault, and yet through its very abuse one may 
 discover his peculiar merit. This moment of initial dissolution marks 
 the end of a career, and it is well for an author to realize that he is 
 declining. A normal career is fifteen years, though some men extend 
 their successful activities through twice that period. 
 
 We must study our author, man or woman, not only mentally but 
 physically, even physiologically, and this study will generally yield 
 us explanations of things otherwise inexplicable.* Concerning his pri- 
 vate life we must ask questions, some of which at first blush seem 
 impertinent in both senses of the word: 
 
 Que pensait-il en religion? ... Comment 6tait-il affect6 du spectacle de 
 la nature ? Comment se comportait-il sur I'article des femmes, de I'argent, ... 
 Itait-il riche? etait-il pauvre? Quel 6tait son regime? Quelle 6tait sa 
 maniere journaliere de vivre. P^ ... Enfin quel 6tait son vice ou son faible ? tout 
 homme en a un.-* 
 
 "When you have to criticize a woman," he says, "even a model of 
 saintliness, two or three inevitable questions present themselves: Was 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis, III, 26. 
 
 » "Ce n'est plus par la logique, par I'mduction, par la transformation progressive 
 des id6es qu'on pent expliquer les variations de l'abb6 de La Mennais. ... Ilyaeuenlui 
 solution de continuit6 dans la region de I'intelligence; et c'est par la physiologie, par 
 le temperament qu'il le faut expliquer" (Causeries du hmdi, XI [1836], 450). Sainte- 
 Beuve remained of this opinion, though he wrote this passage early. 
 
 3 Taine has given a description of the daily Ufe of Pope. "Ce n'est pas moi," 
 says Sainte-Beuve, "qui bUmerai un critique de nous indiquer, m6me avec detail, 
 la physiologie de son auteur, et son degr6 de bonne ou mauvaise sant6, influant cer- 
 tainement sur son moral et sur son talent," etc. {Nouveaux lundis, VIII, 105). 
 
 * Ibid., Ill, 28. This theory of the essential vice is an important and recurring 
 idea with Sainte-Beuve. Cf . " Nous avons tous un faible et un travers, et ce travers ..., 
 tr^s sensible dans notre personne, se reproduit dans nos Merits," etc. {ibid., 
 p. 102). 
 
SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM 39 
 
 she pretty? Did she ever fall in love? What was the determining 
 motive of her conversion ? '" 
 
 The answers to these and other questions like them would enable 
 the critic to see his author in the circumstances that led him to write 
 as he did. "Pour bien juger Guy Patin il le faut voir en son cadre, en 
 sa maison, dans son etude, ou cabinet."^ 
 
 Inevitably the critic will go on to seek light on the author's per- 
 sonaUty and character "dans leurs livres d'abord et aussi dans le 
 temoignage des contemporains dignes de foi."^ Out of this practice 
 of taking the evidence of contemporaries grew what one might term the 
 anecdotal habit of Sainte-Beuve, of the dangers of which as well as of 
 whose service he was quite aware.^ Once this habit is acquired one is 
 likely, he says, to degenerate into the telling of anecdotes for mere 
 amusement, at any risk of triviaUty or disillusionment, at times merely 
 for the gratification of an unwarranted curiosity. Sainte-Beuve claimed 
 that these disillusioning, disenchanting stories, however, were serviceable, 
 saving one from being made a dupe, preventing false idealization and 
 idolizing. His belief in the usefulness of such material leads him into 
 the recital of some anecdotes which are all but scurrilous and which 
 cannot justify themselves by the Ught that they throw on the subject 
 in hand.s In his eagerness to avoid illusion and undue idealization he 
 has plainly fallen into the opposite fault.*^ 
 
 The critic has made the necessary observations, has in hand all the 
 necessary data. It is now the business of criticism after the analogy 
 of chemistry to reduce the writer, if it be possible, to a formula. There 
 
 * Ibid.f I, 213. " Causeries du lundi, VIII, 116. 
 
 ^Nouveaux lundis, VII, 363. See also, "La litt^rature ici (i propos de Mme 
 d*0rI6ans) n'a autre chose h, faire qu'^ enregistrer les t6moignages des contemporains 
 et, en quelque sorte ^ les d^couper au milieu des pages d'autrefois" {Causeries du 
 lundi, VI, 321). See also, "L'historien, lorsqu'il a pour guide dans la suite du r6cit 
 un homme d'6tat qui est trSs-int6ress6 dans les principales actions et qui les raconte, 
 doit done, ^ chaque pas, s'6clairer, s'il se peut, de t^moignages diff^rents et con- 
 tradictoires. Le moraliste, sans n6gliger I'occasion du contr61e lorsqu'elle se pr^sente, 
 peut plus ais6ment s'en tenir aux discours m^mes du personnage" {ihid., VIII, 155). 
 
 < He quotes an anecdote about Sully and adds, "Une telle anecdote, qui n'a aucun 
 rapport prochain ni 61oign6 avec les actes publics de Sully et qui ne saurait 6tre con- 
 trdl6e, est indigne d'6tre recueillie par un historien," etc. {ibid., p. 139). 
 
 s Cf. Nouveaux lundis, V, 142. Babbitt {Masters oj Modern French CriticisMf 
 p. 156) cites several of such anecdotes. 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, III, 28; cf . also ibid., pp. 40 ff., where he says that it is wrong 
 for the critic to abuse confidences. 
 
-i 
 
 40 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 are certain words which ahnost inevitably present themselves to the mind 
 when a given person is to be weighed and summed up. "Tachons de 
 trouver le nom caracteristique d'un chacun et qu'il porte grave 
 moitie au front moitie au dedans du coeur, mais ne nous batons 
 pas de le lui donner."^ He has himself defined Chateaubriand as "an 
 Epicurean with a Catholic imagination." "Cousin est un etourdi de 
 genie."^ "Guizot etait un grand professeur d'histoire."^ But this is a 
 very hazardous critical process. "En rassemblant ces divers faits un 
 peu disparates, j'ai senti plus d'une fois combien le caractere d'un 
 homme est compHque, et avec quel soin on doit eviter, si Ton veut etre 
 vrai, de le simplifier par systeme."^ On this ground Sainte-Beuve 
 objects to Taine's calling Shakespeare " I'imagination ou la passion pure," 
 for such a definition is too extreme a simplification, too complete a 
 generalization, and is not warranted by the special facts.s 
 
 On craint toujours, quand on generalise, d'etre trop absolu; la v6rit6 est 
 complexe, et rarement peut-on, en tout ce qui est vivant ou historique, la 
 r^sumer et la formuler d'un mot, sans qu'il faille y apporter aussitdt des 
 correctifs et des explications qui radoucissent et la modifient.* 
 
 This looks like a contradiction of his doctrine of the formula of the 
 few necessary words. But the reconciUation is not far to seek. What 
 Sainte-Beuve meant by these "appellations vraies et necessaires" was 
 not mere specious epigrams, but summaries of the essential quaUties 
 of the particular author. Taine carried farther than Sainte-Beuve, too 
 far the latter critic felt, the idea of the summarizing phrase based on 
 the facuUe mattresse and the caractere essentielJ 
 
 When the critic has taken all those steps by virtue of which criticism 
 may be called a science, and has by those steps reduced his author's 
 quaHties to a formula, then he is ready to file him away, though with 
 qualification and reserve, in the correct pigeonhole, to place him in his 
 famille d'esprits. 
 
 The two doctrines, one implied in the "essential quality " or "master- 
 passion" (the facuUe maitresse) of each author, and the other in the 
 great families d'esprits idea, are so basic in Sainte-Beuve's naturaUstic 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis, III, p. 30. ^ Cahiers, p. 18. 
 
 ^ Ihid., p. 82. For many other examples, see Cahiers, passim; Causeries du 
 lundi, XI, 441 ff. 
 < Ibid., IX, 260. 
 
 s Nouveaux lundis, VIII, 96. ^ Ibid., VII, 172. 
 
 » See Victor Giraud, Essai sur Taine, 2d ed., 1902, p. 97. 
 
SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM 41 
 
 criticism that it is not possible to avoid discussing them in some detail. 
 They will be taken in reverse order. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve says: "En histoire Utteraire comme en histoire 
 naturelle, il y a le groupe,^ il y a ceux que certaines analogies rassemblent, j 
 et qui ont un air de famille auquel on ne se meprend pas."^ It is these 
 analogies which in the physical world determine the classification of 
 specimens into the great species and genera. Sainte-Beuve believes 
 that the same thing, always making the necessary reservations, may be 
 done in criticism — each author being supplied with a well-devised label 
 and filed with others who have the same or closely kindred character- 
 istics, the whole constituting a family of minds. 
 
 Babbitt,^ discussing Sainte-Beuve's theory of families of minds, 
 raises the question as to whether he really meant a natural family, 
 determined by zoological or organic characteristics, or something more 
 or less unconscious. ** Would," says Babbitt, **a member of a 'natural' 
 family of mystics of whom Sainte-Beuve speaks have been a mystic if 
 he had lived on an island in the South Sea and had never heard of 
 St. Augustine or of Christianity?" We have not, in the first place, 
 any statement from Sainte-Beuve explicitly pushing his principles of 
 classification this far; and in the second place there was without doubt 
 in his own work a confusion at this point due to his many-sided and 
 always expanding mind. Yet he says: "The day will come when the 
 science of physiological observation will be on a firm basis" — "ou les 
 grandes families d'esprits et leur principales divisions seront determinees 
 et connues" and some day "un esprit plus etendu pourra decouvrir les 
 grandes divisions naturelles qui repondent aux families d'esprits"'' — there 
 we have the word, natural division. 
 
 We find in another place this striking passage: 
 
 De meme que La Bruyere a peint des caracteres moraux qui font type, on 
 arriverait ainsi a tracer quantite de portraits-caracteres des grands ecrivains, 
 a reconnaitre leur diversite, leur parente, leurs signes eminemment distinctifs, 
 a former des groupes, a repandre enfin dans cette infinie variete de la bio- 
 graphic litteraire quelque chose de la vue lumineuse et de Tordre qui preside a 
 a distribution des families naturelles en botanique et en zoographie.s 
 
 ^ It is necessary to distinguish this groupe from the groupe he speaks of earlier, by 
 which he means the friends and associates of a young author, " I'association naturelle 
 et comme spontan6e," he calls it. Here he means groupe as species, using it as a 
 biological term. 
 
 ' Causeries du lundi, VI, 170. 4 Nouveaux lundis, III, 16. 
 
 3 Babbitt, op. ciL, p. 167. s ibid., IX, 80. 
 
42 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 It is true that immediately he reveals the double-mindedness so 
 characteristic of his thinking by saying that we shall never be able to 
 handle minds precisely as we handle plants, because of the presence in the 
 human mind of that sporadic or hybrid liberty which baffles the scientist. 
 
 Yet, as mentioned by Babbitt, he speaks definitely of the natural 
 family of mystics/ 
 
 It would seem then from these passages that in using the word 
 "natural'* Sainte-Beuve had in mind something that he considered 
 scientific, some organic basis for arranging types of minds in groups. 
 
 It is obvious that some of the resemblances and kinships that he 
 arranges could have had nothing to do with imitation or other artificial 
 influence. In the article "Qu'est-ce qu'un classique," he makes a divi- 
 sion, a tentative classification of the families of minds.' A study of 
 these groups will remove the question of imitation. Here are some of his 
 groups: Homer, Valmiki,Vyasa,Firdousi; Solon, Hesiod, Theognis, Job, 
 Salomon, Confucius, together with La Rochefoucauld and La Bruy^re; 
 Virgil, Menander, Tibullus, Terence, Fenelon; Horace, Pope, Boileau, 
 and Montaigne; La Fontaine and Voltaire. 
 
 This family of minds created by kindred and harmonious endow- 
 ments has its converse — certain men are born with mutually repellent 
 qualities which drive them into hostile groups.^ This accounts for those 
 natural antipathies of which Sainte-Beuve speaks — certain people 
 working in libraries hate each other for no cause or reason, but merely 
 because they are of opposite natures, with native animosities.-* He says: 
 "Cela mtoe, dans le detail, est assez piquant ^ observer; on se d6teste 
 quelquefois toute sa vie dans les lettres sans s'^tre jamais vus. L'an- 
 tagonisme des families d'esprits s'acheve ainsi de se dessiner."^ Further- 
 more, no process can enable these opposite natures to view one another 
 sympathetically— Taine cannot do justice to Pope;* Boileau could 
 never be taught to enjoy Quinault; Fontenelle to look kindly upon 
 
 » Fort-Royal, IV, 322. 3 Babbitt, op. cit., 167. 
 
 » Causeries du lundi, III, 38 ff. * Nouveaux lundis, V, 452. 
 
 s Ibid., Ill, 32. It is interesting here to note that William James held some 
 such theory of "tough and tender" minds {Pragmatism, pp. 12 fif. and 263). "We 
 have a similar contrast expressed in the pair of terms 'rationalist' and 'empiricist,' 
 'empiricist' meaning your lover of facts in all their crude variety, 'rationalist* 
 meaning your devotee of abstract and eternal principles" (p. 9). The former are 
 the tough-minded, the latter the tender-minded. 
 
 «/W<f., VIII, 104. 
 
SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM 43 
 
 Boileau; Joseph de Maistre to love Voltaire.' Sainte-Beuve confesses 
 to just such an antipathy for Saint-Marc Girardin.^ 
 
 The master-faculty of an author is the main factor in determining 
 his family of minds, for it is, for the most part, his dominating quality 
 which urges him to that form of self-expression which determines his 
 classification. It is his temperament, his "humor" in the Jonsonian 
 sense.3 The master-passion, as Sainte-Beuve conceives it, is innate or at ^ 
 least organic. He himself, he says, was born with a passion for literature 
 which he thinks was hereditary ;'» the painter Horace Vernet had such a 
 call to be a painter .^ This passion, perhaps innate, is inexorable in life 
 and persists even beyond sanity.^ At times it is even stronger than the 
 otherwise all-powerful amour propre. For Sainte-Beuve was a disciple 
 of La Rochefoucauld to the extent of agreeing with that cynical moraUst's 
 dictum that amour propre is the mainspring of all action. But he did 
 recognize that there are times and circumstances in which this amour 
 propre is nullified by the action of a genuinely disinterested and irre- 
 sistible master-passion.' 
 
 In the difficult task of isolating the master-passion one can often 
 obtain help from the fact that at times certain authors are Ukely to display 
 the vice or the virtue which is the opposite of the one that dominates 
 them. The astute critic, taking this peculiarity in a Pickwickian sense, 
 arrives at the real master-passion. 
 
 When one has grouped and isolated this essential principle of a man's ^ 
 nature, **0h, alors on a la clef de tout," then one can safely permit 
 himself that summary, that deduction of a formula of classification which 
 Sainte-Beuve advocates. 
 
 One is compelled to notice that Sainte-Beuve's doctrine of thefactdti 
 maitresse has been far too patronizingly handled by certain recent students 
 of his theory, and possibly it might find no place in modern psychology; 
 
 ^ Ibid., Ill, 32. 
 
 ' Cahiers, p. 49. On the " families of minds," cf . also Nouveaux lundis, IV, 314 ff., 
 and Causeries du lundi, III, 2. 
 
 3 Babbitt (op. cit., pp. 167 ff.) has a very good treatment of this faculii mattresse 
 idea of Sainte-Beuve's. 
 
 4 Cahiers, p. 64. s Nouveaux lundis, V, 43. 
 
 ^ Ibid., VIII, 129. See also Causeries du lundi, XI, 445, where the poet is com- 
 pared to a lunatic with an obsession. Sainte-Beuve, in this idea, and in the passage 
 {Nouveaux lundis, VIII, 129), is following the outline in part of Pope's Essay on Man, 
 which he is fond of quoting. 
 
 7 Causeries du lundi, XI, 410 ff. 
 
44 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 but in considering Sainte-Beuve as a scientific critic it is a fallacy to 
 condemn him in the light of science as we have it today. The term 
 "pseudo-science" should not be lightly flung at him, seeing that in his 
 day the science of psychology was in its cradle and the science of sociology, 
 only slowly developing since then, not yet born. He did feel the appeal 
 of science and he did some notable thinking under three of its great 
 principles — observation, identification, and classification. 
 
 When the critic has finally devised his formula for an author and has 
 classified him, it is now his affair to expand the sphere of his investiga- 
 tion; he must therefore study his subject's personal relations with the 
 world, his friends and particularly his enemies, passing on, then, to his 
 followers and disciples, who in their exaggeration of faults and vices 
 serve as signposts to a knowledge of their master.^ The literary chil- 
 dren of any great man are often revelatory caricatures of their progenitor. 
 
 This completes the process. To be a scientific critic is to study an 
 author in his race, his native country, his epoch, his family, his education 
 and early environment, his group of associates, his first success, his 
 first moment of disintegration, his peculiarities of body and mind, espe- 
 cially his weaknesses. We must determine his factdte mattresse; we 
 must glance at his imitators and disciples and learn of him from his 
 friends and his enemies; and we must devise for him a formula and 
 classify him in his famille d'esprits. In Sainte-Beuve's own words: 
 
 La vraie critique, telle que je me la d6finis, consiste plus qife jamais a 
 6tudier chaque etre, c'est a dire chaque auteur, chaque talent, selon les con- 
 ditions de sa nature; a en faire une vive et fidele description, k charge toutefois 
 de le classer ensuite et de le mettre a sa place dans Tordre de Tart.' 
 
 It is noticeable, we must repeat, that through all this Sainte-Beuve 
 is concerned more with getting at the pecuUar germinal principles of 
 personality than with estimating the peculiar excellences of the work. 
 In this connection could not these words of his concerning other critics 
 of his time be apphed to him ? " Personne mieux que Goethe ne s'enten- 
 dait a prendre le mesure des esprits et des genies, de leur elevation et 
 de leur portee; il savait les etages; c'est ce que trop de critiques oubUent 
 et confondent aujourd'hui."^ Is he, too, one of those who "forget and 
 confound" the real merits and quaUties of men in the interest of more 
 narrowly scientific explanation of tangible phenomena ? 
 
 ^ "Rien ne juge mieux les generations litt6raires qui nous ont succ6d63 que Tad- 
 miration enthousiaste et comme fr6n6tique dont tous les jeunes ont 6t6 saisis; les 
 gloutons pour Balzac et les d61icats pour Musset" {Cahiers, p. 34). 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, XII, 191. * Nouveaux lundis, III, 300. 
 
SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM 45 
 
 And Sainte-Beuve is aware that there are those who will say that 
 criticism is attempting the impossible when it tries by scientific investi- 
 gation and procedure to direct and supplement the indefinable sense of 
 taste. Such persons would say: " Je suis a table, je goiite d'un mets, je 
 goiite un fruit: faut-il done tant de famous pour dire: Xela est bon, cela 
 est mauvais ? ' " Do we have to know all about a man^s life and surround- 
 ings to enjoy his work? "Yes," says Samte-Beuve, "to assume that a 
 reader in contact with a book old or new is, or should be, hke the guest 
 who tastes a fruit that is offered him, consuming or setting it aside 
 without knowing its nature or its origin — to do this is to treat us 
 
 en gens paresseux et d61icats. Sans ^tre precisement le jardinier en m^me 
 temps que le convive, il est bon d'avoir, au sujet du fruit qu'on goiite, le plus 
 de notions possible, surtout si Ton a charge bientdt soi-meme de le servir et de 
 le presenter aux autres. En un mot, le goiit seal ne suffit plus d^sormais, et 
 il est bon qu'il y ait la connaissance et Tintelligence des choses.' 
 
 "No one," he says, to make clear his meaning by specific examples, "can 
 understand Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's Paid et Virginie^ Pr6vost*s 
 Manon LescatU^ or Limitation de Jisus Christy without a knowledge of 
 the lives of their authors and of the century in which they came to be; 
 still less can one really appreciate the truly great — ^Homer, Shakespeare, 
 Dante — ^without such knowledge." 
 
 >- The purpose of this scientific naturalistic criticism is to establish a 
 firm basis for judgment. It must be supplemented by the operations of 
 faculties whose processes are not entirely amenable to the investigations 
 of science — the intuitive critical faculty, and taste. This side of his 
 theory will constitute a section on Sainte-Beuve as aesthetic critic. 
 
 « Ibid., DC, 81. 
 
 \ 
 
IV. AESTHETIC CRITICISM 
 
 More than once in the foregoing section it was necessary to call 
 attention to the fact that, after even the most sweeping and enthusiastic 
 claim for the results of naturalistic criticism, Sainte-Beuve makes an 
 exception, a reservation, an almost nullifying claim as to the service 
 of taste and of the native, instinctive critical faculty. In most of these 
 cases, however, he is urging the service of this extra or super-scientific 
 faculty, not as a substitute for the scientific process, but as a supplement 
 to it. The value of constatation and la critique purement physiologique 
 is great, but 
 
 cela dit, at nonobstant ces supplements d'enqu^te toujours ouverts, conservons, 
 s'il se peut, la legeret6 du goiit, son impression delicate et prompte; en presence 
 des oeuvres vives de Tesprit, osons avoir notre jugement net et vif aussi, et 
 bien tranche, bien d6gag6, stir de ce qu'il est, m^me sans pieces a I'appui.' 
 
 And again: 
 
 Maintenons, messieurs, les degr^s de Tart, les etages de I'esprit; encour- 
 ageons toute recherche laborieuse, mais laissons en tout la maitrise au talent, 
 a la meditation, au jugement, a la raison, au goiit.^ 
 
 And again in the same essay, De la tradition en littSrature: 
 
 De cette disposition bien avou6e et convenue entre nous, de ce que, tout 
 en profitant de notre mieux des instruments, un peu onereux parfois, de la 
 critique nouvelle, nous retiendrons quelques-unes des habitudes et les prin- 
 cipes memes de Tancienne critique, accordant la premiere place dans notre 
 admiration et notre estime a Tinvention, a la composition, a I'art d'ecrire, et 
 sensibles, avant tout, aux charme de Tesprit, a I'^levation ou a la finesse du 
 talent, etc.3 
 
 In this passage the word sensibles acknowledges and sums up the recog- 
 nition of the existence and importance of a distinct critical faculty, 
 which we must call upon to enable us to make a judgment, to tell finally 
 when other processes may fail us, that a work is good or bad. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve's humanistic instinct and training never deserted him, 
 and he maintained that whatever work of art he had before him, though 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, XV, 377. This mime sans pieces a Vappui would seem to be 
 a contradiction of the often-expressed demand that the scholar and the scientist must 
 precede the critic so as to enable him to base his judgments on facts. 
 
 » lUd., XV, 376. 3 ihid., p. 378. 
 
 46 
 
AESTHETIC CRITICISM 47 
 
 he might up to a certain point handle it as a scientific specimen, was to 
 be judged on its merits as art stib specie aeternitatis as well as sub specie 
 temporis. It is when he neglects this step of adjudication in criticizing, 
 or refrains from taking it because of absorption in other matters, that 
 he is weak. 
 
 The weak point in Sainte-Beuve's armor is his occasional tendency to rest 
 in his analysis. It is finer art to suggest the conclusion rather than to 
 draw it, no doubt, but one should at least do that; he occasionally fails to 
 justify his analysis in this way; so that his result is both artistically and 
 philosophically inconclusive. Now and then he pays in this way for his 
 aversion to pedantry and system, and the excessive disinterestedness of his 
 curiosity.^ 
 
 f^ Sainte-Beuve was too keen a thmker not to realize that purely investi- 
 gative and analytic criticism is rather a tool than an end in itself — a 
 tool with which great things may be wrought but which must help to 
 build a greater conception, an ideal, a standard. It is valuable as a 
 contributing element in the search for the truth and as furnishing a 
 basis for the measuring and appraising of works of art; but it is onl}' 
 one, and often a mmor, element. After we have found out the facts, 
 have explained the work of art as a product of its author and its age, 
 there still persists the question which in its baldest form asks, ''Is it 
 good, is it bad?" and not mfrequently even, "How good is it, how bad 
 is it ? " Sauite-Beuve rarely shirked these questions and seldom ignored 
 them, and, as has been pointed out, it is in his weaker work, where he 
 limits himseK to analysis, that we do not find answers to one or both 
 of them. This means that Sainte-Beuve added to the scientific and 
 historic critic in him a greater critic who was aesthetic and even judicial. 
 It has often been said that Samte-Beuve was not a judicial critic — 
 that he did not pass judgment on the works of art he treated.' This 
 view may be accounted for on the ground that those who hold it place 
 their emphasis on Sainte-Beuve's accumulation of facts which, however 
 vast and important, with him is usually a preHminary to judging. But 
 before we can discuss this matter profitably it seems necessary to say 
 one more word as to what constitutes a judicial critic and a critical 
 judgment. 
 
 » Brownell, Criticism, p. 68. 
 
 ' Critics who think that Sainte-Beuve did not pass judgment are numerous. Here 
 are some examples: Levallois, op. cit., p. 112. Harper, Sainte-Beuve, p. 326, quotes 
 Barbey d'Aurevilly to this effect; see also, Scherer, Faguet, L6on S6ch6, d'Hausson- 
 ville, who all lay the greater emphasis on his impressionistic side. 
 
48 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 The description of a judicial critic as one who merely metes out 
 praise or blame — who bestows laudation if he happens to approve, con- 
 demnation if he happens to dislike — is a rather shallow handling of the 
 matter.* To identify the critical judge on the one hand with the critical 
 executioner who, after the manner of the old Scotch reviewers, dismisses 
 his victim with a contemptuous "This will never do, Mr. Wordsworth" 
 or "Back to your gallipots, John Keats," or, on the other hand, with the 
 indiscriminate singer of paeans of praise, the merely appreciative impres- 
 sionistic log-roller, is in either case both unfair and unjust. Sainte- 
 Beuve has several warnings against undue laudation: "Vous n'en 
 conclurez pas, que nous serons necessairement, a Tegard des livres 
 et des ecrivains celebres, dans la louange monotone, dans une louange 
 / universelle."^ Is not, then, the judicial critic the one who, avoiding 
 mere laudation and condemnation, offers a definitive appraisement, a 
 final word as to the qualities and defects of the work of art; who sets 
 up a comparison of this given product with some standard based not 
 only on an expert personal taste but on tradition and on some of the 
 laws of taste which he believes to be tested and fundamental; who does 
 not leave his discussion inconclusive, but who either expressly or by 
 unmistakable implication "places" his man and his book in relation 
 to the standard ? 
 
 With this idea of the judicial critic and of the process of judging 
 Sainte-Beuve's practice will be found to agree. The first passage of any 
 importance in this connection, the introduction to the Catiseries du 
 lundi, has already been quoted.^ Speaking of his second period, that 
 of appreciative criticism, he writes, it will be remembered, " cette critique 
 pourtant comme telle avait un defaut — elle ne concluait pas."^ The 
 completed function, then, of the perfect criticism is to offer a conclusion. 
 And Sainte-Beuve himself is conscious of having sought to remedy his 
 deficiency when he writes: "En critique, j'ai assez fait I'avocat, faisons 
 maintenant le juge."s He also accounts for the fact that he is much 
 hated on the ground of his independance de jugemen^ which leads him 
 to speak his mind. He feels that it is the critic's duty to express his 
 opinions and, if need be, trancher.^ The true role of the critic now, 
 V as always, is to judge. • "Le propre des critiques en general, comme 
 rindique assez leur nom, est de juger, et au besoin de trancher, de 
 
 * Cf. J. M. Robertson, Essays toward a Critical Method, p. 46. 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, XV, 379. « Portraits littiraires, III, 550. 
 
 * Supra, p. 2. ^ Causeries du lundi, XII, 44. 
 
 * Ibid., I, 3. 7 Nouveaux lundis, II, 14. 
 
AESTHETIC CRITICISM 49 
 
 decider" — all the great critics have done this. "Tous ces hommes ... 
 jugaient des choses de gout avec vivacite; avec trop d'exclusion peut- 
 etre, mais enfin avec un sentiment net, decisif et irresistible."' The 
 most important item of this quotation is, of course, the very first "le 
 propre des critiques est de juger," and one can imagine no more definite 
 statement of Sainte-Beuve's belief as to this function of his calling. The 
 quarrel between impressionistic and judicial criticism has taken definite 
 form since Sainte-Beuve's day, but he was aware of the distinctions 
 between the two practices, as witness this passage: 
 
 Aujourd'hui il n'est pas rare de trouver, dans ceux qui s'intitulent critiques, 
 du savoir, de la plume, de Terudition, de la fantaisie. Donnez-leur un ouvrage 
 nouveau, ils vont discourir a merveille sur le sujet, ou a c6te du sujet. ... lis 
 vous diront tout, excepte un jugement. lis ont tout du critique, except6 le 
 judicieux. lis n'oseront se compromettre jusqu'a dire: "Ceci est bon, ceci 
 est mauvais."* 
 
 This might be a summary of the faults of the critical school of Anatole 
 France or of Lemaitre. It is on the ground of his failure to utter a word 
 of final appraisement and his consequent evasion of the essential duty 
 of the critic that Sainte-Beuve pronounces Pontmartin not a critic at 
 all but merely un aimable cameurJ 
 
 The abiUty to judge comes of a critical faculty, an innate gift, a 
 talent which by a sort of divination arrives at a valid judgment. Such 
 was the equipment of the great critics of former days, who, though lack- 
 ing the knowledge that has broadened the basis of our judgments, never- 
 theless delivered verdicts sound and correct — and still sound and correct. 
 The humanist in Sainte-Beuve forced him to recognize that the judgments 
 of former days were sound and made him look with suspicion on any 
 radical reversal of tradition. Tradition is, after all, only the accumulated 
 experience of the race. "Faire dans nos jugements des reformes con- 
 tinuelles, si besoin est, mais des reformes seulement et non des r6volu- 
 tions; voila le plus sur resultat de la critique litteraire, telle que je 
 rentends."4 
 
 From a practical point of view the critic's right to give utterance 
 to his judgments is Umited. We must not praise too much for fear of 
 exaggeration: "Nous tacherons done, de ne pas admirer plus qu'il ne 
 faut, ni autrement qu'il ne faut; de ne pas tout donner a un siecle, meme 
 a un grand siecle. "s On the other hand, out of consideration for other 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, I, 112. 
 
 ' Ibid., I, 382. 4 Ibid., VIII, 391. 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, II, 16. s Causeries du lundi, XV, 379. 
 
(A 
 
 50 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 artists (Sainte-Beuve was not always so tactful as he would have us 
 believe), we must keep to ourselves our most adverse opinions and our 
 most severe condemnations. He distinguishes on this merely practical 
 basis three kinds of judgments: 
 
 Un critique, en restant ce qu'il doit 6tre, peut done avoir jusqu'a ... trois 
 expressions de jugements: le jugement secret, intime, caus6 dans la chambre 
 et entre amis, un jugement d'accord avec le type de talent qu'on porte en soi 
 et, par consequent, comme tout ce qui est personnel, vif, passionne, prime- 
 sautier, enthousiaste ou repulsif, un jugement qui, en bien des cas, emporte 
 la piece; c'est celui de la predilection ou de Vantipathie. 
 
 But, out of respect for others, we cannot express these judgments indis- 
 criminately or scatter them broadcast: 
 
 U faut, si Ton veut rester juste, introduire a chaque instant dans son 
 esprit un certain contraire. Cela constitue le second jugement, reflechi et 
 pondere en vue du public: c'est celui de requite et de V intelligence. Enfin 
 il y a un troisieme jugement, souvent commande et dict6, au moins dans la 
 forme, par les circonstances, les convenances exterieures; un jugement modifie, 
 mitige par des raisons valables, des egards et des considerations dignes de 
 respect; c'est ce que j'appelle le jugement de position ou d'indtdgence.''^ 
 
 The last two kinds of judgments are those which a critic may print 
 with safety; and most of the expressions of opinion we find in Sainte- 
 Beuve could be classified under the last two heads. However, in two 
 or three places he gave free rein to his pen and left us those bodies of 
 trenchant verdicts on contemporary and classical authors, the hundred 
 or so pages of Pensies at the end of Volume XI of the Causeries du 
 lundi, and the posthumous Cahiers. In these were gathered the poison 
 drops of bitter sarcasm and withering condemnation that he had not 
 dared print. In general, however, in accord with his own expressed 
 doctrine, his verdicts were generous and expressed with moderation.^ 
 
 Quite frequently Sainte-Beuve's conclusions assumed a form in which 
 1 the meaning, though quite inescapable, is not explicitly expressed — no 
 doubt the more artistic practice as a matter of style. Sainte-Beuve, 
 however, risked no mistakes. Before leaving matters to the reader he 
 generally led him to the point where the conclusion was inevitable. 
 He says that certain persons have found fault with him for not con- 
 demning the morality of the eighteenth century: 
 
 Je leur ferai remarquer que je r^ussis bien mieux si je les provoque i 
 la condamner eux-m^mes, que si je prenais les devants et paraissais vouloir 
 
 ' Nouveaux lundis, VI, 300. 
 
 ""Gardens nous de I'ironie en jugeant; de toutes les dispositions de I'esprit 
 rironie est la moins intelligente" {Cahiers, p. 75). 
 
AESTHETIC CRITICISM 51 
 
 leur imposer un jugement en toute rencontre, ce qui, a la longue, fatigue et 
 I cheque toujours chez un critique. Le lecteur aime assez k se croire plus severe 
 que le critique; je lui laisse ce plaisir-la.^ 
 
 Perhaps this is sufficient to make clear the fact that Sainte-Beuve 
 believed that the critical process should eventuate in a judgment or a 
 series of judgments expressed or unmistakably implied. It is also clear 
 that to him the trustworthy judicial critic is one who bases his judgments 
 not on merely personal likes and dislikes but rather on aesthetic grounds 
 and on some basic principles of art. Sainte-Beuve taught that there 
 were such universal principles which all critics were bound to recognize; 
 that there was a fundamental ground from which artists shifted but 
 sUghtly, and that remaining on this fundamental ground was entirely 
 compatible with individual variation: 
 
 J'ai souvent remarque que, quand deux bons esprits portent un jugement 
 tout a fait different sur le m^me auteur, il y a fort a parier que c'est qu'ils ne 
 pensent pas en effet, pour le moment, au m^me objet, ... que c'est qu'ils ne 
 I'ont pas tout entier present, qu'ils ne le comprenneni pas actuellement tout 
 entier. Une attention et une connaissance plus 6tendues rapproacheraient 
 les jugements dissidents et les remettraient d'accord. Mais aussi il y a,m6me 
 dans le cercle r6gulier et gradue des admirations legitimes, une certaine lati- 
 tude a laisser a la diversite des gouts, des esprits et des ^ges.' 
 
 Critical judgments differ, then, only because critics are not looking 
 at the same thing in an author, are not regarding him under the same 
 aspects; if they did (by implication) their estimates of him would be 
 the same, and all would agree as to excellence or defect. This looks 
 like a clear recognition of some absolute critical criterion, one which is 
 the same to all men, when all men see the facts clearly. These things 
 are the essentials, Sainte-Beuve goes on to say, and the matters of indi- 
 vidual taste are relegated to the less important, to the outer fringe of art. 
 
 Judgments and estimates may be absolute, therefore, because they'" 
 are founded on something universal. Judgments of personal taste are 
 useful only in a very limited field. 
 
 Oh! Que je hais, en fait d'art, ces jugements soi-disant senses, qui, ne se 
 laissant pour rien deloger de leur cadres, ne savent ni remonter d'une idee au 
 dessus des choses de leur berceau, ni se transporter dans la posterite d'une 
 journ6e par dela I'instant de la tombe. lis representent le prejug6 vivant dans 
 toute sa rectitude et son aplomb.^ 
 
 That is to say, the critic who cannot transcend his time and look to the 
 eternal principles at art is exhibiting mere prejudice. 
 
 » Causeries du lundi, II, 267. ' Ibid., XV, 381. a Cahiers, p. 37. 
 
® 
 
 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 Sainte-Beuve repeats several times that criticism, la science morale, 
 has its laws: 
 
 II semble qu'en litterature et en morale les choses ne se passent point comme 
 dans la science proprement dite et que ce soit toujours a recommencer; je 
 pense toutefois qu'il y a, dans cet ordre d 'observations aussi, de certaines con- 
 clusions acquises et demontrees sur lesquelles il n'y a pas lieu pour les bons 
 esprits a revenir. La science morale, bien comprise, bien appliquee aux indivi- 
 dus, a, comme toutes les sciences, ses jugements definitifs et ses r^sultats.* 
 
 But even clearer recognition of abiding principles for judging are 
 made by him in his comment that the time has now come to do justice 
 to Beranger: " de lui payer, dis-je, une large part, mais une part mesuree 
 au m6me poids et dans la meme balance dont nous nous servons pour 
 d'autres."^ These "meme poids et la meme balance dont nous nous servons 
 pour d'autres," are they not Sainte-Beuve's literary criteria, the stand- 
 ards which shall apply to all artists ? But while he saw the necessity 
 for great and broad principles of criticism, with characteristic broad- 
 mindedness he made room as he always did for un certain contraire. He 
 warns us solemnly against systematizing, against strict adherence to 
 rules; the world is in constant flux, he says: 
 
 Oh! je la sais, dans le tourbillon accelere qui entraine le monde et les 
 societes modernes, tout change, tout s'agrandit et se modifie incessamment. 
 Des formes nouvelles de talents se produisent chaque jour; toutes les rhgles, 
 d^aprh lesquelles on s'Stait accoutume cL juger les choses mSmes de V esprit, sont 
 dijouies; I'etonnement est devenu une habitude; nous marchons de monstres 
 en monstres. Le vrai d'hier, deja incomplet ce matin, sera demain tout a fait 
 depasse et laisse derriere. Les moules, fixes a peine, deviennent aussit6t trop 
 etroits et insuffisants. Aussi, ... chacun a chaque instant devrait ^tre ocaip6 
 a briser dans son esprit le moule qui est pres de prendre et de se former. Ne 
 nous figeons pas; tenons nos esprits vivants et fluides.3 
 
 In this characteristic passage he thus warns us against setting up petty 
 standards, and the stiff and narrow appUcation of any standard; but he 
 is certainly not advising the abrogation of aU criteria. 
 
 There are five pierres de louche whereby the critic tests the quality 
 of the work of art, five weights in the judicial scales in which he appraises 
 values: first and foremost, taste; second, reality, truth to Ufe; third, 
 tradition — these chief; we add a fourth, logic and consistency, and a 
 fifth, morality, which played a real though minor part in Sainte-Beuve's 
 procedure. 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis, III, 2. 
 
 » Causeries du lundi, II, 286. * Nouveaux lundis, VII, 49. 
 
AESTHETIC CRITICISM 53 
 
 The first and it may be said the most important weight in the scales 
 of judgment is taste. We have seen already that Sainte-Beuve regarded 
 the criticism of mere unaided taste as out of date, but also that he 
 insisted on taste as an essential quaUty in the critic, and a necessary 
 factor in criticism. He saw clearly that to say *'I do not like it" is 
 not passing a judgment or giving a real decision on the ultimate value 
 of any work, being as it is a statement of one's own mere opinion, and 
 very probably a revelation of one's own limitations. Shakespeare 
 remains great whether Voltaire liked him or not, and it is not Shake- 
 speare's demerit that the illustrious French critic was not able to see 
 his greatness. 
 
 Taste, however, is the primary arbiter, the sentinelle toujours en 
 eveille,^ the guidepost which points the way for the critic and tells him 
 when he is in the right path. It is the complement of the indispensable 
 hon sens; it transcends reason, for, since it is instinctive, it functions 
 where reason does not and cannot function.' Le goM is not a capricious 
 gift of fortune, knowing no laws, a matter of whim; on the contrary it 
 has its own rules, its own body of accumulated precedents, for it abides 
 from age to age. "Je crois toujours a la permanence d'une certaine 
 delicatesse, une fois acquise, dans I'ame humaine, dans I'esprit des 
 hommes ou des femmes"^ — this delicatesse is a synonym of good taste. 
 Le hon goM can be cultivated and refined in persons and in social groups; 
 it is not entirely lost even in the grossest epochs. 
 
 What, then, is this "taste" which is so important in criticism? 
 "Rien n'est plus rare que le bon gout, a le prendre en son sens exquis ... 
 I'amour du simple, du sense, de I'eleve, de ce qui est grand sans phrase."'* 
 One must keep correcting one's self in writing "par un sens vif, deUcat, 
 mobile, qui a chaque instant remet tout en question; et ce sens exquis 
 s'appelle le gout."s Mme de Girardin, he says, defines goUt as la 
 pudeur de Vesprit^ and this he calls a good definition.^ Montaigne was 
 lacking in good taste, "si Ton entend par gout le choix net et parfait, 
 le degagement des elements du beau. "7 
 
 Taste in Sainte-Beuve's mind is a sort of sixth sense and partakes of 
 the nature of the other senses in that it is unreasoning and sure and at 
 times epicurean: 
 
 L'Abbe Gedoyn I'a tres-bien remarque; "le gout, a proprement parler, 
 emporte I'idee de je ne sais quelle materialite." II y entre une part de sens. 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, XV, 373,. 
 
 ' Ibid., V, 69. s Cahiers, p. 56. 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, VIII, 85. ^ Causeries du lundi, III, 391. 
 
 4 Causeries du lundi, I, 283. ' Ihid., IV, 80. 
 
54 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 Le mot judicium des Latins a une acception plus 6tendue et un peuplusabstraite 
 que notre mot goUt ... les gens d'esprit qui, k table, mangent au hasard, ... 
 peuvent etre de grands raisonneurs et de hautes intelligences, mais ils ne sont 
 pas des gens de goUi.^ 
 
 Because taste is a sense and consequently savors of the flesh, 
 De Laprade makes an assault on the homme de goUt, who, he says, " est 
 celui qui n'a jamais rien admire." But Sainte-Beuve comes to the 
 defense: 
 
 II en veut au goUi de ce que son nom est emprunt6 au moins noble de tous 
 les sens. ... II ne sent pas que c'est, au contraire, en vertu d'une analogic 
 exquise que ce mot de goUt a privalu chez nous sur celui de jugement. Le 
 jugement! Je sais des esprits qui I'ont tres bon et qui, en m^me temps man- 
 quent de gotit, parceque le gout exprime ce qu'il y a de plus fin et de plus 
 instinctif dans le plus confusement delicat des organes.' 
 
 Taste is essentially a selective faculty, a distinguishing instrument, 
 but, like the other senses, may become fatigued and refuse to function. 
 "Le vrai goiit discerne, examine; il a ses temps de repos, et il choisit."^ 
 "H faut choisir, et la premiere condition du goiit, apres avoir tout 
 compris, est de ne pas voyager sans cesse, mais de s'asseoir une fois 
 et de se fixer. Rien ne blase et n'eteint plus le goiit que les voyages 
 sans fin; Tesprit poetique n'est pas le Juif Errant.' '* The basis of 
 taste is stable, abiding throughout the ages, and, though taste does 
 undergo certain minor changes, sometimes growing more refined, some- 
 times seeming to deteriorate, it never departs very widely from its stable 
 basis; it changes so slowly from moment to moment in the individual 
 and from generation to generation in the race that there is no shock 
 of change. 
 
 In consequence taste is identified in some measure with the classical 
 spirit and tradition; it is a humanistic ideal and is bound up with the 
 conception of the perfect man. We must attain "^ la vraie mesure 
 humaine; sans laquelle il n^est pas de grand goiit, de go<it veritable. "s 
 
 » Portraits litteraires, III, 548. 
 
 » Nouveaux lundis, I, 12. This same idea is found again here: "Vous avez beau 
 dire, je ne croirai jamais qu'un homme aussi malpropre ait 6t6 un homme de goilt" 
 (Planche); "le goftt, aprfes tout, n'est que le plus subtil des sens" {Correspondance, 
 I, 320). 
 
 3 Causeries du lundi, III, 215. * Ihid.t III, 53. 
 
 5 Nouveaux lundis, II, 27. This phrase le grand goilt is generally used of the age 
 of Louis XIV. Sainte-Beuve must have had this in mind when he wrote the passage. 
 
AESTHETIC CRITICISM 55 
 
 In one place he identifies urbanity and goM^^ and urbanitS, as we shall 
 see later, is to Saint-Beuve the main characteristic of the classical age. 
 
 The sixteenth century saw the rise of this doctrine of taste,* but in 
 the seventeenth there occurred for the only time in the history of France 
 the union of bon sens and bon goUt, which to Sainte-Beuve seemed the 
 ultimate literary achievement.^ In the eighteenth century taste was 
 on the ebb; it was not so exquisitely educated, nor so widely dissemi- 
 nated as it had been, though in essence it remained the same. But 
 in Sainte-Beuve's own day he says, in one of the few hopeful passages 
 about modern Uterature, that taste was returning to its ancient authority 
 and was again being trained to excellence, largely under the lead of 
 Chateaubriand. That author 
 
 revenait et nous ramenait par des hauteurs un peu escarp6es et impr6vues k 
 la grande et forte langue, et c'etait sur ses traces que le gout lui-meme devait 
 retrouver bient6t sa vigueur et son originalite. Ce gout reflechi et acquis, 
 mais reel, est une des conqu^tes de la critique depuis M. Walckenaer.< 
 
 Taste was, then, to Sainte-Beuve another sense, a perception of unity, 
 of simplicity, of dignity; unreasoning and spontaneous but eminently 
 educable, a touchstone for the simple, the refined, the unexaggerated. 
 It is to him both a native, instinctive sensibility, and a habit cultivated 
 by experience and tradition. "It is inborn, as spontaneous as insight, 
 indeed with an insight of its own."s Taste was, we may say then, the 
 keystone of Sainte-Beuve's critical judicial arch. 
 
 . The second of Sainte-Beuve's critical divining-rods was realitt^ or, 
 to sum it up as fairly as possible in one phrase, truth to life.^ He does 
 not mean the reaUty posited in the creed of professed realism, not 
 actuality as the record of observed facts; he would set his reaUty over 
 against sentimental ideaUsm on the one hand, and cynical disillusion- 
 ment on the other. He would ask, when he has for study a drama, a 
 novel, "Do people conduct their lives like this; are these the motives 
 on which men act, and is this the response that would be called out by 
 this combination of circumstances and motives, has the author made 
 
 * Causeries du hmdi, III, 69. 
 
 'Ibid., IV, So. 
 
 ^ Ibid., Ill, 256. "Le plein bon sens et le vrai bon goAt, chez nous, n'ont 
 jamais existe ensemble qu'a un tr^s-court moment de la litt6rature et de la langue." 
 
 "» Ibid., VI, 1 73. " Depuis M. Walckenaer," after 1830. He is, of course, speaking 
 here only of the revival of taste in the nineteenth century. 
 
 s Stedman, Nature of Poetry, p. 72. 
 
 ' For his demand for the study of truth by the critic see Causeries du lundi, X, 47. 
 
56 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 on us the impression that this is life as men and women live it and feel 
 it; though we must grant that these events did not take place in the 
 actual world, may we yet assume that they would seem natural or 
 credible if they did?" Since Sainte-Beuve's time this reality has at 
 times seemed to be regarded by some critics as the one and sufficient 
 tenet.^ But none of them could be more convincing, and few of them 
 would be so eloquent, as Sainte-Beuve in the following passage: 
 
 Realite, tu es le fond de la vie, et comma telle, meme dans tes asperit^s, 
 meme dans tes rudesses, tu attaches les esprits serieux, et tu as pour eux un 
 charme. Et pourtant, a la longue et toute seule, tu finirais par rebuter insen- 
 siblement,parrassasier; tues trop souvent plate, vulgaire et lassante. C'est 
 bien assez de te rencontrer a chaque pas dans la vie; on veut du moins dans 
 Tart, en te retrouvant et en te sentant presente ou voisine tou jours, avoir 
 affaire encore a autre chose que toi. Oui, tu as besoin, a tout instant, ... 
 d'etre relevee par quelque endroit, sous peine d'accabler et peut-etre d'ennuyer 
 comme trop ordinaire. II te faut, pour le moins, posseder et joindre a tes 
 merites ce genie d'imitation si parfait, si anime, si fin, qu'il devient comme une 
 creation et une magie a son tour, cet emploi merveilleux des moyens et des 
 precedes de Tart qui, sans s'etaler et sans faire montre, respire ou briUe dans 
 chaque detail comme dans I'ensemble. II te faut le style, en un mot. II te 
 faut encore, s'il se peut, le sentiment, un coin de sympathie, un rayon moral 
 qui te traverse et qui te vienne eclairer; ... autrement, bient6t tu nous laisses 
 froids, indifferents, ... nous nous ennuyons de ne point trouver en toi notre 
 part et notre place. II te faut encore, et c'est la le plus beau triomphe, il te 
 faut, tout en etant observee et respectee, je ne sais quoi qui t'accomplisse et 
 qui t'acheve, qui te rectifie sans te fausser, qui t'eleve sans te faire perdre 
 terre, qui te donne tout I'esprit que tu peux avoir sans cesser un moment de 
 paraitre naturelle, qui te laisse reconnaissable a tous, mais plus lumineuse 
 que dans I'ordinaire de la vie, plus adorable et plus belle ... ce qu'on appelle 
 Vid^al enfin. 
 
 Que si tout cela te manque et que tu te homes strictement a ce que tu 
 es, sans presque nul choix et selon le hasard de la rencontre, si tu te tiens a 
 tes pauvretes ... et a tes rugosites de tou tes sortes, eh bien! je t' accepter ai 
 encore, et s'il fallait opter, je te prefererais meme ainsi, pauvre et mediocre, 
 mais prise sur le fait, mais sincere, a toutes les chimeres brillantes, aux f antaisies, 
 aux imaginations les plus folles ou les plus fines ... parcequ'il y a en toi la 
 source, le fond humain et naturel duquel tout jaillit a son heure, et un attrait 
 de verite, parfois un inattendu touchant, que rien ne vaut et ne rechete.^ 
 
 * Brownell, op. cit., pp. 62-63. 
 
 ' Nouveaux lundis, IV, 137. This passage occurs in his consideration of Champ- 
 fleury's Violon de Faience. Art must have the ideal to redeem the true. Zola's 
 Th6rise Racquin "en r6duisant I'art k n'6tre que la seule et simple v6rit6 [elle] me 
 paralt hors de cette v6rit6" {Correspondance, II, 314). 
 
AESTHETIC CRITICISM 57 
 
 This remarkable passage, reproduced at this length because of its 
 importance, might well be taken as Sainte-Beuve's literary credo — 
 reality treated with sentiment and art. This demand for truth to life 
 here in connection with realism is a classical and humanistic doctrine, 
 and Sainte-Beuve is only saying in another way: *'Rien n'est beau que 
 le vrai, le vrai seul est aimable." In this respect the classicists and the 
 realists join hands indeed, are united to so great an extent that one is 
 justified in distinguishing not three types of literature — classical, 
 romantic, and reaUstic — ^but two, humanistic and romantic; for the 
 genuine reaUsts and the true classicists are one in their demand for that 
 truth to life which the romanticists are inclined to disregard or more 
 actively to repudiate. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve makes an adequate synthesis of the best thinking con- 
 cerning realism in art when he distinguishes between reaUty as truth to 
 Hfe and reahty as mere fact. While reaUty he feels is eminently both 
 the field and the product of art, mere fact demands artistic treatment 
 if it is to produce artistic results. Where purely scientific and factual 
 truth begins, Hterature ends — or perhaps the converse of this statement is 
 more just, hterature begins where scientific fact ends. "Gardez-vous 
 de rhistoire. ... Evitons dans Tart serieux de rendre trop sensible la 
 divorce entre la poesie et la verite,"^ meaning here by verite this factual 
 aspect of truth. True he is speaking here only of poetry, but in the 
 passage quoted above he makes the same demand for all hterature. 
 
 Art must transcend and purify its subject-matter, the ultimate 
 truth, but when it fails to keep to the basis of reaUty in this higher sense 
 it repudiates its essential function. Again and again Sainte-Beuve 
 condemns a work or a character, "ce n'est pas vrai," and means that 
 it is not true to life.^ 
 
 The third of the critical criteria that make up Sainte-Beuve's 
 testing equipment is tradition. He means by this the corpus of ideas and 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, V, 306. On the other hand: "Vous aimez, monsieur, dans 
 la po6sie la r6alit6 et le sentiment: je suis de cette m^me 6cole" {Correspondance, I, 
 170). Let us recognize once for all that Sainte-Beuve did not and could not make 
 the distinction between reality and verity which has grown up in critical thinking since 
 his time. 
 
 » It is interesting to note that Sainte-Beuve often decides truth to life on a basis 
 of tradition. It is of course obvious that in the demand for truth to life one has to 
 ask "truth to whose life?" Sainte-Beuve claims that there are laws of this as well 
 as of the other aspects of literature. He says: "Le roman n'est pas entiSrement 
 d'accord avec la v6rit6 humaine, avec I'entiere verit6 telle que les grands peintres de la 
 passion I'ont de tout temps congue" {Nouveaux lundis^ VII, 146). 
 
58 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 customs which has drawn together throughout the ages, concerning the 
 content and the form of art. In trying to reconstitute Sainte-Beuve's 
 C idea of it we must examine his opinion on the French tradition — the vari- 
 ous elements that go to make it up, and the schools that have contributed 
 to it. There is, Sainte-Beuve believes, a prevaiUng tradition in French 
 literature, the classical, and so far from being a shallow assumption or 
 a pose it is something deeply ingrained in French national character 
 and taste: 
 
 II y a una tradition: qui le nierait? Elle existe pour nous toute trac6e, 
 elle est visible, comme une de ces avenues et de ces voies immenses, grandioses, 
 qui traversaient autrefois I'Empire, et qui aboutissaient a la Ville par excellence. 
 Descendants des Remains, ... nous avons a embrasser, a comprendre, a ne 
 jamais deserter Theritage de ces maitres et de ces peres illustres, heritage ... 
 qui forme le plus clair et le plus solide de notre fonds intellectuel. Cette 
 tradition ... consiste en un certain principe de raison et de culture qui a 
 V penetre a la longue, pour le modifier, dans le caractere meme de cette nation 
 
 gauloise, et qui est entre des longtemps jusque dans la trempe des esprits. 
 C'est la tout ce qu'il importe de ne pas laisser perdre, ce qu'il faut ne point 
 souffrir qu'on altere ... sans avertir du moins et sans s'alarmer comme dans 
 un peril commun.^ 
 
 It is this classical tradition, the legacy from the Greeks and Latins, 
 which we must strive to preserve. There has never been a great writer, 
 says Sainte-Beuve, outside this tradition; they all knew and embodied 
 its essential ideas. Not even Shakespeare, he claims, was without it.* 
 Sainte-Beuve himself was distinctly and consciously in the Une: 
 
 He possessed a delicate taste for beautiful work and a strong respect for 
 the traditions which have fostered it. Here is the universal and abiding 
 element of his talent. He has a sense for the classical, balancing and employ- 
 ing his restless instinct for individuality. In this respect it may be said that 
 two schools of art and indeed two centuries so widely separated as the seven- 
 teenth and nineteenth find in him their representative. He ei^tertained for 
 the long tried opinion and generally approved judgments of competent prede- 
 cessors, an almost reverent respect ... He was practical enough also to 
 perceive the advantage of classicism as consecrating a stable body of accepted 
 opinions. He appreciated the simplicity and the general sufficiency of these 
 standards in the case of French literature. In spite of his skeptical habit, 
 in spite of his distrust of theory and doctrine, he too, like Bossuet, whom he 
 deeply respected, was ever seeking eternal law under the discordant contra- 
 dictions of human history .3 
 
 * Causeries du lundi, XV, 357. 
 
 » Ibid., p. 366. 3 Harper, op. cit., p. 137. 
 
I 
 
 AESTHETIC CRITICISM ^_ 50 
 
 As he grew older this approval of the classical became more pronounced 
 and more outspoken. "He sided more and more with the Olympians 
 against the Titans."^ He increasingly identified things normal, sane, 
 healthy, with the classical, things unsound and abnormal with the 
 romantic.^ He carefully defined "the classic" in his article "De la 
 tradition en litterature" in Volume XV of the Lundis: 
 
 Le classique, en effet, dans son caractere le plus general at dans sa plus 
 large definition, comprend les Htteratures a I'etat de sante et de fleur heureuse, 
 les Htteratures en plein accord et en harmonie avec leur epoque, avec leur cadre 
 social, avec les principes et les pouvoirs dirigeants de la societe ... les ht- 
 teratures qui sent et qui se sentent chez elles, dans leur voie, non d6class6es, 
 non troublantes.3 
 
 Elsewhere he quotes Goethe to the same efifect. " J'appelle le classique 
 le sain, et le romantique le malade.'^ A classic is a writer in accord with 
 his time; a romantic, one who is not.-* To Sainte-Beuve, however, the 
 supreme beauty, indeed the only real beauty, is to be found within 
 that classical tradition which once or twice in the history of the world 
 has come to full flower: 
 
 Quand je parle de beaute, je m'entends, et je m'addresse a ceux qui savent 
 de quoi il s'agit, lorsqu'ils prononcent ce mot. II peut y avoir dans un ouvrage 
 de I'habilete ... sans qu'il y'ait veritablement beaute. ... Relisez un chant 
 d'Homere, une scene de Sophocle, un choeur d'Euripide, un livre de Virgile! 
 grandeur ou fiamme du sentiment, eclat de I'expression, et s'il se peut, harmonie 
 de composition et d 'ensemble, ... ce sont la quelques — uns des traits et des 
 conditions de cette beaute plus aisee a sentir qu'a definir. ... EUe n'a brille 
 dans ses parfaits exemplaires, cette incomparable beaute, qu'une seule fois ou 
 peut-etre deux fois sous le soleil.s 
 
 And again he writes "le beau semble appartenir plus exclusivement a 
 I'antiquite."^ 
 
 In the article "De la tradition en Htterature" he traces the course 
 of this, to him, paramount tradition through the ages. Hellenic art 
 
 ' Babbitt, Masters of Modern French Criticism, p. 137. 
 
 ^ Ibid., XV, 369. To be sure he always admired romantic feeling and treatment, 
 provided they were noble, as his admiration for Shakespeare -and his love for 
 Musset show, and he did say of the Romantic movement as late as 185 1, it is one 
 "que j'aime, dont je m'honore d'etre, moi indigne, dont les amis, toutes les admira- 
 tions de ma jeunesse, ont €t6, dont tous ceux qui survivent sont encore" (Nouveaux 
 lundis, III, 97). 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 369. 4 Causeries du lundi. III, 46. s Nouveaux lundis, III, 377. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 409. He repeats the same thought in the article "Qu'est ce qu'un 
 classique" in Causeries du lundi, III. 
 
6o SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 was and still is supreme — the source and fountainhead of all subsequent 
 artistic inspiration. One may well question, he says, whether or not 
 all the productions of all the other Hteratures are worth a single master- 
 piece of Greek art. From Greece he traces the stream to Rome where 
 it created Latin literature. All great writers in the occidental world 
 have been of this tradition, have derived their inspiration from antiquity, 
 and have been dominated by this souffle helUnique. To this prevailing 
 line of tradition coming down from Greece, the Middle Ages added one 
 powerful element when, to the tradition of Atticism and urbanity, they 
 added "le sentiment deUcat de I'amour et de la courtoisie chevaleresque " 
 and the chivalric service of the lady as an ideal ;^ that and Christian 
 antiquity "litterairement imparfaite, moralement superieure" are the 
 only accretions of the modern world to the ancient tradition. 
 
 What is true of literary inspiration in general is true in particular 
 of the spirit that moves in literary criticism — that it derives from this 
 unbroken classical tradition: "En critique corome en morale, les anciens 
 ont trouve toutes les grandes lois ; les modernes n'ont fait le plus souvent 
 que raflSner spirituellement sur les details."* The one time in history 
 since the mighty Hellenic days, when it came to full flower, is the age of 
 Louis XIV, the grand sUcle, the triumphant moment of French literature. 
 As a classicist and a humanist Sainte-Beuve felt that in this moment 
 French letters reached the apogee. To be real critics we must have 
 knowledge of classical art both at its fountainhead and as it has expressed 
 itself in this French thought and art.^ Literature then was classical, in 
 both the senses in which he used the word, since it both produced the 
 greatest Uterary masters of the nation and at the same time followed 
 most closely the artistic spirit of the ancients.^ The work of this 
 
 » Causeries du lundi, XV, 360 flf. 
 
 » Ibid., I, 13. 
 
 » Sainte-Beuve lays some stress on the need of classical training for a literary man. 
 We shall have to study antiquity from our earliest youth and make it ours when our 
 minds are impressionable {Nouveaux lundis, VII, 47). What a privation it is not to 
 know Greek! "Avoue," says Pindar, "que c'est la plus grande amertume pour 
 I'homme de connaltre les belles choses et de s'en voir le pied dehors par n6c6ssit6." 
 "Appliquez cela," comments Sainte-Beuve, "k la litt6rature grecque, i ceux qui le 
 savent et en sont priv6s" {Cahiers, p. 152). 
 
 4 It is necessary to keep in mind the distinction between the two senses of the 
 term "classical" in Sainte-Beuve, the difference between a "classical writer" and a 
 "classic." The former is a writer in the tradition of the ancients; the latter Sainte- 
 Beuve defines thus: "Un vrai classique — c'est un auteur qui a enrichi I'esprit humain, 
 qui en a r^ellement augments le tr^sor, qui lui a fait faire un pas de plus, qui a d6couvert 
 
AESTHETIC CRITICISM 6i 
 
 consummate age was Sainte-Beuve's perpetual standard for com- 
 parison: 
 
 He never questioned the personal authority of Bossuet, nor the beauty 
 and propriety of Racine's matured style, nor the sanity of Mme de Sevigne. 
 With the utmost distinctness he conceived of seventeenth-century literature 
 as an entity, an organism, a thing complete in itself. Its excellence was to him 
 self-evident. He could never have been brought to share Renan's opinion 
 that it was empty and unedifying. It gave him a standard. To this test he 
 brought the sixteenth century the eighteenth; and ultimately the nineteenth.' 
 
 In matters of style as in those of philosophy and ideas he finds his model 
 and standard in this seventeenth century. He often wished for a return 
 of that moderate and pellucid yet colorful writing, the secret of which 
 the merest dames de cour of the great age seemed to have at their pen 
 points. We have quoted in another connection the passage of mag- 
 nificent eloquence in which he voices his enthusiasm for the "noble and 
 mighty harmony of the grand siecle,"^ and many other passages in 
 which he speaks with admiration equally sincere, if less eloquent, could 
 be added. Indeed one finally comes to feel that on this point Sainte- 
 Beuve displays something less than his characteristic balance of mind 
 and complete catholic receptivity. It assumes the proportions of a 
 "fixed idea," a state of mind quite unexpected in him who in other 
 things invariably provided room for un certain contraire. 
 
 In spite of his enthusiasm — rather because of it — Sainte-Beuve 
 judged very severely the classical school of the eighteenth and early 
 nineteenth centuries, recognizing it as the merest neo-classicism, not a 
 reincarnation of the Hellenic or the Roman spirit, but a dead imitation 
 of the ancient forms. To the pseudo-classical school of the eighteenth 
 century he had a positive aversion; he had no words of condemnation 
 too strong for writers like Jean Baptiste Rousseau and Louis Racine, 
 
 quelque v6rit6 morale non equivoque, ou ressaisi quelque passion 6ternelle dans le 
 coeur o^ tout semblait connu et explore; qui a rendu sa pensee, son observation ou 
 son invention, sous une forme n'importe laquelle, mais large et grande, fine et sens6e, 
 saine et belle en soi; qui a parl6 a tons dans un style i lui et qui se trouve aussi celui de 
 tout le monde, dans un style nouveau sans neologisme, nouveau et antique, ais6ment 
 contemporain de tons les ages" {Causeries du lundi, III, 42). In this sense a roman- 
 ticist may be a "classic." 
 
 ^ Harper, op. cit.,p. 324. It seems, however, that he became at times dissatisfied 
 even with this ideal. " Je ne sais si beaucoup de gens sont comme moi, mais j'avoue 
 que par moments je commence ^ en avoir assez de la litt^rature du XVII*"® si^le" 
 {Nouveaux lundis, V, 371; cf. also p. 257). 
 
 ^ Cf. supra, p. 18. 
 
62 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 whose work he regarded as but a servile and empty imitation of the 
 forms of the great age: 
 
 Que d'imitation des Grecs aux Latins, de ceux-ci aux Italians, aux modemes. 
 Le m^me fends poetique a ete exploit^ a satiete et remanie. La forme seule 
 s'est renouvellee un peu a la surface. L'invention est souvent aussi mince 
 que la feuille d'or ou d'argent qui recouvre le cuivre.' 
 
 It is, then, the spirit of the classical tradition — its sanity, modera- 
 tion, dignity, beauty — that the artist must try to appropriate and to 
 re-embody; he does nothing if he makes a formal copy of some great 
 predecessor. "L'artiste doit ^tre de son temps," and when he imitates 
 he ceases to be "de son temps. "^ 
 
 One of Sainte-Beuve's essential doctrines was that of the continuous 
 progress of the human mind. He was fond of the figure of a great river 
 as suggesting the continuous irresistible and beneficent onward sweep 
 of the spirit of the race. Any such attitude as that assumed by the 
 pseudo-classical artist creates at the best an eddy, a side current apart 
 from the main stream, and at the worst, as in the case of the mere imita- 
 tions, becomes a stagnant shallow without life or motion. Over- 
 whelmed by the treatment of the genuine classic, they may say: "All 
 the great things have been done; nothing remains but to enjoy them 
 and imitate them." But after years of such enjoyment and such 
 production what goal have we reached ? Alas, one may be learned and 
 distinguished "mais immobile, mais borne, ferme et tout a fait etranger 
 a la vraie activite intellectuelle tou jours renaissante."^ The artist and 
 "critiques classiques qui se fiattent de n'avoir pas varie depuis trente ans, 
 ceux qui n'ont cesse de rester fideles dans leurs recommandations a tous 
 les procedes et a toutes les routines d'academie et d'atelier," must give 
 way in favor of the really classical writers who reinterpret the ancient 
 spirit in a modern way, for example as did Andre Chenier^ when he 
 cried in a famous passage: "Sur des pensers nouveaux faisons des vers 
 antiques." Chenier's work breathes the sanity, the beauty, the inde- 
 finable exaltation, the inimitable distinction of the truly classical. 
 
 The French tradition is, then, the classical tradition modified as a 
 matter of course by a certain Gallic quaUty which harmonizes on the 
 whole with the other elements. There are lands, Sainte-Beuve says, 
 where the classic tradition cannot survive: "II y a des langues et des 
 
 * Cahiers, p. i66. 
 
 " Causeries du lundi, XII, 15. See also on imitation of ancients, ibid., Ill, 49. 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, III, 73. * Causeries du lundi, X, 438. 
 
AESTHETIC CRITICISM 63 
 
 litteratures ouvertes de toutes parts et non circonscrites auxquelles je 
 ne me figure pas qu'on puisse appliquer le mot de classique. Je ne me 
 figure pas qu'on dise 'les classiques allemands.'"^ But to the French- 
 man there is something native and congenial in the tradition — the word 
 comes naturally to the lips in speaking of his best work; he adopts the 
 ancient raison and sanity of the classic; he lightens and modifies them 
 by his own sociability ,2 and by his theatricahty.^ The core of French 
 thought and artistic achievement is the Hellenic tradition molded and 
 adapted by the exigencies of modern time and place.^ 
 
 Sainte-Beuve's classicism occasionally assumed the form of a human- 
 istic protest against the presumptuous excesses of scientific naturahsm, 
 the superincumbent weight of vapid idealism, or the lawless profusion 
 of irresponsible romanticism. This brings us, however, by another 
 path upon that irreconcilable contradiction in his thought that we were 
 obliged to recognize in studying his naturalism, the contradiction between 
 the humanist and the scientist, the devotee of tradition and the believer 
 in progress, the apostle of the ancients and the champion of the moderns, 
 for Sainte-Beuve was all these at one and the same time; chameleon-like 
 he changed color with the material he was concerned with, or rather, true 
 to one of his own principles, he took on the tone and atmosphere of the 
 work he discussed. 
 
 This dual activity of his mind produced his divided and discordant 
 attitude toward his own epoch. The humanist in him assured him that 
 the nineteenth century was a degeneration, his belief in a preceding 
 classical age compelled him to view his own time as decadent. The 
 distinguishing mark of decadence is exaggeration — of excellences, till 
 
 * Cahiers, p. 108. 
 
 ' "Le Frangais est sociable. ... II faut laisser aux peuples divers leur g^nie, tout en 
 cherchant a le feconder et k Tdtendre. Le Fran^ais est sociable, et il Test surtout 
 par la parole ... et les arts ont besoin, en general, pour lui plaire et pour reussir tout 
 a fait chez lui, de rencontrer cette disposition premi&re de son esprit et de s'identifier 
 au moins en passant avec elle" {Causeries du lundi, IX, 311). 
 
 3 The entrance of M^tho into Carthage through the viaduct in Flaubert's 
 Salammbd: "C'est bien de I'extraordinaire et du th^atral on I'avouera ... disait un 
 de mes amis. ... 'II y a toujours de I'opdra dans tout ce que font les Frangais, meme 
 ceux qui se piquent de r6eV " This "ami" is probably nonexistent, but Sainte- 
 Beuve often used this device to say things he wished not to say in his own person 
 {Nouveaux lundis, IV, 61). 
 
 4 "L'artiste doit ^tre de son temps, doit porter dans son oeuvre le cachet de son 
 temps — a ce prix est la vie durable, comme le succes. ... Tdchons dans nos oeuvres 
 d'exprimer I'esprit de notre si^cle, de dire a notre heure ce qui n'a pas et6 dit encore ' 
 {Causeries du lundi, XII, 15). 
 
64 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 they become defects or at least mannerisms; of defects, till they become 
 unpardonable faults. It is precisely this exaggeration, this over-emphasis, 
 which Sainte-Beuve finds to be the main fault of his contemporaries. 
 "J'ai le deuil dans le cceur," he cries bitterly, " j'ai le deuil de la civilisa- 
 tion que je sens perir. Oh! comme on comprend mieux [by contrast] 
 en ce moment que c'est une invention delicate et subUme."' The 
 Romantics have succeeded in destroying delicacy, the indispensable 
 element in good taste: "Nous allons tomber dans une grossierete 
 immense, le peu qui nous restait de la Princesse de Clhes va s'abimer 
 pour jamais et s'aboUr";' and again, "L'epoque devient grossiere, elle 
 n'estime que la gros qu'elle prend pour le grand; elle se prend a I'eti- 
 quette, a la montre, a ce qui peut faire du bruit, ou etre utile positive- 
 ment; I'esprit htteraire veritable est tout le contraire de cela."^ This 
 was his constant quarrel with those of his own time — that they were 
 guilty of exaggeration, they offered a gross superabundance, they dis- 
 played force raised to the power of mere violence — and the egregious 
 thing and the dangerous thing in his eyes was that they made a virtue 
 of all this. " Je le sais, la doctrine du trop, de Texageration dite legitime, 
 de la monstruosite meme, prise pour marque du genie, est a I'ordre du 
 jour." This is repugnant to his humanistic good taste. " Je demande," 
 he continues, "a n'en etre [de la doctrine] que sous toute reserve; j'habite 
 volontiers en dega, et j'ai garde de mes vieilles habitudes litteraires le 
 besoin de ne pas me fatiguer et meme le desir de me plaire a ce que 
 j'admire."^ The same avowal is in this: "J'ai, je Tavoue, en matiere 
 de goiit, un grand faible; j'aime ce qui est agreable."s Here speaks the 
 humanist, the aesthetic in his call for pleasantness in art, in his avowal 
 of his demand that it yield pleasure, and in his illusions of decadence. 
 
 At the cost of what may seem only a slightly relevant discussion, it 
 seems well to say something further here about Sainte-Beuve's view of 
 his contemporaries, of the exponents of both schools, the romanticists 
 and the realists. It must be remembered that he was himself in his 
 youth of the literary household of romanticism. He surrendered him- 
 self completely (the only place or time in his life when he did surrender 
 himself) to what afterward seemed to him the hypnotic domination of 
 the Cenacle. Under this influence he wrote his Joseph Delormey his 
 novel Volupte, which to the Sainte-Beuve of the Causeries must have 
 seemed the veriest Romantic indiscretions. However, all his life he 
 
 ^ Cahiers, p. 102. 
 
 'Ibid., p. 85. < Nouveaux lundiSf VIII, 95. 
 
 3 Portraits contemporains, V, 458. s Ibid., X, 403. 
 
AESTHETIC CRITICISM 65 
 
 kept a tender place in his heart for his early literary group/ He also 
 retained throughout certain mental habits acquired in his Romantic 
 days, and he often experienced a recrudescence of Romantic enthusiasm 
 and ideaUsm. But with the Chateaubriand in 1848 his classical revulsion 
 of feeling set in, and artistically and professionally he changed camp. 
 In 1858 he wrote this: 
 
 Le romantique a la nostalgia, comme Hamlet: il cherche ce qu'il n'a pas, 
 et jusque par dela les nuages; il reve, il vit dans les songes. Au dix-neuvieme 
 siecle, il adore le moyen age; aji dix-huitieme, il est deja revolutionnaire avec 
 Rousseau. Au sens de Goethe, il y des reman tiques de divers temps; le jeune 
 homme de Chrysostome, Stagyre, Augustin dans sa jeunesse, 6taient des 
 romantiques, des Renes anticipes, des malades; mais c'etaient des malades 
 pour guerir, et le Christianisme les a gu6ris; il a exorcis6 le demon. Hamlet, 
 Werther, Childe-Harold, les Renes purs, sont des malades pour chanter et 
 souffrir, pour jouir de leur mal, des romantiques plus on moins par dilet- 
 tantisme — la maladie pour la maladie.* 
 
 To romanticism he traced many of the faults that he found in his later 
 contemporaries; he condemned it as full of affectation, as exaggerated 
 to the point of violence, as guilty of the repudiation of reality and 
 sanity. 
 
 The case was different, though not better, with the realists. They 
 were content to linger in the region of mere fact, whereas he regarded 
 bare fact as only the foundation on which to erect the Uterary super- 
 structure. He attributes to the "ecrivains dits realisks^' the fault "de 
 chercher peut-etre outre mesure la verite."^ His most trenchant criti- 
 cism of the realists occurs in his studies of Flaubert and of the De Gon- 
 courts. He blames them, not for setting down in their search for reality 
 what is vulgar and mean, but for going out of their way to find the vulgar 
 and mean.4 This obsession of the reaUsts with the disagreeable, with 
 what he calls the *' aggressively unpleasant," he deplores and regards 
 as the evidence of their decadence. Their sordid detail, their lack of 
 beauty and elevation, their preoccupation with the mean and vulgar 
 put them out of court as artists.^ 
 
 This concludes the discussion of Sainte-Beuve's attitude toward 
 tradition as one of the great critical criteria. We may say that we have 
 in general exhibited the following: He recognized a prevailing tradi- 
 tion, the classical, based on Greek and Latin standards and coming again 
 
 ^ Harper, op. cit., p. 14; cf. Causeries du lundi, III, 97, and Cahiers, p. 132, etc. 
 
 ' Causeries du lundi, XV, 371. ^ Ibid., X, 400; IV, 40. 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, II, 14. s Cf. on Zola, Correspondance, II, 314. 
 
66 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 into full bloom in France in the seventeenth century; he formed his 
 opinions on the nature, form, and content of literature under the influ- 
 j ence of this tradition, modified by a slight measure of Romantic liberal- 
 l ism, a survival from the ideals and associations of his early Uterary life. 
 Much light is thrown upon Sainte-Beuve's taste and its practical 
 critical operation by observing what authors he admired and used as 
 bases of comparison. Whom did he regard as classics, as types, whose 
 standing was firm enough, whose repute was universal enough to quaUfy 
 them as standards of measurement ? The following names give us cer- 
 tain of his pierres de louche; but they do not exhaust his Ust. Foremost, 
 \ of course, among his models and standards stand, as the great poets of 
 j all time. Homer, Horace, Shakespeare; and there too we find the greatest 
 of critics, Goethe — "notre maitre a tous." These are the fixed stars in 
 his firmament, the constellations by which he steered his critical craft. 
 It is Shakespeare and Goethe whom he continually and most effectively 
 used as measures of excellence. He put no French writer beside them, 
 acknowledging that France had not produced a supreme literary master. 
 Euripides, Sophocles, Cicero, Quintilian, Virgil, among the ancients, 
 are placed only a little lower on the scale than Horace and Homer. 
 From across the Channel, next to Shakespeare, he placed high the great 
 English classicist. Pope, to whom he very frequently referred.^ It has 
 been necessary to speak in many connections of Sainte-Beuve's unlimited 
 ', admiration of the great French classic writers. Montaigne and Rabelais 
 are established as masters before the seventeenth century; then come 
 Boileau, La Fontaine, Racine, MoUere,^ Bossuet, Mme de Sevign6, 
 Mme de Maintenon, and later, in the next century, Fenelon, and Vol- 
 taire — all these claim his fealty. Andre Chenier was to him the ideal 
 literary artist, combining classical spirit and form with modern subject- 
 matter.^ In the nineteenth century his enthusiasm centered mainly 
 about Mme de Stael and Chateaubriand. The romanticists and the 
 reaHsts, who constituted the main body of nineteenth-century literary 
 artists, were too individualistic to stand as types and standards, and 
 the inevitable bUndness of contemporaneity no doubt obscured some of 
 their merits. 
 C The fourth of Sainte-Beuve's criteria for judgment which may be 
 I deduced from his work, for nowhere does he baldly lay it down as a 
 
 * His appreciation of Pope he expressed in a fine essay {Nouveaux lundis, VIII, 
 104, passim). 
 
 ' Cf. ibid., V, 277 ff., where he takes these as standards and types. 
 > On Andr6 Ch6nier see Causeries du lundi, X, 438; III, 114, etc. 
 
AESTHETIC CRITICISM 67 
 
 principle, is logic and consistency. It is so essential and fundamental a 
 requisite that the artist shall not contradict himself, shall think straight 
 and use the right words to express his thoughts, that Sainte-Beuve must 
 have felt there was no need to establish as a principle that these things 
 should be demanded of all writers. Any work must be logical and 
 consistent in the mass as well as in the detail. It is, however, easy and 
 certain to infer his thought on this matter from passages like the following 
 on Zola's Therese Racquin. Zola has claimed that vice and virtue are 
 products like acid and sugar, and Sainte-Beuve comments: 
 
 II s'ensuivrait qu'un crime explique et motiv6 comma celui que vous 
 exposez n'est pas chose si miraculeuse et si monstrueuse, et on se demande des 
 lors pourquoi tout cet appareil de remords qui n'est qu'une transformation 
 et una transposition du ramords moral ordinaire, du remords chretian, et una 
 sorte d'anfer ratourne.^ 
 
 Here Zola is accused of inconsistency and illogicality in the conception 
 and appHcation of his formula; evidently he violates Sainte-Beuve's 
 fourth principle. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve held in theory that the effect of a work of art on the 
 community from a moral point of view may be an index as to its ultimate 
 merit. However, he himself definitely Umits the field of such judgments. 
 
 Le poete dramatiqua [and this is equally true of all artists] ... ne songe 
 point a faira un ouvraga moral; il pansa a faira un ouvraga vrai puis6 dans 
 la nature, dans la vie. ... Mais a catta hauteur, la nature vraia, mk\e ou tendre, 
 ... la nature humaina vartuausament malade, si ja puis dire, produit le plus 
 souvant, grace au genie et a un art tout plain d'alle, une impression morale 
 qui ennoblit, qui eleve, et qui surtout jamais ne corrompt.^ 
 
 Sainte-Beuve recognized a moral function of a great work even though 
 the author had no moraUstic intention. On the contrary a moralistic book 
 is rarely if ever a work of art and therefore falls between two stools 
 failing of both its purposes.^ The last clause of the quotation, "qui 
 surtout jamais ne corrompt," indicates clearly, however, that Sainte- 
 Beuve demanded of a work of literature that it should not be corrupting; 
 in other words, that he held morahty as one of his criteria. The presence 
 of several strictures upon various writers for indecency clinches this proof. 
 It is easy to overemphasize this point. Sainte-Beuve was by nature 
 and training intellectual rather than ethical in his point of view; he was 
 steeped in the doctrines of relativity, his scientific studies had tended to 
 give his mind a deterministic bias, and, of course, he could not be aware 
 
 ' Correspondance, II, 314. 
 
 » Causeries du lundi, X, 499. 3 Ibid. 
 
68 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 of the recent sociological view of morals as social agreement. In his 
 earlier life, too, he had been accused with some semblance of justice of 
 having written poetry and a novel immoral in their tendency, and this, 
 together with his belief that criticism should be as generous as possible, 
 made him careful about casting the critical stone of moral stricture. 
 Rarely indeed did he throw what he calls "le pave accablant, dont on 
 s'arme sans cesse, qu'on jette a la tete de tout nouveau venu, avec une 
 vivacite et une promptitude qui ne laissent pas d'etre curieuses si Ton 
 songe a quelques-uns de ceux qui en jouent de la sorte."^ He defended 
 Feydeau, Flaubert, and others from the charge of immoraUty, making 
 himseK more often advocatus diaboli than the defender of conventional 
 standards. His morality differed perhaps from the ordinary but was 
 always present in his mind as a necessary concomitant of the truly 
 great work. 
 
 If we have drawn the proper inferences from the material cited we 
 may assume that we have estabhshed the following regarding Sainte- 
 Beuve as aesthetic critic: 
 
 1. He was an aesthetic as well as a scientific and historical critic, 
 evaluating the artistic aspects of his material. 
 
 2. He was a judicial critic and beUeved it was his province to offer 
 a final appraisement of a work, based on certain abiding principles. 
 
 3. These major criteria or abiding principles are four: taste, reality, 
 tradition, and logic and consistency; to which we add moraUty as a 
 fifth, though minor, one. 
 
 * Causeries du lundi, XV, 347. 
 
V. THE QUALIFICATIONS OF THE CRITIC 
 
 In Pope's Essay on Criticism, Sainte-Beuve finds a portrait of a 
 critic which he acknowledges as a presentation of his own ideal.^ So 
 satisfied is he with this portrait that he says he would hke to see it hung 
 above the work table of every critic, where he could have it continually 
 before his eyes. Pope's Unes are these: 
 
 But Where's the man, who counsel can bestow, 
 
 Still pleas'd to teach, and yet not proud to know ? 
 
 Unbiass'd, or by favour, or by spite; 
 
 Not dully prepossess'd, nor blindly right; 
 
 Tho' learn'd, well-bred; and tho' well-bred, sincere, ;- 
 
 Modestly bold, and humanly severe: 
 
 Who to a friend his faults can freely show, \ 
 
 And gladly praise the merit of a foe ? \^ 
 
 Blest with a taste exact, yet unconfin'd; 
 
 A knowledge both of books and human kind: 
 
 Gen'rous converse; a soul exempt from pride; 
 
 And love to praise, with reason on his side ?^ 
 
 Every item of this pointed antithetical "character" of Pope's is signifi- 
 cant. It is in itself of great significance that Sainte-Beuve — the 
 later Sainte-Beuve — should have found his ideal expressed by Pope. 
 The representative EngUsh classicist had a profound influence on 
 Sainte-Beuve, having embodied in his work and theory many of the 
 things which the great Frenchman coveted for the criticism of his own 
 day and nation. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve himself paints an independent portrait of the ideal 
 critic: 
 
 Le jour ou viendrait un critique qui aurait le profond sentiment historique 
 et vital des lettres comme Ta M. Taine, qui plongerait comme lui ses racines 
 jusqu'aux sources, en poussant d'autre part ses verts rameaux sous le soleil, 
 et en meme temps qui ne suprimerait point ... que-dis-je? qui continuerait 
 de respecter et de respirer la fleur sobre, au fin parfum, des Pope, des Boileau, 
 des Fontanes, ce jour-la le critique complet serait trouve; la reconciliation 
 entre les deux ecoles serait faite.3 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, VIII, 121. 
 
 ' Essay on Criticism, 11. 630 ff. 3 Nouveaux lundis, VIII, 115. 
 
 69 
 
70 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 C- In brief, he dreams of a critic who can reconcile within himself humanism 
 C and determinism, science and tradition, aesthetics and history. Sainte- 
 Beuve fulfils in some measure his own dream, for while he may not have 
 made an integral union of the two schools, he did create a working 
 federation between them. He fears, however, that any attempt to mix 
 this critical oil and water will result in a mere emulsion and not in a true 
 stable compound. Indeed, in the very passage quoted above his own 
 logic drives him on into the rather sad admission: "Mais je demande 
 rimpossible; on voit bien que c'est un reve."' Elsewhere, in the well- 
 known article on Bayle, the source for much of the information about 
 what Sainte-Beuve demanded of the critic, he says: 
 
 Nous ne saisirons et ne releverons en lui que les traits essentiels du g6nie 
 critique qu'il represente a un degre merveilleux dans sa purete et son plein, 
 dans son empressement discursif, dans sa curiosite affam6e, dans sa sagacite 
 p^n^trante, dans sa versatilite perpetuelle et son appropriation a chaque chose.' 
 
 We must superadd these finer though secondary qualities to the Ust of 
 those essential in his ideal critic. 
 
 When we come to gather Sainte-Beuve's specifications as to the equip- 
 ment and qualifications of the critic, it seems necessary to begin with 
 his doctrine of the critic's spontaneity — even in the old phrasing that 
 the critic is born and not made. It is first by virtue of native power 
 that the ideal critic penetrates to the heart of life and art, and this 
 intuitive penetration leads him into an appreciation not otherwise 
 attainable.^ "L'homme de talent Test par nature,^' and he means this 
 to apply in the field of criticism as in other fields.-* The critic's intuitive 
 discernment must be recognized as a type of genius. "La nature cree 
 le grand critique; de meme qu'elle confere a quelques hommes le don 
 du commandement. D'autres influent plus sensiblement, agitent, 
 debordent, entrainent; le vrai juge, le vrai critique, par quelque mots 
 etabUt le balance, "s Lacking this native gift the critic is seriously 
 limited: " Je ne sais pas de preuve plus sure qu'on n'est pas fait pour 
 ^tre un vrai critique, que d'aller preferer d'insHnct dans ce qu'on a 
 sous les yeux un demi-talent a un talent et, qui pis est, a un genie.'"' 
 I have italicized in this passage the word of greatest importance; when 
 Sainte-Beuve speaks of judgment as instinctive he seems to place it on 
 the fundamental basis as a native gift — to make of it, as it were, another 
 sense. Indeed, he says precisely : " L'autorite du vai critique ^e compose 
 
 » Nouveaux lundis, VIII, ii6, * Portraits contetnporains, V, 457- 
 
 ' Portraits littiraires, I, 365. « Chateaubriand, II, 115. 
 
 » Nouveaux lundis, III, 65. ^Nouveaux lundis. III, 117 
 
THE QUALIFICATIONS OF THE CRITIC 71 
 
 de bien des elements complexes comme pour le grand medecin; mais 
 au fond il y a la un sens apart. "^ Criticizing certain figures of speech 
 in a style that he is studying, he exclaims: "Quand on ne sent pas una 
 fois ce qu'il y a de bizarre dans ... ces nuances incoherentes, on ne le 
 sentira jamais."^ The important word here is sentj which carries an 
 impHcation of physical perception. Of Grimm, whom he admired, he 
 says: "Quand la nature a une fois doue quelqu'un de cette vivacite de 
 tact et de cette susceptibilite d'impression, et que I'imagination creatrice 
 ne s'y joint pas, ce quelqu'un est ne critique, c'est-a-dire amateur et 
 juge des creations des autres."^ 
 
 He points out, as evidence that the fundamental elements in the 
 critical faculty are congenital and not acquired, the fact that very 
 ignorant persons sometimes arrive at the most penetrating appre- 
 ciation by mere intuition; 
 
 J'aime le naif dans les jugements. Je remarque comme les jeunes filles 
 du peuple sentent souvent bien la poesie. La petite boheme qui ne sait pas 
 lire juge a merveille des vers de Chenier, de Lamartine, de Mme Valmore; 
 elle s'ecrie aux plus beaux, aux passiones surtout, et aux plus tendres. Et 
 quant a Victor Hugo — 
 
 him, too, she judges with correct appreciation.^ Of course, however, the 
 fact that an untrained person may by intuition reach a correct estimate 
 in artistic matters does not argue that he who aspires to be an authori- 
 tative critic can forego any aspect of educational equipment. 
 
 The critic's sensitiveness to impression has its active as well as its 
 receptive side. Sainte-Beuve, teUing a story of Pope to the effect that 
 attempting to read aloud a passage from Homer he was so moved by 
 its beauty and pathos that tears interrupted his reading, comments: 
 **nul exemple ne nous prouve mieux que le sien combien la faculte de 
 critique emue, deUcate, est une faculte active. On ne sent pas, on ne 
 pergoit pas de la sorte quand on n'a rien a rendre. Ce gout, cette sen- 
 sibihte si eveillee, si soudaine, suppose bien de I'imagination derriere."s 
 The sensitive critical faculty serves in hterary history as a barometer to 
 forecast the spiritual and artistic weather, or rather cUmate, of a period. 
 The acute critic is able to tell in advance the moral meteoric condition 
 of his age: 
 
 II est des organisations delicates et nerveuses qui sentent vingt-quatre 
 heures a I'avance les €*iangements de temps, qui les devinent en quelque sorte. 
 
 ^ Chateaubriand f II, 115. 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, VII, 339. ^ Cahiers, p. 32. 
 
 » Ibid.y p. 311. s Nouveaux lundis, VIII, 118. 
 
72 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 Tel doit ^tre Tesprit du critique par rapport au jugement du public. II faut 
 que sa montre avance de cinq minutes au moins sur le cadran de I'Hotel-de- 
 Ville.'' 
 
 The critic is not then a poHe avorti,^ or, according to Coleridge's phrase, 
 a failure in letters turned reviewer, or any other kind of an artist who 
 has failed in his chosen career and taken to criticism with a view to 
 avenging himself upon an unappreciative world. Balzac wrote of a 
 certain sculptor who had not succeeded in his art: "II passa critique, 
 comme tous les impuissants qui mentent a leurs debuts." Sainte-Beuve 
 proceeds: 
 
 Ce dernier trait peut etre vrai d'un artiste sculpteur ou p)eintre qui, au 
 lieu de se mettre a I'oeuvre, passe son temps a disserter et a raisonner; mais, 
 dans I'ordre de la pens6e, cette parole, qui revient souvent sous la plume de 
 toute une 6cole de jeune^Jitterateurs, est a la fois une injustice et une erreur." 
 
 The impUcations are plain. The critic, like the dramatist, the 
 novelist, the poet, is a creator, since he too works with words and ideas, 
 building them into edifices of his own — a creator in a different manner, 
 perhaps, but not in a different measure from those other literary artists. 
 He may borrow ideas, but what creative worker does not, upon occasion, 
 borrow? He quotes Pope, who says that true taste among critics is 
 as rare as true genius among poets and that they each draw a separate 
 and yet kindred inspiration from heaven — one inspiration for judging 
 others, the other inspiration for creating poetry. Sainte-Beuve pro- 
 ceeds, translating Pope, " Quelques-uns ont d'abord passe pour beaux 
 esprits, ensuite pour poetes; puis, ils se sont faits critiques, et ils se sont 
 montres tout uniment des sots sous toutes les formes." He then adds 
 for himself: 
 
 Cela est d'avance une r6ponse a ces artistes orgueilleux et vains, impatients 
 de toute observation, comme nous en avons connu, et qui, confondant tout, 
 ne savaient donner qu'une seule definition du critique; "Qu'est un critique? 
 C'est un impuissant qui n'a pu ^tre artiste." Tout artiste presomptueux avait 
 trop int^r^t a cette definition du critique: il s'en est suivi, pendant des ann^es, 
 la pleine licence et comme Torgie des talents.^ 
 
 Not only is the critic not an artiste avortiy but he should ideally have 
 little or none of the pecuUar inspiration of the imaginative artist in 
 him: **I1 ne faut pas avoir le talent trop empresse quand on est critique; 
 
 ' Portraits contemporains, V, 457. 
 
 ' Causeries du lundi, II, 455. * Nouveaux lundis, VIII, 119. 
 
THE QUALIFICATIONS OF THE CRITIC 73 
 
 autrement des que I'on commence a lire quelque chose, voila le talent 
 qui part, qui se jette a la traverse, et Ton n'a pas fini de juger."^ 
 
 Une des conditions du genie critique ... c'est de n'avoir pas d^art a soi, 
 de style; ... quand on a un style ... on a une preoccupation bien legitime de 
 sa propre oeuvre, qui se fait a travers Toeuvre de I'autre, et quelquefois a ses 
 depens. Cette distraction limite le genie critique. ... De plus quand on a un 
 art a soi ... on a un gout decide qui ... atteint vite ses restrictions.^ 
 
 Is it not, indeed, almost a commonplace that a practitioner of any 
 art or profession makes a poor judge of it, since in most cases he cannot 
 divest himself of his attitude toward it; he forms his opinion in advance, 
 he has prejudged and is therefore prejudiced ? Sainte-Beuve has spoken 
 on this point: 
 
 J'ai sou vent pense que le mieux pour le critique qui voudrait se riserver 
 le plus de largeur de vues, ce serait de n'avoir aucune faculte d'artiste, de peur 
 de porter ensuite dans ses divers jugements la secrete predilection d'un pere et 
 d'un auteur interesse.3 
 
 He regarded it as a serious misfortune for the criticism of his own 
 day that economic conditions often forced creative writers, under the 
 necessity of making a living, to take up the pen of the critic, doing 
 violence to their own talent, coarsening their finer sensibiUties, and at 
 the same time lowering the standard of criticism. This latter would 
 follow as a matter of course when the field of criticism was invaded 
 by writers who held criticism in contempt, regarding their own essays 
 in it as mere potboilers, reserving their care and enthusiasm for their 
 own creative work.^ 
 
 The critical faculty shares three qualities with the creative faculty: 
 a keen perception of reality and of essential value, a keenness of per- 
 ception which the ordinary man does not possess — " I'enthousiasme et 
 I'amour du beau,"s and the love of truth; and is equally "I'ennemi des 
 engouements et de tous les charlatanismes."^ 
 
 ' Causeries du lundi, XI, 505. 
 
 ^ Partraits litteraires, I, 376. 3 Nouveaux lundis, I, 10. 
 
 4 Sainte-Beuve when he started his critical career seems to have had something 
 of this in him, for he claimed to be primarily a poet. This is just what happens in 
 the case of the poet: "Le journal ... a cre6 une charge qui reclame imperieusement 
 son homme; c'est celle de critique universel et ordinaire. Vous Fetes ou vous ne I'^tes 
 pas par disposition premiere et naturelle, qu'importe! il vous faut a toute force le 
 devenir. Les poetes, lorsqu'on fait d'eux des critiques ... ont une difficulte particu- 
 lidre a vaincre; ils ont un go6t personnel tres-prononc6," etc. {ihid., VI, 296). 
 
 5 Causeries du lundi, VII, 308. ^ Ihid., I, 387. 
 
74 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 A main essential qualification of the critic is a power of perceiving 
 differences, an appreciative sense of the many, and an ability to 
 enter into and experience imaginatively very diverse circumstances and 
 states of consciousness. Diderot possessed in a marvelous degree this 
 faculty of demi-metamorphosis "qui est le jeu et le triomphe de la 
 critique, et qui consiste a se mettre k la place I'auteur et au point de 
 vue du sujet qu'on examine, a Ure tout ecrit selon V esprit qui Va dicU^^ 
 Sainte-Beuve uses the figure elsewhere of the critic as a winding river 
 which reflects on its placid bosom everything it passes. He says of 
 De Laprade: 
 
 Ce qui m'y frappe avant tout et partout, c'est combien I'auteur, soit 
 qu'il raisonne, soit qu'il interroge rhistoire litteraire, ne comprend que sa 
 propre maniere d'etre et sa propre individualite; par cela meme il nous avertit 
 qu'il n'est pas un critique.' 
 
 He says of Taine that he is too single-minded to be a first-rate critic' 
 His exhortation to his colleagues in criticism is: "Critiques curieux, 
 imprevus, infatigables, prompts k tous sujets, soyons ^ notre maniere 
 comme ce tyran qui, dans son palais, avait trente chambres; et on ne 
 savait jamais dans laquelle il couchait."4 The well-equipped critic has 
 the abiUty to put himself at will in the place of another; it is his unques- 
 tioned privilege and duty to do this at need. He has the privilege, also 
 unquestioned if not indeed unquestionable, of changing camps at will, 
 of displaying first the converse then the reverse of every medal. That 
 Sainte-Beuve writes with perfect penetration of Mme du Deffand 
 constitutes no reason why he should not write with equal penetration 
 of her deadly rival and mortal enemy Mile de Lespinasse: 
 
 Le critique ne doit point avoir de partialite et n'est d'aucune c6terie. II 
 n'epouse les gens que pour un temps, et ne fait que traverser les groupes divers 
 sans s'y enchainer jamais. II passe r^solument d'un camp a I'autre, et de 
 ce qu'il a rendu justice d'un c6te, ce ne lui est jamais une raison de la refuser 
 a ce qui est vis-a-vis. Ainsi, tour a tour, il est a Rome ou a Carthage, tantdt 
 pour Argos et tantdt pour lUon.s 
 
 And elsewhere: 
 
 Le genie critique ... ne reste pas dans son centre ou k peu de distance; 
 il ne se retranche pas dans sa cour, ni dans sa citadelle, ni dans son academie; 
 il ne craint pas de se mesallier; il va partout, le long des rues, s'informant, 
 accostant; la curiosit6 I'alleche ... il est ... tout a tous. ... Mais gare au 
 retours! ... I'infidelite est un trait de ces esprits divers et intelligents.^ 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, III, 301. * Portraits co7itemporains, V, 457. 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis, I, 9. s Causeries du lundi, II, 121. 
 
 3 Ihid., VIII, 80. 6 Portraits littiraires, I, 371. 
 
THE QUALIFICATIONS OF THE CRITIC 75 
 
 Kis absolute freedom the ideal critic combines with a universal toler- 
 ance — to understand is to forgive — ^and he is indifferent to passions: 
 
 Cette indifference du fond, il faut bien le dire, cette tolerance prompte, 
 facile, aiguisee de plaisir, est une des conditions essentielles du genie critique, 
 dont le propre, quand il est complet, consiste a courir au premier signe sur le 
 terrain d'un chacim, a s'y trouver a I'aise, a s'y jouer en maitre et a connaitre 
 de toutes choses.^ 
 
 In his political and literary career Sainte-Beuve availed himself of 
 the privilege he claimed for the critic, having many times shifted his 
 adherence: " J'ai vecu de bien des vies litteraires, et j'ai passe de douces 
 heures d'entretien avec des hommes instruits de plus d'une ecole; il me 
 semblait que j'etais de la leur, tant que je causais avec eux";* but he 
 never gave any group the right to say, "He is one of us," he never sur- 
 rendered himself completely, except once in his youth, when he adhered 
 for a time to Hugo and the romanticists. 
 
 The critic's chameleon-like quality of adjusting himself to different 
 camps, different persons, different subjects must not fail him when it 
 is a question of adjusting himself to different aspects of the same sub- 
 ject, to the same subject under different Hghts or from diverse points of 
 view: 
 
 II est heureux pour les critiques de n'6tre point comme Montesquieu qui 
 ne tirait jamais, disait-il, du moule de son esprit, qu'un seul portrait sur chaque 
 sujet. Nous autres, nous avons a revenir sans cesse sur ce que nous avons 
 d6ja traite, a revenir vite, il est vrai, mais toujours par un coin plus ou moins 
 vif . Nous avons a tirer sur un m^me fond mainte epreuve, et dont aucune ne 
 soit semblable. II ne faut point trop paraitre redire, ni encore moins se con- 
 tredire, il faut €tre dans un courant, dans un recommencement continuel.^ 
 
 His essays on Bossuet are sufficient witness to the fact that Sainte-Beuve 
 was eminently skilful in treating a subject from many points of view/ 
 The really great critic has personal weight and influence, the mental 
 and moral integrity to give authoritatively an opinion and then to 
 defend it. He should feel certain of himself: - 
 
 Johnson avait un hon jugement et VautoriU necessaire pour le faire valoir, 
 quaUtes essentielles a tout critique et que les critiques de nos jours paraissent, 
 au contraire, trop oublier: car, avec tous leurs beaux et brillants developpe- 
 ments, ils trouvent souvent le moyen de n'avoir m jugement ni autoritS. Ville- 
 main, dans ses jugements contemporains, n'a jamais 6te que flatterie et 
 complaisance. Du bon sens sterling, voila ce qu'avait Johnson, et c'est a quoi 
 toutes les malices et les fines ironies ne suppleent pas.s 
 
 * Ibid., p. 369. 
 
 ' Nouveaux lundis, V, 332. * -» Cf. ibid., Ill, 45; XIII, 248, etc. 
 
 3 Causeries du lundi, X, 55. s Ibid., XI, 490. 
 
76 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 He calls this certainty and ability to give judgment "cette irritabilic6 
 de bon sens et de raison qui fait dire 'non' avec vehemence."^ All the 
 great critics have in matters of taste this " susceptibilite vive, passionn6e, 
 irritable,"^ which leads them, of course, in extreme cases to dogmatism. 
 But dogmatism is only the accentuation of a virtue; it is the manifesta- 
 tion of the critic's consciousness of his own authority: 
 
 II y a dans cette autorite et dans rimportance de celui que Texerce, quelque 
 chose de vivant, de personnel, qui ne tient pas uniquement a ce qu'il ecrit et 
 qui ne s'y represente pas toujours, en entier, mais qui tient de plus pres a 
 rhomme meme, a son geste, a son accent. Les m^mes choses dans d'autres 
 bouches n'ont le meme sens ni le meme poids.3 
 
 The born critic has thus an oracular power which the made critic does not 
 share: "Mme. d'fipinay disait, 'II ne me reste aucun doute lorsque 
 M. Grimm a prononce,' " and Sainte-Beuve adds, "Ce caractere d'oracle 
 est assez naturel a tous les maitres critiques. "4 Personal authority is 
 necessary to the judge: "Or, cela est triste a dire, le critique est un 
 juge, il n'est pas un homme de quahte ni un chevalier,"^ and this personal 
 authority makes the critic the power in art which he ought to be; con- 
 scious of the rectitude of his verdicts, he feels himself able and willing 
 to condemn the bad and to praise the good. 
 
 The real credentials of the critic born to be a critic and possessing 
 the requisite personal authority and independence of opinion are found 
 in his judgments on his contemporaries. It is comparatively easy to 
 judge Racine or Bossuet, for opinion is settled about them, but when one 
 has to fray er le chemin the critic's metal is tested: 
 
 Le don de la critique a ete accorde a quelques-uns ... ce don devient 
 meme du genie lorsqu'au milieu des revolutions du gout, il s'agit de discemer 
 avec nettete, sans aucune mollesse, ce qui vivra, si dans une oeuvre nouvelle 
 I'originaHte reelle suffit a racheter les defauts ... et d'oser dire tout cela 
 avant tous et le dire d'un ton qui impose et se fasse icovLter.^ 
 
 Whatever his native gifts, the critic will need to be prepared for his 
 work by the widest accumulation of knowledge and the most pains- 
 taking discipUne, since it is true that "le plus sou vent nous ne jugeons 
 pas les autres, nous jugeons nos propres facultes dans les autres."^ 
 Then it behooves us in every possible sense to increase our knowledge 
 
 » Causeries du lundi, II, 19. •♦ Causeries du lundi, VII, 305. 
 
 » Ihid.^ VII, 310. 5 Nouveaux lundis, II, 12. 
 
 3 Chateaubriand^ H, "S- ' Chateaubriand, II, 115. 
 
 ' Cahien, p. 34; cf. Anatole France, La vie littSraire, Vol. I, p. iv. 
 
THE QUALIFICATIONS OF THE CRITIC 77 
 
 and refine our tastes. Sainte-Beuve insisted that in order to approxi- 
 mate an understanding of our predecessors, or for that matter of our 
 contemporaries, we must be able to enter into their consciousness, in a 
 sense to impersonate them. To this end a store of knowledge practically 
 limitless is necessary: "La critique est un metier a part qui demande 
 bien des precautions et des preparations.'" It asks for erudition, for 
 the widest possible knowledge of life, for experience in the other arts — ^no 
 amount and no kind of training come amiss in the critic's calling. Of 
 Bayle, Sainte-Beuve says that while he was Uttle attracted by mathe- 
 matics which "absorbe — detourne un esprit critique, chercheur et k 
 la piste des particularites," he was benefited by his study of dialectics.^ 
 It is in Saint-Beuve's opinion a profound misfortune for our age that 
 so many voices are raised in assumed authority whose owners are not 
 experienced and not educated. Such persons do not attempt to judge 
 music or painting; they leave that task to those having some technical 
 knowledge; but everybody seems willing to ojffer judgments on Uterature: 
 
 Les oeuvres et productions de Tesprit, quand elles 6clatent point au th6^tre 
 par de grandes et vivantes creations, ... sent d'une appreciation infinement 
 plus discrete et plus voilee, ... et elles exigent, pour etre senties convenable- 
 ment, des esprits plus avertis de longue main et plus prepares. II y faut tant 
 de preparation en effet, que je me dis quelquefois qu'au milieu de cette vie 
 pressee, affairee, bourree de travaux et d'etudes, ... ceux m^me, qui sont du 
 meme metier ... n'auront pas tou jours le temps, I'espace, la liberty et I'elas- 
 ticite d'impressions necessaires pour etre justes envers leurs devanciers.3 
 
 While it is true that this wide sweep of knowledge and experience is 
 important for the critic's best equipment, that his studies in any science, 
 in philosophy, in religion never come amiss, giving him that most 
 desirable sense of authority and mastery ,4 yet it is naturally in the field 
 of literature itself that the Uterary critic will perfect himself. A wide 
 and rich knowledge of Uterary history and famiUarity with the essentials 
 of literary tradition constitute his indispensable preparation.^ 
 
 ^ Correspondance, I, 310; Nouveaux lundis, IX, 66. He repeats this same out- 
 burst elsewhere: "Nous vivons dans un temps ou chacun se croit critique etsepose 
 comme tel ... c'est le pis-aller du moindre grimaud (comme on disait du temps de 
 Boileau), du moindre apprenti litt^raire que de trancher de I'Aristarque en feuilleton" 
 {Chateaubriand, II, 114). 
 
 ^ Portraits litter aires, I, 381. * » Nouveaux lundis, IX, 66. 
 
 < Causeries du lundi, 11, 379, where he praises de Broglie as critic for his great 
 knowledge and immense capacity for labor. 
 
 s Nouveaux lundis, I, 305. 
 
78 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 First in order of importance is the respectful study of the ancients 
 and veneration of our legacy from them: 
 
 La vraie et juste disposition a leur egard est un premier fends de respect, 
 et tout au moins beaucoup de serieux, de circonspection, d'attention, une 
 patiente et longue 6tude de la soci6te, de la langue, un grand compte a tenir 
 des jugements des Anciens les uns siu: les autres. 
 
 And he adds an urgency that we treat the classics not from our point of 
 view but from theirs.^ The achievement of this point of view is a busi- 
 ness of arduous scholarship and disciplined sympathy: 
 
 N'aimer en litt^rature qu'a s'occuper du present et du livre du jour, ... 
 c'est suivre et courir le succes, ce n'est pas aimer les Lettres elles-m^mes, dent 
 le propre est la perpetuity, la memoire, et la variet6 dans le souvenir.' 
 
 He avers that this achievement does not lose its value when we have 
 appreciated the classics, but persists as the best possible apparatus for 
 appreciating and judging our Uterary contemporaries. 
 
 The genuine critic who aims at real and full sincerity must be 
 unhampered by social relations and obUgations, private or poUtical. 
 He must not tie himself up in embarrassing friendships nor commit 
 himself to narrowing hostiUties; he must maintain the independence of 
 hj^ judgment. Of Hoffmann, Sainte-Beuve says: " II a bien des quaHt6s 
 du vrai critique, conscience, independance, des idees, un avis a lui."^ 
 Elsewhere he says: "Le critique a des amis, je Tespere, mais il ne doit 
 pas avoir d'amities Utteraires quand meme, et qui le determinent ou 
 I'enchainent d'avance a un jugement trop favorable. "^ La Harpe, 
 for example, having fallen in love with Mme de Genhs, abrogated all 
 critical intelligence, a weakness which brings down on him Sainte- 
 Beuve's unqualified scorn.s Bayle on the contrary was never in love^ 
 and is to be admired for his "parfaite independance, independance par 
 rapport a Tor et par rapport aux honneurs."^ The ideal savant "vit 
 seul, sans famille, sans enfants,"^ free from the burden either of dire 
 poverty or of cloying wealth: 
 
 Un critique ne doit pas avoir trop d'amis, de relations de monde, de ces 
 obligations d^mandes par les convenances. Sans €tre pr6cis6ment des corsaires 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis, I, 305. ' Causeries du lundi, III, 28. 
 
 » Ibid., VI, 25. * Portraits littiraires, I, 379. 
 
 3 Causeries du lundi, I, 385. ' Ibid., p. 386. 
 
 4 Nouveaux lundis, II, 1 2. ' Nouveaux lundis, IX, 98. 
 
THE QUALIFICATIONS OF THE CRITIC 79 
 
 comme on I'a dit, nous avons besoin de courir nos bordees au large: il nous 
 faut nos coudles f ranches.^ 
 
 He must be equally detached from friends and from enemies in order 
 to be neutral or at least impartial: "Etre critique, c'est tout soumettre 
 a I'examen, et les idees et les faits, et m^me les textes; c'est de ne pro- 
 ceder en rien par prevention et enthousiasme."^ One may see that in 
 this matter Sainte-Beuve placed his requirement so high that he himself 
 fell laughably short of it. He hated, and hated cordially, not to say 
 vehemently. In reading his essays one has constantly to discount this 
 or the other statement because of the element of personal spite and 
 prejudice that enters into it. While he was the most catholic of critics 
 he was by no means the most impartial. It is curious that he was not 
 aware of this, for he obviously and sometimes ostentatiously tried to be 
 fair.^ But his ideal critic "ne devrait pas 6tre envieux. Plus il y a de 
 talents et plus j'en comprends, plus j'ai raison de dire: Mon affaire est 
 bonne. "4 He agrees entirely with Pope, whom he thus paraphrases: 
 
 Pour ^tre un bon et parfait critique, Pope le savait bien, il ne suffit pas 
 de cultiver et d'etendre son intelHgence, il faut encore purger a tout instant 
 son esprit de toute passion mauvaise, de tout sentiment Equivoque; il faut 
 tenir son ^me en bon et loyal 6tat.s 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, II, 107. He envies Scherer because, living as he did in 
 Geneva, he was able to speak his mind with no personal animus involved {ihid., XV, 
 57). Sainte-Beuve himself, through the medium of Juste Olivier, the Geneva pub- 
 lisher, had such an outlet for a number of years and succeeded in telling the truth or 
 at least in giving his candid opinion on many people whom he would otherwise have 
 been afraid to attack. Cf. Harper, Sainte-Beuve, p. 266. 
 
 =» Nouveaux lundis, II, 11. 
 
 3 He repeats many times that he is trying to be neutral and impartial. Let a 
 few instances su£5ce. He is going to speak, he says, of Pontmartin: "Mon d6sir 
 serait de le faire dans un parfait esprit d'impartialit6 " (I have quoted this before, 
 ihid., p. i). Again, a propos of Pontmartin, who has called Sainte-Beuve's criticism 
 "neutral," the latter writes: "Je ne mettrai pas d'insistance k me defendre, car c'est 
 bien moi qui repr^sente cette neutralite, que j'aimerais aussi entendre appeler tantdt 
 'impartiality et tantdt curiosite d'inteUigence et d'observation " (ibid., p. 9). In still 
 another passage he claims to be able to write impartially of Marie Antoinette because 
 he has been raised neither royalist nor republican (ibid., VIII, 315). Pontmartin's 
 main fault as a critic is attacking his subjects with a purpose. Bayle, on the other 
 hand, is one of the finest examples of lack of prejudice, of impartiality in the critic 
 {Portraits litt^raires, I, 369). 
 
 ^ Portraits contemporains, V, 457. 
 
 5 Nouveaux lundis, VIII, 121. 
 
8o SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 This true critic having purged bitterness and other evil passions from his 
 soul is urbane and moderate: "Le critique acari^tre, fdt-il exacte, n'y 
 saurait pretendre (a I'urbanite)."' He censures severely those critics 
 whose vocabulary contains only harsh words, contending that they would 
 better not speak at all than merely to condemn,' for a critic, let us 
 repeat, should always have in him a place pour un certain contraire, une 
 oreille pour V accuse. In the Bayle article Sainte-Beuve adds the following 
 points to his analysis of the essential quaUties of the critic: Disillusion- 
 ment,3 a universal and indiscriminate curiosity ,4 common sense,s and 
 freedom from religious and patriotic prejudice,'' but he finds that Bayle, 
 even Bayle, the great critic, was completely lacking in aesthetic 
 sentiment.7 
 
 In summary, Sainte-Beuve would like to stipulate for his critic the 
 inborn critical faculty, a sort of superior sense which, so far as it goes, 
 is infallible; that kind and amount of dramatic imagination that enables 
 him to put himself in the place of another, to envisage other circum- 
 stances and other times; an authoritative personaUty, giving him con- 
 fidence and certainty; as much learning as may be, especially great 
 knowledge of literature, its history and its tradition; independence, 
 keeping him from entangling alliances and oppositions; an abiUty to 
 keep his judgment unbiased and as kindly as possible; eagerness for 
 beauty and unfailing openness to impression. 
 
 It would be very interesting and profitable to assemble in some order 
 all that Sainte-Beuve said about actual critics, particularly those who 
 have influenced him or especially interested him. But the large mass 
 of material would unduly prolong this dissertation and quite upset its 
 balance. It does seem essential, however, to glance at the subject to 
 the extent of naming those critics who stand highest in his estimation. 
 Pre-eminent among those whom he admires is Goethe, "le plus grand 
 des critiques modernes et de tous les temps,"* "ce roi de la critique";' 
 
 * Causeries du lundi, III, 69. 
 
 2 Cf. Nouveaux lundis, VI, 316, where he attacks Planche for his conceit and his 
 unbearable harshness. Cf. also Causeries du lundi, XI, 464: "G6nin est un tape-dur, 
 il a toujours besoin de taper sur quelqu'un ... ces gens-1^ manquent de ram6nit6 
 et de la 16g^ret6, qui ne devraient jamais se s6parer des qualit^s vTaiment litt^raires." 
 
 3 Portraits littSraires, I, 366. 
 
 * Ibid., pp. 369-70. ' Nouveaux lundis, IV, 108. 
 s /6i(f ., p. 383. 1^ Ibid., Ill, 265. 
 
 * Ibid.f pp. 377, 381. ' Causeries du lundi, III, 42. 
 
THE QUALIFICATIONS OF THE CRITIC 8i 
 
 "notre maitre a tous." His supremacy among critics is attested by his 
 ability to exemplify in his own work everything he adjudges good: 
 
 Goethe est le seul poete qui ait eu une faculte poetique a I'appui de chacune 
 de ses comprehensions et de ses intelhgences de critique, et qui ait pu dire a 
 propos de tout de qu'il juge en chaque genre. " J'en ferai un parfait echantillon 
 si je le veux."^ 
 
 The extent of Sainte-Beuve's admiration must be gauged by comparing 
 the boundless enthusiasm of these passages with his customary conscious 
 moderation. 
 
 Next to Goethe in his estimation, and undoubtedly more important 
 in his influence, comes Boileau, the greatest of French critics: "S'il 
 m'est permis de parler pour moi-meme, Boileau est un des hommes qui 
 m'ont le plus occupe depuis que je fais de la critique, et avec qui j'ai 
 le plus vecu en idee."* To Sainte-Beuve, Boileau presents himself as 
 the ideal critic, conditioned only by the limits of the century which 
 circumscribed his knowledge. The great nineteenth-century critic felt 
 a close kinship with his master of the seventeenth; it was his hope and 
 his endeavor to perform for his own time the noble office performed for 
 the classical age by Boileau. 
 
 Of great importance in Sainte-Beuve's estimation and deeply 
 influential with him were Bayle^ and Mme de Stael. So great was his 
 interest in the latter and his admiration of her work that she has worthily 
 been called the heroine of the Lundis. Close below these two in Sainte- 
 Beuve's gallery of critics comes Diderot, of whom he frequently expresses 
 cordial admiration, calling him the founder of appreciative criticism, 
 and Voltaire, whom he named "le plus grand esprit critique depuis 
 Bayle."4 Among later Frenchmen he frequently mentions Fauriel, 
 Joubert, and Fontanes.s 
 
 Prominent among those who influenced Sainte-Beuve's critical 
 thought was Alexander Pope.^ It should not be a matter for surprise 
 that he, the greatest representative of the EngUsh classical school, should 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, I, lo. On his admiration for Goethe and kinship with him 
 see Babbitt, Masters of Modern French Criticism, p. 127. 
 ' Causeries du lundi, VI, 495. 
 
 3 As to Bayle's kinship with Sainte-Beuve, Babbitt is again illuminating {op. cit., 
 pp. 121 ff.)- See also the article "Du genie critique et de Bayle" in Portraits lit- 
 tiraires, I, 364. 
 
 4 Portraits litteraires, I, 376. 
 
 s Causeries du lundi, I, 376. ^ Nouveaux lundis, VIII, 121, etc. 
 
82 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 have appealed to Sainte-Beuve, whose philosophical processes were on 
 the whole English rather than French, and whose predilections for the 
 classical tradition may be said to be a distinguishing characteristic of 
 his later period. Of other English critics whom he knew, only Johnson 
 and Jeffrey need be named. 
 
 With the exception of Goethe, Sainte-Beuve obviously knew Uttle 
 of German criticism. There is some indication that he knew something 
 of the Schlegels and there is casual mention of Lessing. But the reflec- 
 tions are too few and fugitive to be collected. 
 
 The roster of the names of Sainte-Beuve's critical masters is, then, 
 Goethe, Boileau, Mme de Stael, Diderot, Voltaire, Bayle, Pope, and 
 Johnson. 
 
Vr. PRECEPTS AND PROCJ^DMS 
 
 The caption chosen for this section permits the collecting in one 
 place of many matters, all important, some vital, in the criticism of 
 Sainte-Beuve, which found no natural place in the more closely formu- 
 lated divisions. There will be included here obiter dictaj conditions for 
 special cases, the practical order of procedure in actual writing, personal 
 reactions, and other such matter classifiable together only as being 
 pertinent to Sainte-Beuve's ideas and methods of work. The material, 
 discussion and notes, is arranged as nearly as possible in logical order, 
 that is to say, in the order in which they would come into play in the 
 critical process, as choosing a subject, clearing the ground, the method 
 and point of attack, limiting and defining the subject, et ainsi de suite. 
 
 First as to Sainte-Beuve's method of choosing his subject and his 
 favorite type of subject: his choice was only in part guided by his own 
 fancy. He was a journaHst writing for a living and obliged to handle 
 timely subjects; his vehicle was the official organ of the government, 
 and poHtical considerations often dictated his choice. His own taste 
 inclined him more toward pure literature, but his adherence to the 
 government of the second empire forced him, in the Causeries du lundi 
 and in the Nouveaux lundisj to concern himself with statesmen, with 
 generals, with diplomats, pubUc and official persons and their affairs. 
 It is true, as has been noticed before, that he interpreted the term 
 "literature" very liberally, so that we find him studying, for instance, 
 the Journal de la sante du roi Louis XI V^ or the Touareg du nord of 
 Henri Duveyrier,^ and he says elsewhere: 
 
 Ma vraie ambition dans mon genre a ete celle-ci: etendre la critique 
 litteraire a tous ceux qui ont Scrit, peintres, architectes, naturalistes. ... De 
 cette fagon, on 6tend le champ de la critique litteraire autant que possible, 
 on n'est ferme par aucun c6te et Ton est, par consequent, dans le veritable 
 esprit moderne.3 
 
 At times he seemed to feel that his position as critic for the govern- 
 ment and in the official journal constituted an obligation, as for example: 
 **Condamne par circonstances a ecrire sur tous sujets, je ne choisis pas, 
 je traite les sujets qui s'offrent d'eux-memes a ma recontre; tachant de 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis, II, 360. 
 
 ' Ibid., IX, no. 3 Correspondance, II, 122. 
 
 83 
 
84 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 faire honnetement et en conscience mon metier, voila tout."^ His cor- 
 respondence with the librarians of the Imperial Library throws some 
 interesting light on this matter. But not even his somewhat dogged 
 if not disinterested patriotism could persuade him to write on 
 Napoleon Ill's Life of Caesar; he said he could not handle it without 
 too great severity. During the later years of his connection with the 
 government he never forgot that "Le Moniteur s'affiche au coin des 
 rues,"^ and he restrained himself with suitable discretion. 
 
 Dans cette place qui m'est accordee aux pages du Moniteur, que puis-je 
 faire de mieux que de m'occuper, meme au risque de remonter assez haut 
 dans le pass^, des grands noms qui ont honore notre litterature et notre his- 
 toire ? II me semble quelquefois qu'il nous est permis d'etaler des estampes 
 et des images aux yeux des passants, au bas des murs du Louvre. Lesquelles 
 choisirions-nous ? Certes, les plus celebres et les plus riches en souvenirs, les 
 plus historiques, les plus en accord avec le caractere et I'esprit du monument.^ 
 
 In this passage we note two elements in his choice of a name for 
 discussion, the element of its greatness and the element of its accepta- 
 bility to the reading public, for he always hoped for some public approval. 
 Hence the spark which set off Sainte-Beuve's train of thought, the occa- 
 sion for the formulation and presentation of his studies, the excuse for 
 the publication of his opinions, the opportunity for him to serve his 
 public, from whatever point of view one regards the essay, was usually 
 the appearance of a new book or a new edition of an old book. 
 
 The first etape, and an arbitrary though very actual determining 
 factor in his choice, was the relation of the subject to the regime in 
 control. This consideration was, however, largely inhibitive, deciding 
 rather what names he would not treat. As to the more positive and 
 specific grounds upon which he chose: 
 
 On peut etre critique de bien des sortes: (a) sur des 6crivains d'autrefois, 
 sur d'anciens sujets qu'on traite et qu'on rajeunit sans les alt^rer et sans les 
 fausser; {h) sur des auteurs modernes et des sujets a Tordre du jour.< 
 
 And elsewhere he says: 
 
 II est loin le temps ou, la critique frangaise commengant a peine, TAbb^ de 
 Saint-Real declarait qu'on ne devait critiquer par ecrit que les morts, et qu'il 
 fallait se borner a juger en conversation les vivants. Aujourd'hui on se juge 
 tous indifflrement les uns les autres, en public et par ecrit, vivants, amis de 
 la veille et confreres. T^chons du moins que ce soit avec 6quit6 et sinc6rit6.» 
 
 ' Carres pondance, I, 301. 
 
 * Catiseries du lundi, X, 53. ■* Nouveaux lundis, I, 263. 
 
 3 Ibid., IX, 80. s Ibid., p. 3. 
 
PRECEPTS AND '' PROCtlDtlS'' 85 
 
 I have before and from another point of view alluded to the fact 
 that Sainte-Beuve chose for comment mediocre and minor men rather 
 than the greatest. This statement has been made by many students 
 and frequently with a certain derogatory implication. Babbitt points 
 out that, though Sainte-Beuve again and again paid tribute to the great 
 geniuses, he was above all scientifically interested in the more ordinary 
 individual; "he cannot refrain from a certain satisfaction when an 
 author and his work are less than unique and are therefore more capable 
 of being explained."^ Sainte-Beuve treats with just as much compla- 
 cency the second-rate writers as those of the first rank, and he excels 
 rather in discovering differences than degrees of genius; he can do better 
 in pointing out pecuHarities than in measuring greatness.' Many pas- 
 sages, however, serve to place this matter in a truer hght, summing 
 up convincingly his grounds for choosing less well-known men; such"^ 
 grounds are that they alone needed the services of criticism, the greatest 
 masters having been adequately treated,^ and the fact that as a scientist 
 Sainte-Beuve dehghted in a man who, being less than unique, could be v 
 analyzed. 4 
 
 A vrai dire, M. Coulmann me plait, dans ses Mimoires, par ce c6t6 meme 
 d'absence de toute originalite; il est rexpression honnete et facile du milieu 
 ou il vit, et il nous en marque la temperature assez exacte, sans y meler la 
 resistance ou le surcroit d'un caractere trop individuel.s 
 
 This less striking person being more really the product of his society 
 than the man of genius is a better starting-point for those social studies 
 in which Sainte-Beuve was eminently interested — "La critique lit- 
 teraire, qui doit ^tre heureuse et fiere de s'elever toutes les fois qu'elle 
 rencontre de grands sujets, se plait pourtant, par sa nature, a ces sujets 
 moyens qui ne sont point pour cela mediocres, et qui permettent a la 
 morale sociale d'y penetrer."^ The complement of this statement 
 appears in this passage: 
 
 Les grands hommes sont sujets a faire illusion sur Tepoque qu'ils eclairent 
 et qu'ils remplissent brillament jusqu'a eteindre quelquefois ce qui les entoure; 
 les hommes secondaires, et pourtant essentiels ont I'avantage de nous faire 
 penetrer avec eux, sans eblouissement et sans faste, dans les parties restees a 
 demi obscures, et dans les rouages memes de la machine dont ils etaient, a 
 certain degre, un des ressorts.? 
 
 ^ See Babbitt, Masters of Modern French Criticism, pp. 160 ff. 
 
 " Nouveaux lundis, III, 18. 
 
 3 See the section on "The Functions of Criticism," p. 8. 
 
 ^ Babbitt, op. cit., p. 163. ^ Causeries du lundi, VII, 188. 
 
 5 Nouveaux lundis, IX, 141. '' Nouveaux lundis, III, 420. 
 
86 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 Further he complains that French criticism has been too timid and 
 conservative, keeping too much to the well-known subjects and the 
 well-worn paths of criticisms, not venturing into these less-frequented 
 regions where he feels it his duty to go/ In spite of the fact that he 
 says, "je n'elude pas syst^matiquement tous les grands sujets qui pas- 
 sent,"* he "eludes" nearly all of the greatest names. 
 
 He attempts no profound study of Moliere, he approaches Goethe almost 
 solely on the side of social intercourse through the letters of Bettina and the 
 conversations with Eckermann ; he makes the same exception for Shakespeare 
 that most of us make for the great literatures of the East, as something which 
 the shortness of life exempts us from including in our world of thought; he 
 has Httle to say about Dante, and that Httle inadequate; he manages to create 
 for himself a sphere of philosophical activity in which we miss the luminous 
 presence of Plato, and a train of dramatic tradition which can scarcely be 
 said to reach back to Sophocles. These are serious omissions for which no 
 amount of interest in Chapelle and Bachaumont, Rivarol, Dangeau and Mile 
 de La Valliere can compensate. But with the exception of Moliere no French 
 peak of genius was too high for his exploring foot.^ 
 
 As regards extended and deUberate studies of the great men whom 
 Harper mentions here, he is quite correct. Still it must be pointed out 
 that these names and others only less great were constantly at Sainte- 
 Beuve's pen point, exercising a dispersed but pervasive influence, 
 receiving from him much incidental appreciation, and towering con- 
 stantly in the background as standards, constituting a court of supreme 
 appeal.^ 
 
 Again, while it is true that very frequently Sainte-Beuve occupied 
 himseK with minor writers whom he rejoiced in as "specimens" more 
 easily handled and more illustrative of principles than the anomalous 
 geniuses, it is not the poor writers whom he advises us to study, but 
 
 * "Pourquoi sommes nous ainsi faits en France, que lorsqu'un homme distingu6 
 et de talent n'est pas entr6 k un certain jour dans le courant de la vogue et dans le 
 train habituel de Tadmiration publique, nous devenions si sujets k le n6gliger et k le 
 perdre totalement de vue ? Et au contraire, ceux qui sont une fois connus, adopt^s 
 par I'opinion et par la renomm6e, nous les avons sans cesse k la bouche et nous les 
 accablons de couronnes" {Causeries du lundi, X, 446). Once the man has become 
 famous we all see genius in everything he does. This, too, is notable : " ... on pousse 
 trop k I'admiration quand m6me, on ne juge plus; une fois le mot g6nie prononc6, 
 tout est accept^, proclam6," etc. {Correspondance, II, 94). 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, IV, 392. 3 Harper, Sainte-Beuve, p. 321. 
 
 * For such appreciation see on Moliere, Nouveaux lundis; V, 277; on Shakespeare, 
 Causeries du lundi, XV, 336. 
 
PRECEPTS AND '' PROCtUtlS'' 87 
 
 rather worthy and honorable writers of the second rank. The very- 
 poor writers, the sots et les demi-sots^ he would rather neglect completely 
 than merely condemn. 
 
 In view of the fact that Sainte-Beuve was thus interested primarily 
 in the man as a manifestation of his times, it is only natural that as 
 large a proportion as three-fourths of the essays should be taken up 
 with memoirs, letters, and biographies. But while his large concern 
 was with these he did not neglect the consideration of pure literature; 
 indeed, he always felt that he was primarily a literary critic.^ Memoirs, 
 history, letters, novels, dramas, "eloquence" he revels in, but rarely 
 poetry. 
 
 Je cause rarement ici de po6sie, precisement parceque je I'ai beaucoup 
 aimee et que je I'aime encore plus que toute chose; je craindrais d'en mal 
 parler, ou du moins de n'avoir pas a en bien parler, a en dire assez de bien.^ 
 
 To be sure the attraction of poetry is too great and its place in society 
 too important to warrant his neglecting it altogether, nor indeed would 
 his personal taste permit that extreme. "De ce que j'ai beaucoup aime 
 autrefois la poesie; de ce que je I'ai aimee comme on doit I'aimer quand 
 on s'en mele, c'est-a-dire trop, ce n'est pas une raison aujourd'hui pour 
 n'en plus parler jamais. "^ 
 
 So with characteristic inclusiveness of view Sainte-Beuve explains 
 that while feeling himself first of all a literary critic, his duty to society 
 demands that he treat all manner of non-Hterary subjects. Taking 
 up for study Guizot's Discours sur la revolution he defends his choice 
 thus: 
 
 Si je venais a passer sous silence ce Discours pour parler ... d'un reman 
 ancien ou nouveau, on aurait droit de penser que la critique litt6raire se recuse, 
 qu'elle se reconnait jusqu'a un certain point frivole, qu'il est des sujets qu'elle 
 s'interdit comme trop imposants ou trop epineux pour elle; et ce n'est jamais 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis, VIII, 122. 
 
 » " Si le Discours de M. Guizot etait purement politique, je le laisserais passer 
 sans le croire de mon ressort, fidele et k mon r61e, el mon golit qui sont d'accord pour 
 s'en tenir a la litterature" (Causeries du lundi, I, 311). This is again one of those 
 strange contradictions in Sainte-Beuve which are so frequent. He always left a 
 loophole for himself, continually forestalling his critics by making room pour un certain 
 contraire; in this case, too, he even contradicts himself, saying elsewhere that we must 
 not confine ourselves to pure literature {Nouveaux lundis, VI, 138), 
 
 3 Causeries du lundi, IV, 51. 
 
 < Nouveaux lundis, II, 247. 
 
88 SAINTE-BEUVKS CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 ainsi que j'ai compris cette critique, legere sans doute, et agreable tant qu'elle 
 le peut, mais ferme et serieuse quand il le faut et autant qu'il le faut.^ 
 
 When opportunity presented itself he must as a journalist and a 
 pubUc servant ask himself on the very threshold of his preparation to 
 write, whether or not the time was ripe for a discussion of this particular 
 subject. For instance, we have all loved Beranger, he says, but *'le 
 temps n'est-il pas venu de degager un peu toutes ... ces complaisances, 
 de payer a I'homme, a Fhonnete homme qui a, comme tous, plus ou moins, 
 ses faibles et ses faiblesses ... de lui payer une part," etc.^ On the 
 other hand Mme Sand is still alive and active and "le moment, pour la 
 critique, d'embrasser ce puissant talent dans son cours, et de le penetrer 
 dans sa nature, n'est pas venu, selon moi."^ 
 
 Also of Balzac: 
 
 Une veritable 6tude sur le romancier c61ebre qui vient d'etre enlev6, et 
 dent la perte soudaine a excite I'inter^t universel, serait tout un ouvrage a 6crire, 
 et le moment, je le crois, n'en est pas venu. Ces sortes d'autopsies morales ne se 
 font pas sur une tombe recente,-* surtout quand celui qui y est entr6 6tait 
 plein de force, de fecondit^, d'avenir, et semblait encore si plein d'oeuvres 
 et de jours.s 
 
 One has to be equally careful not to be prematura ^ nor atarde, but must 
 seize, for the study of his author, the psychological moment; in the 
 case of writers no longer living as well as of those still aUve, a moment 
 sufficiently removed from the time of his death to give a proper perspec- 
 tive, yet not so far removed as to embarrass the gathering of contemporary 
 opinion and evidence. There are, to be sure, certain classic authors 
 who are to Sainte-Beuve always de Vordre du jour^ for example' Mon- 
 taigne and others of the galaxy of fixed stars in the French firmament. 
 Sainte-Beuve often found it difficult to speak with complete honesty 
 and fulness because he so often discovered that his judgment was at 
 
 ^Causeries du lundi, I, 312. Contrast, however, this houtade: "Le trait6 de la 
 Resignation [of St. Augustine] d'ailleurs, 6chappe k la critique proprement dite; il 
 est entrem616 de privies, et d^s que la pri^re commence, la critique litt6raire expire" 
 (Nouveaux lundis, I, 251). 
 
 ' Causeries du lundi, II, 286. ^ Ibid., I, 369. 
 
 4 Another contradiction! This is true only of the great who will not be forgotten 
 anyway. The small need this notice. He says of M. de Latouche: "II est de ceux 
 dont il convient de parler k I'heure oil ils disparaissent, car il est compliqu6, diflficile 
 k comprendre, et la post6rit6 n'a le temps de se souvenir que de ce qui se d6tache avec 
 unit6 et nettet6 (ibid., Ill, 474). 
 
 s Ibid.f II, 443. *• Nouveaux lundis, I, 64. ^ Ibid., II, 156. 
 
PRECEPTS AND ''PROC^DJ^S" 89 
 
 variance with accepted opinion. In such cases it required courage and 
 tact for a journaHst to speak his mind without apparent impertinence 
 and with any hope of a sympathetic hearing, especially in those cases 
 in which a sort of cult had grown up about a popular idol. For instance, 
 when he comes to discuss Montesquieu he says that he has written much 
 about the eighteenth century without so far any elaborate treatment 
 of him because "il est un de ces hommes qu'on n'aborde qu'avec crainte, 
 a cause du respect reel qu'ils inspirent et de I'espece de religion qui s'est 
 faite autour d'eux."^ Lacordaire is equally difficult to treat, for he too 
 had inspired unquestioning enthusiasm in the youth of his generation. 
 
 La critique litteraire, avec ses respects et ses reserves, s'arrete etonn^e 
 devant de tels elans enthousiastes; elle y regarde a deux fois avant de les 
 contrarier. On hesite quand on marche seul, ... et qu'on n'a pour soi que le 
 groupe si dissemine des gens senses, qui ne se connaissent pas entre eux, a 
 venir admirer trop faiblement le chef d'une milice blanche eblouissante," etc.^ 
 
 But when there is need the critic must overcome his reluctance, face the 
 possible disapproval, and speak, "il faut absolument que le grain de sel 
 sorte, si grain de sel il y a."^ 
 
 Sainte-Beuve feels that a similar courage and sense of duty must 
 inspire the critic who enters a new field. "On hesite toujours a se 
 mettre en avant quand I'opinion de la foule ne nous a pas fraye le chemin; 
 il faut meme, pour cela, une espece particuliere de courage, ce que 
 j'appelle le courage du jugement."^ Grimm he praises for his courage 
 in attacking new subjects. 
 
 Un excellent critique ... et venant le premier dans ses jugements; ^ 
 n'oublions pas cette derniere condition. Quand la reputation des auteurs est 
 ^tablie, il est aise d'en parler convenablement ... mais a leurs debuts, ... et 
 a mesure qu'ils se developpent, les juger avec tact, ... predire leur essor ou 
 deviner leurs limites, ... c'est la le propre du critique ne pour retre."s 
 
 And it is precisely that which is the hardest task of the critic. But he 
 is less than the well-equipped critic until he acquires the courage of his 
 convictions and feels himself well enough established to do the unpopular 
 thing, 
 
 il semble qu'il faille que tout talent, tout genie nouveau entre ainsi dans les 
 sujets I'epee a la main, comme Renaud dans la foret enchantee, et qu'il doive 
 f rapper hardiment jusqu'a ce qu'il ait rompu le charme; la conquete du vrai 
 et du beau est a ce prix.^ 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, VII, 41. ' Nouveaux lundis, IV, 393. 
 
 3 Ihid. The grain de sel, the candid opinion of the critic. 
 
 4 Causeries du lundi, X, 476. s lUd., VII, 287. ^ Ihid., p. 211. 
 
90 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 When the critic has made choice of his subject, and when, if he has 
 chosen a new or an unpopular task, he has screwed his courage to the 
 sticking-place, he is ready to prepare himself to give a judgment. Prepara- 
 tion consists in steeping himself in his subject and in its connections, 
 gathering all manner of facts concerning his man, personaUty, history, 
 environment, and reputation. This acquisitive process has naturally 
 received much attention in another section of this dissertation,^ to 
 which the following important caution may be added: 
 
 Vous qui etes appele a ecrire sur Tart, rappelez-vous bien ceci: La vie 
 humaine, la vie sociale a existe sous toutes sortes de formes ... quand elle 
 s'est 6vanouie, rien n'est si difficile que de la ressaisir.' 
 
 Sainte-Beuve would emphasize the importance of collecting the 
 facts about a man's reputation and of studying what has been said about 
 him, particularly when the subject is the critic's contemporary: 
 
 La vraie critique a Paris se fait en causant; c'est en allant au scrutin de 
 toutes les opinions, et en depouillant ce scrutin avec intelligence, que le 
 critique composerait son resultat le plus complet et le plus juste.3 
 
 His desire for a solid foundation for authoritative opinions led him 
 to place tremendous emphasis on the scholarly, eruditional, investigating 
 aspect of the critic's task. But he was never long without reminding 
 us that this process is only a necessary preUminary to the final task: 
 
 Tout en profitant de notre mieux des instruments, un peu onereux parfois, 
 de la critique nouvelle [that is, scientific and historical criticism], nous retien- 
 drons quelques-unes des habitudes ... de Tancienne critique, accordant la 
 premiere place dans notre admiration et notre estime a I'invention.^ 
 
 He takes pride in having availed himself of the results of other scholars* 
 work: "Moi-m^me j'en ai largement use en mon temps (des travaux 
 autrui) ; je ne me suis fait faute de marcher avec le secours et I'appui 
 des a,utres."5 While he declares that he was not born to be an erudit, 
 one of those who have defriche le moyen dge^ he does not scorn such 
 scholars, nor minimize their labors; indeed, he plucks with gratitude 
 the fruit of their endeavors. Almost paradoxically, however, Sainte- 
 Beuve says that when the critic has assembled all this knowledge he 
 must put it into the background so that he can attack his work with 
 vital interest and unjaded taste. Starting into his task of criticizing he 
 ought to "s'inquieter avant tout des interets du talent."^ 
 
 ^ See section on "Scientific Criticism." 
 
 * Causcries du lundi, XI, 516, 
 
 3 Ihid., I, 448. s Nouveaux lundis, V, 471. 
 
 4 /Wd., XV, 378. ^ Ibid., Ill, 17. 
 
PRECEPTS AND '"PROCJ^DJ^S" 91 
 
 The following passages throw some additional light on Sainte- 
 Beuve's teaching as to the critic's need to saturate himself in the affairs 
 of his author : " Ce n'est qu'en laissant s'ecouler un long espace de temps 
 que I'on arrive a connaitre a fond la personne qu'on etudie."^ **I1 est 
 plus difficile qu'on ne le croirait de saisir tout d'une venue les grands 
 hommes en tout genre: il faut du temps et passer par plus d'un degr6 
 pour arriver a les embrasser dans leur ensemble."^ As regards his own 
 case, "pour comprendre un homme et pour le peindre j'ai besoin de 
 m'y reprendre jusqu'a deux et trois fois, qu'importe, me permettrai-je 
 de dire ainsi, pourvu que j'arrive au but, qui est la verite."^ 
 
 One among the first steps in the critical process is to free one's mind 
 from preconceptions arising from the domination of fixed ideas. Pne 
 should judge afresh in each case. 
 
 II y aurait un article facile a faire sur ces memoires de Catherine (de Russia), 
 et c'est celui que je ne ferai pas. II n'y aurait pour cela qu'a partir de quelques 
 principes generaux et convenus, a se montrer rigide et inexorable pour tout 
 ce qui s'ecarte de nos mceurs, de notre 6tat de societe ... on arriverait ainsi a 
 un effet certain et a une unite de conclusion qui s6duit et satisfait toujours 
 a premiere vue les lecteurs superficiels et les esprits tout d'une piece. Mais 
 la nature humaine est moins simple* 
 
 and refuses to be shaped in the mold of a fixed idea.s 
 
 Le devoir de la critique dans tout sujet est avant tout de I'envisager sans 
 parti pris, de se tenir exempte de preventions, fussent-elles des mieux fondees, 
 et de ne pas sacrifier davantage a celles de ses lecteurs."*' 
 
 The fundamental shortcoming of Nisard's Histoire de la litterature 
 frangaise is that it is written with a preconceived notion of the French 
 spirit, and upon this Procrustean bed the .historian forces every author 
 he handles. 7 The fact that Michelet writes history to prove or exemplify 
 an idea locates him at the opposite critical pole from Sainte^Beuve him- 
 self.* The most prevalent of fixed ideas are those that concern morality 
 and those that determine the social conventions; all these Sainte-Beuve 
 
 * Cahiers, p. 145. 3 Cakiers, p. 145. 
 
 " Nouveaux lundis, X, 23, * Nouveaux lundis, II, 179. 
 
 s "L'inconvenient du syst^me de La Rochefoucauld est de donner pour tous les 
 ordres d 'action une explication uniforme et jusqu'd, un certain point abstraite, quand 
 la nature, au contraire, a multipli^ les instincts, les goiits, les talents divers, et qu'elle 
 a color6 en mille sens cette poursuite entrecrois6e de tous, cette course imp6tueuse et 
 savante de chacun vers I'objet de son desir" {Causeries du lundi, XI, 411). 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis ^ XII, 31. 
 
 "> Causeries du lundi, XV, 211. * Nouveaux lundis, II, 112. 
 
92 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 would abrogate when they are merely traditional or artificial; one must 
 , speak " sans aucune gene, sans aucune de ces fausses reserves qu'imposent 
 les ... respects humains hypocrites."^ 
 
 The rigid and unimaginative adherence to principle passes into a 
 slavish observance of rules and precepts, a state of things which Sainte- 
 Beuve saw in the neo-classicists who blindly and uncreatively followed 
 tradition. To him the greatest disaster that could befall the mind 
 was stagnation, the 'encysting of one's self in the shell of fixed principles 
 whether of moraUty or of art, where one reaches the mere negation of 
 progress, impedes the flux, and becomes automatically incapable 
 of comprehending life or its manifestation in art. The remedy is, of 
 course, to keep moving, to keep an open and hospitable mind, to subject 
 to constant re-examination inherited and* early acquired ideas; as 
 Matthew Arnold would say, to allow a stream of fresh ideas to play 
 freely over one's stock notions. The most conspicuous danger of the 
 fixed idea is that it offers an invitation, difficult to resist, to falsify life. 
 "Leroux m'a fait comprendre.qu'il y a chez les systematiques convaincus 
 une heure mauvaise oil le charlatanisme se gUsse aisement, et ou, si 
 I'on n'y prend pas garde, I'indifference sur le choix des moyens com- 
 mence."^ To mutilate or ,to manipulate the truth to fit his personal 
 view was to Sainte-Beuve a capital crime in a critic. This form of 
 charlatanism is at its worst when the critic yields to the cheap temptation 
 to please at all costs: 
 
 Biographe litteraire, je souffre toutes les fois que je vois des critiques 
 eminents a tant d'egards et en possession d'un art merveilleux, ... ne songer 
 a tirer parti des faits que pour les fausser dans le sens de I'effet passager, et de 
 I'applaudissement. Qu'on retourne la chose comme on le voudra; dans le 
 cas present, il y a flagrant delit de talent, de malice et d'inexactitude.* 
 
 If in attacking his subject the critic must impose upon it no fixed ideas 
 of his own, he must equally refuse to allow himself to be overpowered 
 by his subject. He must follow its lead, but he must keep a clear head: 
 
 II y a deux manieres de prendre les choses et les personnages du monde 
 et de rhistoire; ou bien de les accepter par leur surfaces, ... (ou bien) de les 
 fouiller et de les sonder quoi qu'ils en aient; de les mettre a jour et de les demas- 
 quer impitoyal^ement,^ 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, XV, 285. " Cahiers, p. 50. 
 
 3 Causeries du lundi, VI, 453. For similar utterances on the mistake of having 
 fixed ideas in attacking a subject, see also ibid., IV, 29; VII, 229. 
 
 ^ Ibid., Ill, 27 5, 
 
PRECEPTS AND ''PROCJ^DSS" 93 
 
 and not be imposed upon by any external decorum, any surface appear- 
 ance, whether of a man or an epoch. However kindly the critic may 
 be, he should not allow his generosity to accept any man at his own 
 valuation without examination and confirmation: 
 
 II y a deux manieresd'aborder Carrel: ... II y a une maniere plus poetique, 
 plus genereuse peut-etre, plus magnifique, qui consisterait a voiler les defauts 
 a faire ressortir les belles et grandes qualites ... mais il y a un autre point de 
 vue ... qui permet de voir les defauts, d'entrevoir les motifs, de noter les 
 alterations, et qui, sans rien violer du respect qu'on doit a une noble memoire, 
 restitue a I'observation morale tous ses droits.^ 
 
 He returns many times to this idea, the refusal to take a man at his own 
 valuation; he enjoys the thought of destroying an egotistic author's 
 heroic pose, of revealing him as merely human: 
 
 Je crois ... que quand on le peut, et quandle modele a pose sufiisamment 
 devant vous, il faut faire les portraits les plus ressemblants possible, les plus 
 6tudies et les plus reellement vivants, y mettre les verrues, les signes au visage, 
 tout ce qui caracterise une physionomie au naturel, et faire partout sentir le 
 nu et les chairs sous les draperies, sous le pli meme et le faste du manteau ... 
 Je crois que la vie y gagne et que la grandeur vraie n'y perit pas.' 
 
 A critic who possesses this abihty is of the true critical Uneage : " honnete, 
 scrupuleuse, impartiale, nee de Bayle."^ 
 
 Impartiahty, indeed, is an indispensable virtue of the critic. Writing 
 of Pontmartin, he says: 
 
 Mon desir serait de le faire dans un parfait esprit d'impartiality: car ... 
 cette neutralite meme que M. de Pontmartin m'a si souvent reprochee, devient, 
 je I'avoue, un de mes derniers plaisirs intellectuels. ... Ne rien dire sur les 
 ecrivains meme qui nous sont opposes, rien que leurs amis judicieux ne pensent 
 deja et ne soient forces d'avouer et d'admettre, ce serait mon ambition derniere.'' 
 
 He felt keenly that the critic ought never to allow his personal dislike 
 to bias his opinion, as did Taine in his presentation of Pope: " J'aimerais 
 en Utterature a proportionner toujours notre methode a notre sujet 
 et a entourer de soins tout particuhers celui qui les appelle et qui les 
 merite."s He himself endeavors in studying Flaubert's Salammbd to 
 "oublier notre haison avec I'auteur, notre amitie meme pour lui" and 
 to do his subject justice purely on its merits.** 
 
 ^ Ihid,, VI, 84. ■* Nouveaux lundis, II, i. 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis, II, 17. s Ibid., VIII, 106. 
 
 3 Causeries du lundi, I, 379. ^ Ibid., IV, 31. 
 
94 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 So far these are preliminary and partly negative operations. Having 
 chosen his subject, having investigated it in all those relations that 
 promise light, having freed his mind from fixed ideas, having laid aside 
 as far as possible prejudice favorable or unfavorable, having forgotten 
 friendship and enmities alike, the critic comes to a more positive activity. 
 
 As the opening maneuver of his direct attack he desired to set up 
 the actual boundaries of his theme, to determine with approximate 
 definitions the delimitations of his field. Life is so complex, so infinitely 
 detailed, a man can be regarded under so many different aspects, that 
 it becomes necessary to define and limit one's task "et d'abord je tracerai 
 un cercle autour de mon sujet, et je dirai a ma pensee et a ma plume: 
 Tu nHras pas plus loin"^ One must have the resolution and the self- 
 denial necessary for sifting out irrelevant material, no matter how 
 interesting, and for shutting his eyes to the large mass of extraneous 
 knowledge. The critic's essay should be homogeneous and unified, of one 
 inspiration, contemplating his man or book under one consistent aspect. 
 If he is not able to make such an essay, either because he lacks the neces- 
 sary logic or because his subject demands discursive treatment, he should 
 make divisions and give a series of studies. *' Au point ou je suis arrive 
 dans la carriere scientifique et Htteraire de M. Littre, je suis obUge de 
 prendre un parti et de diviser I'homme, sans quoi je ne pourrais le suivre 
 de front dans tous les ordres de travaux."^ Bossuet also he treats in a 
 series of studies, regarding him successively and separately as historian, 
 as preacher, as letter writer, and as bishop. 
 
 He considers it more necessary so to circumscribe and divide, in the 
 work of minor writers, because the whole of their work is not worth 
 studying: 
 
 II convient d'observer un certain art dans I'arrangement des reputations: 
 les grands hommes sent faits pour etre connus et etudies tout entiers; mais, 
 quand un homme n'a eu qu'un coin de talent, il est inutile de s'^tendre sur 
 tout ce qui n'est pas ce talent meme.^ 
 
 As a part of the dehmiting process he would try to get at the salient 
 characteristics of his author, and he would hope to show his faults and 
 virtues not in absolute relief but relatively and in proportion. '' Quant 
 a moi, je pense qu'il convient, dans la biographie d'un homme, dans son 
 portrait fidele, de conserver aux choses I'importance relative qu'elles 
 eurent dans sa vie et dans ses pensees."^ 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, IIE, 384. ' Nouveaux lundis, V, 226. ' Ibid., VII, 378. 
 
 ^Ibid.y XII, 54. He says of his treatment of d'Aubign6: "Je ne dirai 
 aujourd'hui que ce qui me semble n6cessaire pour presenter cette forte figure en son 
 vrai jour, sans exag6rer ni ses vertus, ni sa puret6, ni ses m6rites, mais sans rien oublier 
 non plus d'essentiel en ce qui le distingue" {Causeries du lundi, X, 313). 
 
PRECEPTS AND "PROC^D^S" 95 
 
 His hope and endeavor, whatever his subject, were to define it "par 
 ses traits principaux et par ce qui la caracterise entre toutes. Ce 
 caractere est le plus souvent delicat a saisir et a determiner."' Such a 
 defining of the author's saUent characteristics and of the point of view 
 from which he is to be approached, such bringing into reUef of his char- 
 acteristic features, is the most important thing the critic can do until 
 the moment comes for final judgment.^ 
 
 In any event, Sainte-Beuve felt that the first approach to an author 
 should be on the side of his praiseworthy qualities rather than on the 
 side which called for censure: 
 
 Avec tout personnage historique, il faut s'attaquer d'abord aux grands c6tes ; 
 je ne sais si j'aurai le temps de marquer chez Retz toutes les faiblesses, toutes 
 les infirmites, toutes les hontes meme, et de les fletrir; mais je me reprocherais 
 de n'avoir pas des Tabord designe en lui les signes manifestes de superiorit6 
 et de force, qui enlevent Fadmiration quand on Tapproche, et quoi qu'on en ait.3 
 
 This approach to a man on the side of his excellence is, moreover, 
 a question of expediency, since it is most difficult to secure and maintain 
 a truly critical poise when one studies the faults first: 
 
 Une des choses auxquelles il est le plus difficile de s'accoutumer en jugeant 
 les hommes, c'est de maintenir la part de leurs talents ou de leurs qualites, 
 apres qu'on a reconnu celle de leurs defauts ou de leurs vices.4 
 
 Having appreciated his good quahties we must at once recognize 
 and admit his defects, so as to erect a complete image of the real man. 
 Chateaubriand, for example, must suffer some diminishing of reputation, 
 for he has been estimated much too highly. Of course a critic when he 
 is weighing faults must be scrupulous, lest he pass beyond the bounds 
 of reason and justice: 
 
 Ce qu'il faudra faire alors pour maintenir les justes droits de sa renommee, 
 ce sera, en bonne critique comme en bonne guerre, d'abandonner sans diffi- 
 culte toutes les parties de ce vaste domaine qui ne sont pas vraiment belles 
 ni susceptibles d'etre serieusement defendues, et de se retrancher dans les 
 portions tout a fait superieures et durables. s 
 
 When he makes out his critical balance sheet, the student must 
 be sure that he has really distinguished debits from credits. It is by 
 no means an unnecessary caution to warn the critic to make sure that 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, V, 416. ' Causeries du lundi, II, 443. 3 Ibid., V, 53. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 166. Contrast this passage from his article on Pontmartin: "Je suis 
 forc6 de commencer mon examen ... par son c6t6 le plus faible," etc. {Nouveaux 
 lundis, II, 5). 
 
 s Causeries du lundi, I, 177. 
 
96 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 his subject really possesses the quaUties for which he is praising him. 
 "Nous tacherons ... done de ne pas tout mettre a la fois sur quelques 
 grands ecrivains. Nous tacherons, en parlant d'eux, que I'eloge porte 
 sur la qualite principale; car il y a, meme chez les grands auteurs, une 
 quahte principale."^ It is desirable to be cordial and enthusiastic when 
 possible, and to admire when one can, "mais encore faut-il savoir 
 diriger sa louange et ne pas la faire monter en fusee.' 
 
 But only discrimination gives value to enthusiasm. An author 
 should not be commended for the deUcacy of his art, where force and 
 grandeur are his quaUties. In the work of Pascal you may legitimately 
 praise the art of Provinciates; but in the Pensees you must praise the 
 force and moral energy. You must praise the impetuosity and fulness 
 of Bossuet's speech, but the distinction and grace of Fenelon's. The 
 fact that the critic sees certain fine quaUties in his subject must not 
 blind him to the presence of others, different, but also admirable. 
 "Quand un homme s'est rendu celebre par un talent reconnu dans un 
 genre, on a peine a lui en reconnaitre, et a lui en accorder un autre. "^ 
 To recognize Bossuet as a great preacher should not preclude the recog- 
 nition of him as a historian; to applaud Victor Hugo as a poet and to 
 realize that his truest fame rests upon his poetry should not prevent the 
 critics from acknowledging his success as a noveUst. 
 
 Then having fortified himself with the courage and authority of 
 these rules, the critic should for the rest place himself in the hands of his 
 author: 
 
 Respectons la volonte de I'artiste, son caprice, et apres avoir exhale notre 
 leger murmure, laissons-nous docilement conduire ou il lui plait de nous mener. 
 Mais sachons du moins de quels elements il disposait a Torigine, afin d'etre a 
 m^me de juger ce qu'il en a fait et ce qu'il y a ajoute de son propre fonds.^ 
 
 Paradoxical as it may seem in view of Sainte-Beuve's principle for 
 measuring work by the great classical standards, and his fondness for 
 assigning a man his "place" either implicitly or expUcitly, the foregoing 
 passage might fairly be taken as a summary of his critical ideal. Gather 
 aU possible knowledge about your author, eliminate the trivial and 
 irrelevant, eradicate your own prejudices and eccentricities, isolate his 
 significant or characteristic quaUty or service, and, for the rest, follow 
 his lead, take him as he is, let him speak for himself. In several impor- 
 tant passages Sainte-Beuve seems to say that, having accepted an author 
 
 * Causeries du lundi^ XV, 380. Compare this with his doctrine of the faculU 
 mattresse. 
 
 » Ibid., p. 380. 3 Cahiers, p. 172. * Nouveaux lundis, IV, 35. 
 
PRECEPTS AND "PROCJED^S" 97 
 
 for discussion, the critic is at his mercy; that just in so far as the critic 
 is a scientist he is at the mercy of his facts, which he must not alter or 
 manipulate — he is in fact a simple rapporteur^ of what he finds. We 
 must, of course, bear in mind that this is with Sainte-Beuve a formal 
 theory, a logically constructed ideal: 
 
 Je suis critique, et, en avangant dans la vie, j'ai le malheur de sentir que 
 je ra'attache de plus un plus au vrai en lui meme, et que je n'entre plus dans 
 le jeu ... en prenant la plume, je tiche de rendre compte hautement de ce 
 qui est, de maniere que meme les mecontents ne puissent me contredire.* 
 
 And here follows an uncompromising statement of this idea: "II en est 
 de I'analyse critique comme de I'analyse chimique: on est exacte ou on 
 ne Test pas."^ And again, 
 
 Un critique pur est entierement a la merci de son examen, du moment 
 qu'il y a apporte toutes les conditions d'exactitude et toutes les precautions 
 necessaires; il trouve ce qu'il trouve, et il le dit tout net; le chimiste nous 
 montre le resultat de son experience, il n'y peut rien changer.^ 
 
 The truly scrupulous critic feels that he is honest only when he has 
 told the whole truth. Sainte-Beuve censures La Bruyere for that form 
 of dishonesty: 
 
 Ce Portrait de Fontenelle par La Bruyere est pour nous une grande legon; 
 il nous montre comment un peintre habile, un critique penetrant, peut se 
 tromper en disant vrai, mais en ne disant pas tout, et en ne devinant pas assez 
 que, dans cette bizarre et complexe organisation humaine, un defaut, un travers 
 et un ridicule des plus caracterises n'est jamais incompatible avec une quality 
 superieure."s 
 
 Sainte-Beuve's doctrine of the qualite mattresse is central in his 
 critical theory and has been discussed in another place. But important 
 as he held it to isolate this master-quality, he would not have it eclipse 
 for the critic other less dominant qualities. *'Je crains toujours dans 
 ces portraits de pousser a la caricature, ce qui pour quelques-uns des 
 personnages serait facile, mais ce qui est plein d'inconvenients et ce qui 
 derange pour le lecteur la vraie proportion des choses."^ 
 
 These last few passages serve to reinforce and to restate much of 
 the matter presented in the previous study of the function of criticism 
 and of Sainte-Beuve as a scientific critic. Indeed we may say that he 
 is stating the same truth, this time, however, from the point of view of 
 practical procedure rather than as an ideal result, or a theoretical method. 
 
 ^ Ibid., VI, s. 4 Ibid., II, 409. 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, VIII, 292. s Causeries du lundi, III, 322. 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, I, 265. ^ Ibid., VIII, 439. 
 
98 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 Sainte-Beuve complains of those critics and biographers who distort 
 the perspective of their subject, or, to borrow a figure from still another 
 art, transpose their theme into a wrong key. "La premiere loi d'un 
 portrait est de ne pas le faire dans un ton oppose a celui du modele."' 
 *'Je me suis dit souvent que les portraits devaient ^tre faits selon le 
 ton et I'esprit du modele,"^ so that one should not treat Victor Hugo in 
 a classical spirit, nor Andr6 Chenier in a tone of romanticism; a por- 
 trait of De Vigny should be *'bien simple et tout ideal. "^ Speaking of 
 Beaumarchais he says that "11 faut se garder d'etre systematique, car 
 lui m^me il ne I'etait pas."4 Sainte-Beuve was himself peculiarly gifted 
 in the matter of catching and preserving the tone of his model. He 
 knew and valued highly the service of the wisely chosen quotation, of 
 letting his man speak for himself at the significant and crucial points: 
 " Je ne me pardonnerais point d'avoir parle si longuement de Buff on sans 
 en rien citer, et le lecteur aurait droit de m'en vouloir."s *' Je voudrais, 
 selon mon habitude, donner quelque idee, par une citation, du genre 
 d'esprit et de finesse de cet excellent conteur," etc.^ " II y a un charmant 
 passage que je veux pourtant citer, car je suis de ceux qui citent, et qui 
 ne sont contents que quand ils ont decoupe dans un auteur un bon 
 morceau, un joU echantillon."^ It is partly this method of skilful 
 analysis, accompanied by copious quotation, that constitutes what we 
 may call Sainte-Beuve's virtuosity in keeping the "tone" of his model. 
 But he is impelled to sound a warning against the misuse of this device, 
 citing Montesquieu as a horrible example: 
 
 II arrive souvent qu'il cite inexactement et pour I'effet, comme Chateau- 
 briand le fera plus tard; cela arrive aux hommes d'imagination qui se servent 
 de rerudition sans pouvoir s'y assujettir ni la maitriser. On prend, en lisant, 
 une note avec esprit, avec saillie; et ensuite, en composant, on se donne une 
 peine infinie pour faire passer sa route royale par rendroit de la note illustre 
 ou m^me quelquefois de I'historiette legere.* 
 
 And one is tempted to inquire how often even Sainte-Beuve permitted 
 himself to make a wide critical detour for the sake of introducing some 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis, VI, 82. 
 
 '* Ibid., p. 398. "Mignet commet de 16g^res inexactitudes ou des fautes de 
 nuances dans les couleurs qu'il emploie" {Causeries du liindi, VIII, 302). " Je voudrai 
 ne forcer en rien les tons" {ibid., IV, 29). He criticizes M. Walckenaer severely for 
 his infideliti de ton in criticism {ibid., VI, 171). 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis, VI, 398. ^ Nouveaux lundis, XI, 11. 
 
 < Causeries du lundi, VI, 201. ? Causeries du lundi, XV, 215. 
 
 i Ibid., X, 72. ^Ibid.,Vll, 75. 
 
PRECEPTS AND ''PROCEDSS" 99 
 
 particularly spicy bit. The advantages of the practice of quoting, 
 however, far outweigh the dangers and mistakes such as he points out. 
 If we could hope to sum up a matter necessarily so disjointed and 
 heterogeneous, the following passage of Sainte-Beuve's own would serve 
 as such a summary of his Precepts et Procedes: 
 
 L'esprit dans lequel le livre est concu est un bon esprit; j'appelle ainsi 
 celui qui consiste a ne pas arriver sur le sujet avec une prevention et un systeme, 
 a se penetrer de l'esprit meme de I'epoque qui est en cause, a recueillir tous les / 
 temoignages, a s'eclairer de toutes les depositions, et a nous rendre avec \ 
 gravite, avec bon sens et mod6ration, le resultat de cette enquete si delicate et 
 si compliquee.^ 
 
 A study of Sainte-Beuve's critical vocabulary opens up to view a 
 most profitable and tempting field. A lexicon of the important critical 
 terms he most frequently uses, together with sufficient quotation to 
 illuminate them from their contexts — such terms as reahty, beauty, 
 harmony, tone, vrai, verite, vraisemblance, nettete, and others — ^would 
 clarify and render stable words whose exact content or connotation in 
 many passages is vague and inconstant. It would throw valuable light 
 on both the logic and the art of his critical processes. But so long and 
 important a piece of work could not be undertaken within the scope of 
 this dissertation. Three of his terms, however, demand consideration: 
 the differentiations he made when he adopted and defined the terms 
 "Attic," "Asiatic," and "urbane" are so central in his thinking and so 
 operative in his work that we cannot in justice neglect to present them 
 here. The discussion finds its best beginning in this statement: "Le 
 genre attique est surtout I'oppose de Fasiatique, I'urbanite est surtout 
 le contraire de la rusticite."^ The minghng of Atticism, the Hellenic 
 quaUty of beauty and harmony, with urbanity, the Roman quality 
 of common sense and moderation, produces the characteristic and ideal 
 French quality: 
 
 Mais I'atticisme, mais Turbanite, mais le principe de sens et de raison qui 
 s'y m61e a la grace, ne nous en separons pas. Le sentiment d'un certain beau 
 conforme a notre race, a notre education, a notre civilisation, voila ce dont 11 
 ne faut jamais se departir.3 
 
 It is "Atticism" that he commends in Pascal so often and so highly; 
 he praises it in Hamilton, calUng him " un des ecrivains les plus attiques 
 
 ^ Ibid., XV, 339. ' CahierSf p. 172; cf. also Causeries du lundi, XV, 404. 
 
 3 Ibid., XV, 362. He gives a short history of "Atticism" in France, ibid., 
 XII, 481. 
 
 /" 
 
icx) SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 de notre litterature."^ In Greek, Lysias and Xenophon are for excel- 
 lence the exponents of the "Attic" style; "en franjais Mme de Caylus, 
 Mme de La Fayette sont des modeles d'atticisme."^ "L'atticisme, 
 chez un peuple, et au moment heureux de sa litterature, est une qualite 
 legere qui ne tient pas moins k ceux qui la sen tent qu'k celui qui ecrit.*'^ 
 In the following passage he again indicates the component elements of 
 the tradition he loved: 
 
 Terence est le lien entre Furbanite romaine et Tatticisme des Grecs. Qui 
 dit urbaniti, dit politesse, elegance, un bon gotit dans le badinage, de I'enjoue- 
 ment plus qu'un rire ouvert et deploye. Qui dit attiques a propreitient parler, 
 entend des ecrivains nus, sobres, chastes de diction (comme Lysias ou Xeno- 
 phon) qui n'appuient pas, ... qui ne scintillent pas. lis rappellent et reflechis- 
 sent dans leurs ecrits cette plaine de I'Attique, d'une maigreur elegante et 
 fine, d'un ciel transparent. Quels sont les ecrivains attiques en frangais dont 
 nous puissions comparer sans trop de contresens la diction a celle de Terence ? 
 II en est tres-peu. Mme de Lafayette, Fenelon, Mme de Caylus, en sont 
 certainement; Le Sage aussi pour Gil Bias, et Abb6 Prevost pour Manon 
 Lescaut. Au XVIII"^® siecle, la race des attiques se perd; Voltaire est, quand 
 il le veut, le modele de I'urbanite; mais I'atticisme leger ... cette esquise 
 simplicite n'a plus sa place.-* 
 
 It was the writers who were not indigenous — Rousseau, Bernardin 
 de Sainte-Pierre, and later Chateaubriand — who chiefly contributed 
 to the eclipse of Atticism in France.s "L'atticisme est proprement 
 Toppose du genre asiatique trop surcharge d'ornements."^ Asiaticism 
 is the new, superabundant, flamboyant, over-decorated style which he 
 finds in Rousseau, in Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, in Chateaubriand, the 
 style of Lamartine in the Girondins which Sainte-Beuve specifically 
 
 ' Causeries du lundi, I, 95. ' Ibid., XI, 520. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 521. He speaks of Thiers as being really French in so far as his style 
 is Attic {ibid., XV, 89). He speaks of the "Atticism" of Maucroix (ibid., X, 232). 
 "Atticism" is a term which is much abused by critics who are likely to misapply it 
 (ibid., XI, 520). He defines it thus elsewhere: "L'atticisme, c'est k dire le pur 
 langage naturel franjais, repos6, coulant de source, et jaillissant des l^vres avant 
 toute coloration factice," etc. (ibid., XII, 485), and he laments the fact that in his 
 own day this great quality was dying out. 
 
 4 Nouveaux lundis, V, 366. He gives a history of the word urbaniU and adds 
 some items later (ibid., VI, 375). F16chier among others "a 6minemment I'urbanite 
 qui est le contraire de la rusticity" (Causeries du lundi, XV, 405). 
 
 s Pascal is the "moins asiatique des 6crivains" and the one whom we must read 
 as an antidote to this Asiatic style which Rousseau and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre 
 introduced (Causeries du lundi, VI, 441). 
 
 «/Wd.,XV, 404. 
 
PRECEPTS AND "PROCJ^DilS" loi 
 
 calls "la maniere, abondante, excessive asiatique."^ It is the style of 
 Balzac, the atmosphere from which the later Sainte-Beuve withdrew 
 to ever remoter distance. And it is the Attic which he increasingly 
 identified as the truly and characteristically French style.^ 
 
 We know that Sainte-Beuve was interested in a book as a definite 
 and detachable entity, that his humanistic instincts were quite as strong 
 and as operative as his naturalistic convictions, and that they flowered 
 in his mind in an intense interest in the aesthetic side of the arts. He 
 himself, as we have seen, constantly recurred to the statement that 
 criticism must always remain an art, and must therefore, in his logic, 
 always stay in the humanistic tradition. 
 
 This is the place then to state very briefly his ideas on literature — 
 its purpose, function, and forms, including both genres and style. 
 Harper makes a somewhat ill-balanced statement as to Sainte-Beuve when 
 he says: "He had comparatively little to say about literature as an art, 
 about its forms and laws and its evolution; literature was in his eyes 
 an infinitely diverse expression of personality, and personality was the 
 substance of which Hterature was the shadow."^ This statement would 
 be acceptable if we may qualify the implication that he was not inter- 
 ested in literature on the side of form. As a matter of fact we fre- 
 quently find Sainte-Beuve basing his main judgment of a work on the 
 tradition of literary form, or of hterary style created and dictated by 
 good usage. 
 
 As aesthetician he was very cathoUc and inclusive in his classifica- 
 tion — he seemed willing to rank as literature practically any written 
 expression of thought or feeling. He was still more catholic as a critic, 
 handling with equally scrupulous care all books that interested him. 
 Science, art, poetry, history, travel, eloquence;, criticism — all were 
 grist to his critical mill. If he attempted to limit more narrowly the 
 bounds of literature it was in these two directions: literature is an 
 expression de soi, and its invariable aim and function are to give aesthetic 
 pleasure. Here, as we have seen him do in other matters, Sainte-Beuve 
 shows some confusion of thought, heralding the deep uncertainty of our 
 own day concerning the definitions of genre and forms. In the actual 
 critical essays he seemed to regard as Hterary anything that was written, 
 yet in his theorizing he had a rather definite formula for literature: 
 
 Revenons aux choses simplement agreables et indifferentes, a ce qui est du 
 ressort de la pure litterature. L 'esprit litteraire, dans sa vivacite et sa grace, 
 consiste a savoir s'interesser a ce qui plait dans une delicate lecture, a ce qui 
 
 ^ Ibid., II, 449. 2 jffid., VI, 441. 3 Harper, op. cit., p. 74. 
 
I02 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 est d'ailleurs inutile en soi et qui ne sert a rien dans le sens vulgaire; a ce qui 
 ne passionne pas pour un but prochain et positif ; a ce qui n'est que Toraement, 
 la fleur, la superfluite immortelle et legere de la societe et de la vie.* 
 
 As soon, he says, as one attempts to force literature to serve some utili- 
 tarian end, *'c'est couper les ailes a la fantaisie et au grand art que ne 
 relive que de lui-meme."^ 
 
 Literature, though as an art it has no avowed purpose and no aim 
 other than artistic pleasure, does nevertheless produce a result, the culti- 
 vation of the spirit; **voyez-vous, la plus grande gloire des poetes morts 
 ou absents consiste en ce que les vivants heureux et presents les lisent 
 pour en faire un accompagnement et un pretexte a leurs pensees: le 
 piano au fond pendant lequel on cause."^ And this is not entirely 
 inconsistent with the fact that he feels that the function of a whole 
 school or type of poetry is that of a promenade buissonniere on a spring 
 morning; for the experiencing of ideal pleasures, of genuinely artistic 
 satisfaction, is in itself an elevation of the spirit and a refinement of the 
 sensibihties. "Ne pas avoir le sentiment des lettres, cela veut dire ne 
 pas avoir le sentiment de la vertu, de la gloire, de la grace, de la beaute, 
 en un mot de tout ce qu'il y a de veritablement divin sur le terre."* 
 Must we not necessarily infer that if the lack of appreciation of literature 
 so dwarfs one's spirit, the possession of that sentiment des lettres forwards 
 one in the acquisition of the desirable virtues enumerated? The 
 service of literature in the life of a nation, too, he profoundly believes 
 in.s His faith in the social and spiritual services of literary criticism 
 we have studied elsewhere in some detail; and Sainte-Beuve in many 
 passages cordially classifies criticism as a type of literature — this though 
 he may shift his focus, and change his atmosphere in other passages and 
 look coldly upon criticism as a type of philosophy or as some kind of 
 purely technical writing. 
 
 His protests, as we have shown elsewhere,^ against "tendency" in 
 literature are not directed against the ideal and spiritual meaning that 
 underlies all art, but against the purely utilitarian in art. Polemic 
 is peculiarly dangerous, he thinks, essentially treacherous. The doc- 
 trinaire artist will inevitably, in the excess of his zeal, under pressure of 
 
 ' Nouveaux lundis, VI, 24. ^Ihid., I, 205. 3 Cahiers, p. 10. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 188. He describes the salutary moral and psychological effects of 
 love for MoliSre in almost extravagant terms: "C'est avoir en soi une garantie contra 
 bien des d^fauts, bien des travers et des vices d' esprit," while Comeille, Racine, and 
 Boileau each has his special medicinal virtue (Nauveaux lundis, V, 277 ff.). 
 
 s Causer ies du lundi, VII, 323. ^ Cf. supra, pp. 64 ff. 
 
PRECEPTS AND ''PROCJ^D^^S" 103 
 
 his conviction, allow falsehood to creep in — the serpent which leaves as 
 his slimy trail charlatanism and quackery, which, says Sainte-Beuve, 
 contaminate all orders of thought: "Oui, mais dans I'ordre de la pens6e, 
 dans Tart, c'est la gloire et I'eternel honneur que le charlatanisme n*y 
 penetre pas, c'est ce qui fait Tinviolabilite de cette noble partie de 
 rhomme."^ 
 
 It is rather surprising that he had Uttle to say about the genres of \ 
 literature as genres, and the Uttle he did say is astonishingly unimportant. \ 
 It is probable that his early experience as a romanticist had convinced 
 him of the artificiahty and unreality of the laws of genre as codified by 
 the formaUsts of his day. He who had forwarded and shared the revolt . 
 against the pseudo-classics, who had been a co-worker with Hugo, 
 De Musset, and Gautier, was not himself to be caught in the machinery 
 of the old complex distinctions. And we have to remind ourselves that 
 the modern critical psychology of species in literature had not appeared. 
 
 He has more and more definite things to say about the roman than 
 about any of the other genres.^ He has scattered utterances on various"~^ 
 kinds of prose and on the forms and types of lyric verse, but none oi/ 
 them are of the highest importance, and there are not enough of them^ 
 to enable us to estabUsh a body of definitions or discriminations.^ As \ 
 Faguet has pointed out,^ it is astonishing that Sainte-Beuve should--'^ 
 have taken so little interest in a critical way in the drama. Sainte- 
 Beuve himself asserts that the French genius is essentially dramatic, 
 and there seems to have been in his nature something un-GaUic that 
 
 ' Cahiers, p. 51. 
 
 " " Je me garderai bien, pour commencer, de donner ni m6me d'avoir par-devers 
 moi une th^orie du roman. Le grand avantage du roman est precisement d'avoir 
 6chapp6 jusqu'ici k toute theorie. ... Gr^ce a cette libert6 d'allure qu'il a eue k toutes 
 les 6poques, et qu'on lui a conc6d6e en tant que genre sans consequence, le roman a 
 prosp6r6, fleuri, fructifie, et il s'est vu capable, presque des sa naissance, de prendre 
 toutes les formes, sentimentale, pastorale, po6tique, chevaleresque, historique, ironique, 
 satirique, all6gorique, descriptive, morale, passionn6e. La forme philosophique et 
 raisonneuse est aussi I'une des siennes, et je ne saurais la proscire. La nouvelle Heloise 
 et Delphine sont des branches legitimes du roman. Un peu de pr^cherie n'y messied 
 pas, c'est accord6: il ne s'agit que d'y observer le goiit, la vraisemblance, la raison, 
 d'y entretenir I'interSt, de n'y pas introduire I'ennui. En un mot j'admets tous les 
 genres en fait de roman, et je ne m'inquiete que de la maniere dont ils sont trait6s" 
 (Nouveaux lundis, V, 25). 
 
 3 On MSmoires cf. Causeries du lundi, I, 443, 446; XV, 47. On Lettres, ibid., 
 VIII, no. On the Epigramme cf. Nouveaux lundis, VII, 8. On the forms of lyric 
 poetry cf. the articles on poetic subjects. 
 
 * Faguet, Sainte-Beuve, critique dramatique, p. 69. 
 
I04 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 would account for his indifference to the drama. The only considerable 
 passage of dramatic criticism in this his later period is the series of essays 
 on Le Cid of Corneille; and even here he is more concerned with the play 
 as a manifestation of the spirit of its times and as a document in literary 
 history than as a play. There occurs, however, some little discussion 
 of essential principles of dramatic form, in particular of the unities.' 
 
 Sainte-Beuve was truly the French critic in his paramount interest 
 in matters of style, and his discussions of purely literary technique 
 are mainly devoted to it. Many of his judgments of men and books 
 take style as their sole basis. His own style was eminently plastic and 
 adaptable, and in this respect meets the requirement he set up for a good 
 style for the critic, which, he said, should vary with the necessities of his 
 work, taking on atmosphere and tone from the material he is handling. 
 So Sainte-Beuve's own sensitive style becomes ancient when handling 
 ancient matter; imaginative and metaphorical when the themes are 
 poetry; classic or Romantic, realistic or idealistic, austere or full of the 
 joy of life by turns; his sense of style, his "taste" was so keen as to 
 enable him to detect and to assume at will the peculiar flavor of an 
 author.' The appreciation of a fine style is, he says, peculiarly a French 
 endowment, as is also what may be called a national pride in excellent 
 writing.3 
 
 In Volume I of the Causeries du lundi he gives a brief history of 
 French style, asserting that the great classical period was the epoch par 
 excellence of fine writing, setting the standard by which we must always 
 measure ourselves. Even the uneducated dames de cour of that brilliant 
 age could write beautifully, because they possessed the two essential 
 qualities of French style, simpUcity and nettetS. It was Rousseau and 
 the romanticists following him who introduced into their work eloquence 
 and declamation, marring its purity, destroying its certainty .^ Sainte- 
 Beuve felt that in his own day the art of writing was languishing, if not 
 perishing; "il y a dans I'ouvrage de Barthelemy une qualite a laquelle 
 on est trop peu sensible a present, il y a de la composition et de la liaison. "s 
 Written style, he says, is nowadays giving place to spoken style, and the 
 art of writing is dying out; in this generation anybody thinks he can 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, VII, 258, where he discusses the unities; cf. also ibid., p. 285. 
 ' Causeries du lundi, VIII, 210. 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, VI, 393. 
 
 4 Causeries du lundi, I, 92. » Ibid., VII, 209. 
 
PRECEPTS AND "PROCSDJSS'' 105 
 
 write, and all sorts of persons are bursting into print — persons with no 
 training who are consequently capable of nothing other than a slipshod 
 style.^ 
 
 Sainte-Beuve is the advocate of the golden mean. He complains 
 of a style that is merely slipshod, though he recognizes that too formal 
 a manner leads to affectation. *'I1 faut ecrire comme on parle, et ne 
 pas trop parler comme on ecrit,"^ is his apparently paradoxical counsel. 
 It is easier, he says, for a Frenchman to speak well than to write well; 
 "de la parole vive au papier il s'est fait bien des nauf rages. "^ He says 
 of the spoken or written style: "La parole est une faculte qui, a toutes 
 les epoques, et dans un degre eminent, est donnee naturellement a 
 quelques-uns; c'est entre la parole parlee et cette meme parole ecrite 
 que la plus grande difference a lieu, et qu'il se fait un naufrage de bien 
 des pensees."4 The author's written style should partake of the live- 
 liness and freshness of speech, while at the same time it should exhibit 
 that harmony, organization, clearness, and nettetS that come only from 
 training and the taking of pains. One must have done one's rhetoric, 
 he says of Delecluze, 
 
 cependant, il y aura, en litterature, une chose bien essentielle qu'on ne lui 
 aura pas apprise et qu'il ne saura jamais; c'est I'art d'ecrire. II n'a jamais 
 fait de rhetorique ; on s'en apergoit en le lisant. Ne pas avoir fait de rhetorique 
 dans le sens ou je I'entends ici, c'est ne pas se douter des difficultes de I'art.s 
 
 Training and experience must finally equip one for that marshaling 
 of ideas into order which constitutes the foundation of good writing, 
 for style after all is but the manner of presenting material: 
 
 Assembler, soutenir et mettre en jeu a la fois dans un instant donne le 
 plus de rapports, agir en masse et avec concert, c'est la le difficile et le grand art, 
 qu'on soit general d'armee, orateur ou ecrivain. II y a des generaux qui ne 
 peuvent assembler et manoeuvrer plus de dix mille hommes, et des ecrivains 
 qui ne peuvent manier qu'une ou tout au plus deux idees a la fois. ... Je con- 
 nais ainsi des ecrivains qui, avant d'ecrire, congedient la moitie de leurs idees, et 
 qui ne savent les exprimer qu'une a une: — c'est pauvre.'* 
 
 Nevertheless, Sainte-Beuve, lest he should have made too strong a case 
 for the disciplined style, warns us against mere virtuosity in writing. 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, IX, 63. ^ Ihid., IX, 385. 
 
 " Cahiers, p. 121. s Nouveaux lundis, III, 82. 
 
 3 Causeries du lundi, XI, 352. ^ Portraits litteraires, III, 547. 
 
io6 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 The author who has acquired a conscious facility must resist the tempta- 
 tion to write for the sake of writing: 
 
 Toujours le style te dSmange. ... Rien de plus juste; ce malheureux go(it de 
 style et d'art est comme une gale qui s'attache a vous et glte toute votre vie. 
 Elle vous empeche d'etre politique. ... Au moment ou vous commencez a 
 r^tre voila le style qui vous dSmange; plus de laisser-aller, plus de joie. II vous 
 faut rentrer dans votre bouge, polir votre mot, trouver votre rime, vous taper 
 le front et vous ronger les ongles.^ 
 
 When one has acquired a taste and a technique like this he must beware 
 lest he pass from virtuosity into preciosity — in a word, Sainte-Beuve's 
 severest word, into neo-classicism. He especially decried the artificiaUty 
 of laborious elegance: 'Telegance! quand I'elegance n'atteint pas la 
 grace ce n'est rien du tout."* He quotes from Mme de Girardin, 
 
 qui a fait, dans Napoline, un vers qui la trahit: "Ah! c'est que Telegance est 
 de la poesie." Certes, je ne voudrais pas exclure de la poesie Telegance, mais 
 quand je vois celle-ci mise en premiere ligne, j'ai toujours peur que la fafon, 
 le fashion, ne prime la nature, et que Tenveloppe n'emporte le fond.^ 
 
 Sainte-Beuve's advice as to the practical way of avoiding the grievous 
 faults of the artificial style is twofold. In the first place the writer should 
 embody in his written style the vigor and freshness of his spoken style; 
 in the second place he should maintain and conserve his individuality, 
 refusing in spite of the severest discipline to become standardized. The 
 style of Cousin, he says, admirable as it is in many ways, is lacking in 
 this essential feature: "Rien n'y marque I'homme. ... J'aime que le 
 style se ressente davantage des quaUtes originales et piquantes de Tindi- 
 vidu, en un mot qu'il sente Vhomme.^^^ Unless his style be, in the words 
 of Buffon, "de I'homme meme" the writer falls into abstraction, into 
 formless generalities. As a pendant to this advocacy of individuality 
 he deplores imitation. "J'aime qu'il en soit de la langue, du style de 
 tout grand ecrivain, comme du cheval de tout grand capitaine: que 
 nul ne le monte apres lui."s The very truest mark of a great writer is 
 that he achieves a style which is the indissoluble and inimitable union 
 of his manner of thinking and his manner of writing. This is, indeed, 
 what makes him a great writer. It is the style of Pascal that is his 
 
 ^ Portraits contemporains, V, 459. 
 
 ' Cahiers, p. 59. 4 Ibid., XI, 469. 
 
 » Causeries du lundi. III, 393. s Portraits contemporains, V, 456. 
 
PRECEPTS AND '' PROC^DtlS'' 107 
 
 ideal — rapid, direct, clear, brilliant, the perfect vehicle of the keen, 
 incisive, powerful thought which it conveys.^ 
 
 Sainte-Beuve practically never fails to discuss the style of the artist 
 whom he has under consideration — ^appraising, condemning, commend- 
 ing; and always looming large in the background, implicit or explicit, as 
 standard and criterion, stands the style of Pascal and the other great 
 classicists. 
 
 ^ " Je vais droit au d^faut capital et radical du talent 61ev6 de M. de Bonald. ... 
 M. de Bonald nous fait repasser par la filidre des mots et par la m^canique du language 
 de Condillac, ... pour revenir au monde des idees et au ciel m6taphysique de 
 M. Malebranche " {Causeries du lundi, IV, 435). In other words Bonald 's style and 
 manner are not his own. 
 
J 
 
 VII. SAINTE-BEUVE'S PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 
 
 The program of Sainte-Beuve*s criticizing, put together in a previous 
 section of this thesis, is a synthetic one, the items collected from various 
 places wherein he discusses his art. All its items are those that he has 
 in one place or another definitely and strongly propounded. Most of 
 it, as a matter of fact, he has given in the formula for criticizing in the 
 famous Chateaubriand article.^ 
 
 But it cannot be expected that examination of the essays in order 
 will show him following this program closely or even making use of all 
 its details in any one essay. It is indeed safe to say that there is no essay 
 in which he uses the whole program, and certain it is that he does not 
 in any essay take up the processes in the beautifully logical order in 
 which they are formulated. He does make use of them all, in this 
 essay emphasizing one, in that essay another. He even introduces 
 processes not provided for in the program, some of them unique, some 
 of them too whimsical and personal to be catalogued. He must have 
 realized that his critical program was a rationalized, logically con- 
 structed edifice rather than a procedure worked out through actual 
 trial and error. In the actual essays he proceeded in his approaches, 
 expositions, and judgments as an orderly scientific critic, though some- 
 times with methods and points of view impossible to standardize or 
 even repeat. 
 
 Our work here is to determine from his exact statements whether 
 or not he was conscious of a definite method of procedure and whether 
 and to what extent he followed the logical plan we have gathered from 
 his statement. 
 
 Two investigations are necessary before we can reach this deter- 
 mination: We must examine the- content of the essays to determine 
 those matters that Sainte-Beuve handles most often and emphasizes 
 most, and we must examine the structure of all the essays for the presence 
 and use of his critical formula. The first investigation will tell us 
 within certain limits what kind of a critic Sainte-Beuve was in practice, 
 scientific, historical, or aesthetic, and the second will show us whether 
 or not, and under what conditions, he found his program workable. 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, III, i. ' 
 
 io8 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 109 
 
 In pursuance of the former study all the essays of the Causeries 
 and the Nouveaux lundis were examined. For this classification the 
 following categories were used: 
 
 1. Biographical matter 
 
 a) The events of the life of his subject 
 
 h) Analysis and interpretation of character 
 
 2. Historical matter 
 
 a) Political history, politics, war, diplomacy, social movements 
 h) Ettcdes de moRurs 
 
 3. Literary matter 
 
 a) Exposition, the expounding of his documents with the unavoidable 
 discussion of the ideas and doctrines found in them 
 
 h) Literary history, tracing the development of a genre, recmrring appear- 
 ance of phenomena, the characteristic evolution of an author, a strain 
 . of influence 
 
 c) Critical judgment and evaluation, the term "critical" being here used 
 as designating opinion and suggestion as to the merits and defects of the 
 work he is handUng 
 
 d) Polemic matter, argument in which Sainte-Beuve is taking sides on a 
 moot question and trying to bring the reader to his point of view 
 
 e) Philosophic matter, including aesthetics, in which he is expounding and 
 applying theories concerning art, history, politics, or criticism itself 
 
 It is not necessary to say that the delimitation of these categories 
 is not scientifically exact or that the classes indicated by them are neither 
 exhaustive nor mutually exclusive; there is much overlapping and inter- 
 penetration of the subject-matter. The material offered by the essays 
 and the nature of the categories themselves preclude a hard-and-fast 
 scientific classification; and the fact that the essays are literary pre- 
 cludes their being handled as mere science. But this tentative and sug- 
 gestive grouping of the essays does reveal the fines of Sainte-Beuve's 
 main interests. 
 
 In the two series there are some six hundred and forty essays. There 
 are certain groups which form series, occasionally as many as five on the 
 same subject, as witness the five each on Talleyrand, Mme Desbordes- 
 Vahnore, and Le Marechal de Villars; four on Horace Vernet; and many 
 groups of three. There are, roughly speaking, four hundred and thirty 
 subjects treated. 
 
 The examination of these six hundred and forty essays yields the 
 following summaries: Biographical matter predominates in one hundred 
 and ninety, one hundred and thirty-four placing the main emphasis 
 
no SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 of the essay on the events of the subject's life, and fifty-six placing it 
 on character analysis and interpretation. This biographical group 
 constitutes, as may be seen, 60 per cent of the essays, a finding that sup- 
 ports the statement that Sainte-Beuve gives a major place to biography. 
 
 Historical matter in the two varieties provided for receives the main 
 emphasis in seventy-five essays. Of these thirty are concerned with 
 pohtical history, forty-five are studies of manners. Bald figures are, 
 however, pecuHarly deceptive in this class, since Sainte-Beuve was 
 constantly introducing into his essays cursory and, as it were, casual 
 historical matter of various kinds, so that the number of essays in which 
 it holds first place understates his interest in history. We have to 
 remind ourselves of the large number in which it holds second place 
 and the other large number in which it is in the background of his think- 
 ing. In regard to the forty-five essays in which studies of manners 
 occupy the foreground, we must bring to mind the fact that Sainte- 
 Beuve was deeply and unfaiUngly human; he had a keen and restless 
 curiosity about life and the behavior of human beings in all ages and 
 places; he delighted to delve into the past, to find anecdotes, quaint 
 usages, forgotten manners. Nothing that served to throw light or 
 interest on the development of mankind or on the growth of the mind 
 was trivial to him or outside his province. We find a rich record and a 
 sympathetic study of customs, habits, humors, oddities — this is the 
 nature of the material to be found in these 6tudes de moeurs. It occupies 
 a major place in forty-five of the essays, holds second place in others, 
 and occurs in fragments and scattered passages in many places. Such 
 matter is, of course, extremely serviceable in placing a man in his set- 
 ting, dans son cadre, a service which Sainte-Beuve deUghted to perform 
 and which he considered essential.^ 
 
 Literary matter occupies the main place and receives the main 
 emphasis in one hundred and fifty of the essays. The reiteration of the 
 previous warning seems necessary here; the mere figures are a bit mis- 
 leading because whatever other kind of matter he is using Sainte-Beuve 
 is always literary in method and style, and in many cases matter is 
 handled by way of leading up to a hterary judgment or defending such 
 a judgment, which, though it be the very core of the essay, may occupy 
 a small space. 
 
 The four varieties of literary matter provided for in the scheme 
 occur in the following proportions: exposition is conspicuous in sixty 
 essays; literary history, in thirty-five; critical discussion, in fifty-five. 
 
 » See "Aesthetic Criticism," p. 46. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM III 
 
 To put it in other words, of the hundred and fifty essays in which literary 
 matter predominates, 40 per cent is chiefly occupied with expounding 
 and interpreting the ideas of the persons under discussion, about 20 per 
 cent is given to problems of literary development, and 40 per cent to the 
 expression of Sainte-Beuve's own critical views, chiefly estimating the 
 actual work or man under discussion. 
 
 As to the remaining varieties of subject-matter, the aesthetic and the 
 polemic, only a few essays are devoted to each. Sainte-Beuve is not much 
 given to theorizing formally about his art. He is prevailingly empirical, 
 content with functioning directly as a critic, saying very little about 
 the theoretical or speculative bases of his working principles. Indeed, 
 in view of his enormous erudition and the infinite trouble he took to 
 prepare himself for the writing of an essay, he is curiously matter of 
 fact and practical-minded in all his processes. He has said, as we have 
 seen, a great deal about the art and function of the critic and criticism, 
 but sifted down it proves to be mainly the expounding and defining of 
 actual working principles. And even this body of critical discussion 
 looks small in comparison with his great output of writing. Among 
 the small number of essays — less than a dozen — in which the aesthetic 
 or philosophical-critical matter predominates must be mentioned "De 
 la tradition en litterature,"^ the article on Chateaubriand,^ which con- 
 tains most of the items of his critical program, and the article on 
 Deschanel's Essai de critique naturelle.^ 
 
 So far as concerns matter of a polemic kind, only four or five of the 
 essays can fairly be assembled under this caption. He says in a well- 
 known passage cited elsewhere in this thesis that he has renounced 
 polemic criticism. One must, however, recognize this element in the 
 essays "sur rorthographie,"^ "Les lectures publiques du soir,"s and 
 "La question des theatres,"^ since they are distinctly framed for the 
 purpose of convincing. 
 
 Besides the groups outlined above we must constitute an omnibus 
 class where we may dispose of such matter as the political theorizing 
 of "La reforme sociale en France, "7 the exposition of the Saint-Simonian 
 theories of social betterment in the essay on Duveyrier.* 
 
 One of the deductions to be drawn from this classification confirms 
 the common judgment given of Sainte-Beuve that he was interested 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, XV, 356. s Ibid., V, 70. 
 
 2 Nouveaux lundis, III, i. ^ Causeries du lundi, I, 35. 
 
 3 Ibid., IX, 62. ' Nouveaux lundis, IX, 161. 
 
 4 Ibid., VIII, 73. 8 Ibid., X, 237. 
 
112 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 primarily in biography, in life-history and character; in the individual 
 rather than in the group, and in the group large or small only for the 
 explanation it afforded of its individuals. But to this conclusion we 
 must add a pendant not always stated by students of Sainte-Beuve: 
 he is interested in whatever embodies and expresses the characteristic 
 personality of writers. His was thus pre-eminently a psychological 
 rather than a dramatic sympathy. 
 
 The only surprise that the classification might offer is the small 
 amount of space or emphasis given in the essays to aesthetics or artistic 
 theory. What discussion there is of these matters is largely scattered 
 and even desultory. When all is said it is clear that Sainte-Beuve was 
 the practical workman in criticism, and that he is fundamentally the 
 historian of actual literature, of current human behavior, and of the 
 minds of definite men. 
 
 The second investigation we must undertake is designed to answer 
 the inquiry. How closely did Sainte-Beuve, in the process of criticiz- 
 ing, adhere to the plan, program, or series of rules that he himself laid 
 down ? To state it succinctly and colloquially, did he practice what he 
 preached ? 
 
 In making this study we will take the critical program already 
 formulated and apply it to the essays item by item. Only those occur- 
 rences of his use of a specific doctrine which show a conscious, deliberate, 
 and emphatic appHcation of it will be quoted or cited; those cases in 
 which the item receives casual and incidental attention will be passed 
 over with only casual and general notice. For example, Sainte-Beuve 
 rarely fails to mention the birthplace of the person whose biography he 
 is giving. But in many cases it is a mere bit of historical routine, given 
 without elaboration; in a few cases Sainte-Beuve beUeves that the place 
 in which a man is born and passes his childhood had some definite or 
 powerful influence on his development. It is instances of the second 
 kind that will be quoted or cited. 
 
 The first item to be considered is that of race and racial quaUties, 
 in Sainte-Beuve's phrase ''cette racine obscure et derob6e," sometimes 
 very difficult to discover.^ It is clear that by "race " he generally meant 
 nationality, for he Speaks of the English race, the French, the ItaUan, 
 even the Breton "race." Indeed it is not in Sainte-Beuve but in Taine 
 and Renan that we have our first modern scientific studies of genuine 
 racial influence in Hterature. 
 
 » See supra, p. 33. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 
 
 113 
 
 Representative illustrations of Sainte-Beuve's use of what he calls 
 the author's race are the following: ''II me semble que tout se concilie 
 chez Duclos, et que les inconsequences elles-m^mes s'expliquent moyen- 
 nant I'humeur et la race. II etait Breton; il devait a cette origine 
 bien caracterisee des points fixes de resistance dont il ne se departait 
 pas."^ Of Le Sage he says that though he met jealousies and made 
 enemies "il tintferme, et ne se laissa aller a aucune basse complaisance. 
 C'est ici que le Breton se retrouve en lui."^ Lamennais he calls "ce dur 
 Breton, avec ses asperites d'origine,"^ and then, too, he treats of the 
 manifestation of the Breton strain in Renan: "II appartient a la race 
 bre tonne pure, a cette race triste, douce, inflexible ... il a encore de sa 
 race premiere certains traits que lui-meme a notes comme les plus 
 profonds et les plus durables, la foi, le serieux, I'antipathie pour ce qui 
 est vulgaire, le mepris de la legerete."^ He points out the influence of 
 English birth on Hamilton, and adds that "il ne fit que croiser ce 
 qu'il y avait de plus fin dans les deux races''^ (French and English); 
 Chesterfield, too, unites in himself these two races: "II unit assez bien 
 lui-meme les avantages des deux nations, avec un trait pourtant qui 
 est bien de sa race. II avait de I'imagination jusque dans I'esprit."^ 
 Ramond's father was from the south of France and his mother from the 
 Palatinate: "Le jeune Ramond participa intellectuellement de cette 
 double origine; il montra de bonne heure la yivacite, la promptitude 
 brillante d'impressions qui caracterise les races du Midi, et il y m^la de 
 la sensibilite et quelque chose de I'enthousiasme du Nord."^ His descrip- 
 tion of Beranger is to the point: "Mais Beranger, ne Toublions pas, est 
 de la race gauloise, et la race gauloise,- meme a ses instants les plus 
 poetiques, manque de reserve et de chastete: voyez Voltaire, Moliere, 
 La Fontaine, Rabelais et Villon, les aieux."^ He reiterates this about 
 La Fontaine elsewhere,'' and CoUe he calls "le dernier des Gaulois," 
 analyzing what he means by this.^° Mile de Scudery, whose father was 
 a Gascon but had moved to Normandy and married there, partook more 
 of her Norman than her Provencal blood." In writing of Goethe, "le 
 ' type accompli du genie allemand,"" he recalls to our minds several times 
 
 * Causeries du lundi, IX, 220. 
 ^Ibid.,U, 359. 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, I, 35. 
 
 4 Ibid., II, 384. 
 
 5 Causeries du lundi, I, 95. 
 ^Ihid.j II, 243. 
 
 "flhid., X, 447. 
 
 « Ihid., II, 292. 
 
 9 Ibid., VII, 532. 
 
 ^'^ Nouveaux lundis, VII, 370. 
 
 "Causeries du lundi, IV, 122. 
 
 "Ibid., II, 34^. 
 
114 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 the fact that we are deaUng with a German and must make allowances 
 for this in our opinions; and of Goethe's friend Bettina Brentano he 
 says that she kept many traces of her ItaHan ancestry: " Restee ItaUenne 
 par son imagination ... elle sentait Fart et la nature comme on ne les 
 sent qu'en Italic."^ 
 
 Sainte-Beuve felt that in certain marked ways the regional group, 
 the tribe, as it were, of which a man was born, exercised a profound 
 influence, declaring, for example, that the soldier Montluc derived his 
 prowess from his native Gascony: *'Le Gascon Montluc, en propos et 
 en action, c'est un heros de Corneille venu un peu plus tot ... il est un 
 caractere constant et qui frappe dans les talents comme dans les courages 
 de cette genereuse contree."* But a better example, because clearer, 
 is that of the Abbe Prevost: "Ainsi done, il dut beaucoup ... a sa race 
 du hon pays d'Artois, comme il I'appelait.''^ " Cependant on n'est pas du 
 midi impunement" is the way in which he explains certain characteristics 
 of Seiyes.4 And Raynouard too was from the south of France : 
 
 Nul homme distingue ne garda plus que Raynouard le cachet primitif 
 de sa province, de son endroit [il Stait de Brignolles]. II 6tait avant tout de son 
 pays par I'accent ... il en etait par le coeur, par le patriotisme, par les idees ... 
 il etait de son pays aussi par la gaiete, par le trait, par le petit mot pour rire. 
 
 Even his erudition he related to "son midi a lui."s "N'oublions pas 
 ... que Mme Du Deffand etait de Bourgogne; elle semble tenir de cette 
 verve du terroir, qui inspira tant de piquants noels aux Piron et aux 
 La Monnoye."^ This province, fertile in wits, gave birth also to Bussy- 
 Rabutin, "qui eut beaucoup en lui de cette veine railleuse et mordante, 
 de cet esprit de saillies dont on fait honneur a sa province, et dont on 
 retrouve maint temoignage direct chez les Piron, les La Monnoye, les 
 Du Deffand ";7 and Piron, too, "tient de sa province en general" in 
 this respect.* 
 
 In the same vein he writes of Le Sage, emphasizing this time, how- 
 ever, more the territorial than the racial aspects of his Breton birth: 
 
 Les plus exactes biographes le font naitre ... en basse Bretagne. Du fond 
 de cette province energique et rude, d'oii nous sont venus de grands ecrivains 
 ... Le Sage nous arriva ... on ne trouverait quelque chose du coin breton 
 en lui que dans sa fierte d'4me et son independance de caractere.'* 
 
 » Causeries du lundi, II, 331. 
 
 »Ibid.,Xl,S7. ^ Ibid., I, 422. 
 
 3 Ibid., IX, 124. ' Ibid., Ill, 360. 
 
 ^Ibid.f V, 201. * Nouveaux lundis, VII, 405. 
 
 sibid., pp. 2 ff. ' Causeries du lundi, II, 354. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 115 
 
 Volney, born on the border between Anjou and Brittany, partook more 
 of the ''aprete bretonne" than of the "mollesse angevine."' Mme 
 Necker's Swiss birth had much to do with her development," as did also 
 Rousseau's,^ while St. Francois de Sales,'» Guy Patin,s and Roederer^ 
 partook distinctly of the qualities of their native lands. Camille Jordan, 
 Sainte-Beuve claims, was essentially a Lyonnais: 
 
 N6 a Lyon ... il resta toute sa vie rhomme de son pays et de sa villa natale 
 ... le type originel ... ne s'affaiblit jamais. ... Ce caractere porte avec lui 
 im certain fonds de croyances ... qui se maintient au milieu de Teffacement 
 ou du dessechement trop general des ^mes.' 
 
 At times the very aspect of the countryside in which a man is born 
 seems to influence his psychology, as in the case of Saint Lambert,^ of 
 Maurice de Guerin,' and pre-eminently of Taine, on whom his native 
 Ardennes exercised great power: 
 
 Ces Ardennes, en effet, puissantes et vastes ... ont-ils contribue ... a 
 remplir, a meubler de bonne heure I'imagination du jeime et grave enfant ? 
 Ce qui est certain, c'est qu'il y a dans son talent des masses un peu fortes, 
 des suites un peu compactes et continues, et ou Teclat et la magnificence 
 meme n'epargnent pas la fatigue ... on lui voudrait parfois plus d'ouver- 
 tures et plus d'eclaircies dans ses riches Ardennes." 
 
 Sainte-Beuve places the emphasis of strong and reiterated state- 
 ment upon the dictum that the critic shall place the author, the states- 
 man, or the philosopher, whoever his chosen subject, in his age, in his 
 epoch, and upon occasion should study both the epochs preceding and 
 succeeding that to which his subject belongs. In fully three-fourths 
 of the essays there is some important consideration of the social and 
 historical milieu out of which the person or the work under considera- 
 tion has arisen. This is the most consistent and pervasive evidence of 
 Sainte-Beuve 's scientific-mindedness as a critic. Indeed it is so con- 
 stant and pervasive that it is not easy to isolate instances for citation. 
 Running through almost every essay is the sense of epoch, of spiritual 
 and social environment and background. To take the fewest examples, 
 Sainte-Beuve says that Janin was obhged to change his plan and 
 method of writing when the Revolution of 1848 declared itself;" Huet 
 
 » Ibid., VII, 390. 
 
 ' Ibid., IV, 243. 7 Nouveaux lundis, XII, 256. 
 
 3 Ibid., Ill, 96. ^ Causeries du lundi, XI, 122. 
 
 4 Ibid., VII, 267. 9 Ibid., XV, 12, 15. 
 
 5 Ibid., VIII, 89. " Nouveaux lundis, VIII, 71. 
 ^Ibid., p. 327. " Causeries du lundi, II, 108. 
 
Ii6 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 was what he was and saw as he did because of the state of French 
 Letters in his day.^ The same explanations and interpretations he finds 
 for Pasquier in the sixteenth century and Octave Feuillet in the 
 nineteenth.* 
 
 The atmosphere and influence which molds men Sainte-Beuve con- 
 veys rather by accumulation of detail than by generalized assertion, as 
 witness this passage, which is thoroughly typical of his method, on 
 Balzac: "II avait quinze ans a la chute de I'Empire; il a done connu et 
 senti I'epoque imperiale." He Uved also under the Restoration: 
 
 II a senti la Restauration en amant. II commengait a arriver a la 
 r6putation en m6me temps que s'installait le nouveau regime promulgue en 
 Juillet 1830 ... ainsi ces trois epoques de physionomie si diverse qui consti- 
 tuent le siecle arrive a son milieu, M. de Balzac les a connues et les a vecues 
 toutes les trois, et son oeuvre en est jusqu'a un certain point le miroir.^ 
 
 He works in the same strain in various epochs, picturing the society at 
 the time of La Bruyere which gave birth to the CaracUres,^ and the 
 general mind of the later part of the Revolution and early part of the 
 nineteenth century, which produced the public discourses of Benjamin 
 Constant.^ One has but to open a volume of the Causeries or the 
 Nouveaux lundis to find constant examples of this interest and method.^ 
 One of the important items in a man's background is his family, says 
 Sainte-Beuve, formulating his maxim thus: "On retrouve a coup siir 
 I'homme superieur au moins en partie dans ses parents, dans sa mere 
 surtout ... dans ses soeurs aussi, dans ses freres, dans ses enfants 
 m^mes."7 Before examining whether or no Sainte-Beuve investigated 
 this matter, it is necessary to point out that nothing is made here 
 of the innumerable cases in which he merely mentions the parentage of 
 his subject, naming his father and mother, one or both, as a bit of 
 biographical routine. Sainte-Beuve, like all biographers, seldom fails to 
 tell in this perfunctory way the origin of the person whom he is studying, 
 as, for example, "fiUe d'un des officiers du Due de Lorraine, et petite 
 niece, par sa mere, du fameux Callot,"* or of Rabelais, "fils d'un cabaretier 
 de Chinon";9 or of Marivaux, "ne d'un pere financier et dans I'aisance."" 
 Such passages have not been counted or noted in detail. But there are 
 
 » Causeries du lundi, II, 166. ^ Cf. also Causeries du lundi, XV, 248. 
 
 ' Ibid., Ill, 250; Nouveaux lundis, V, 3. ' Nouveaux lundis, III, 18. 
 
 3 Causeries du lundi, II, 444. * Causeries du lundi, II, 209. 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis, I, 126. • Ibid., Ill, 4. 
 
 s Ibid., p. 418. " Ibid., IX, 343. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 117 
 
 cases in which actual influence or significant resemblances between a 
 man and the members of his family have been emphasized or elaborated 
 by Sainte-Beuve. These have been collected as follows: after speaking 
 of the family of Lacordaire: "Je n'ai pas voulu omettre ces premieres 
 circonstances; car il n'est pas indifferent, selon moi ... d'etre sorti 
 d'une race solide et saine";^ the father of Theodore Leclerq was "un 
 bon bourgeois parisien" and "la riche bourgeoisie parisienne a, de tout 
 temps, produit des esprits fins, des railleurs distingues et libres."^ 
 Maurice de Guerin's noble family and Mme Desbordes-Valmore's 
 humble one left indelible impressions on these two artists.^ Of Mira- 
 beau he says: "il avait en nalssant, apporte plusieurs des traits essentiels 
 de la famille paternelle, mais en les combinant avec d'autres qui tenaient 
 de sa mere" I'' and of Horace Vernet he declares that he was a painter by 
 inheritance, it was "un talent de race" — by which he means here 
 "family" — "de quelque cote qu'on remonte dans ses origines, on ne 
 voit que peintres et dessinateurs."^ Piron also "tient de sa famille en 
 particulier. ... Les Piron etaient une souche de chansonniers, de malins 
 comperes et de satiriques."^ Mme de Motteville's good sense came 
 from her family: "Je releve tout d'abord ce fonds de sagesse, qui 
 semblait appartenir a la race,"^ and Leopold Robert's simphcity and 
 democracy can be seen in his family also.^ The family as a unit is, then, 
 genuinely creative in molding the genius. 
 
 In the immediate family it is the mother to whom one looks for 
 the most powerful influence; the most notable instance perhaps is 
 that of the mother of Littre, the savant. Sainte-Beuve devotes a 
 paragraph to telling of her birth and quahties and adds "avec cela 
 douee d'une elevation d'ame et d'un sentiment de la justice qu'elle dut 
 transmettre a ce fils. ... II tient beaucoup d'elle."' Ducis, born of a 
 French mother and a Savoyard father, "etait lion par son pere et berger 
 par sa mere." The mother of Le President De Brosses " etait femme 
 forte ... et faite aussi pour transmettre a son fils le zele des nobles et 
 soUdes traditions."" He goes out of his way to give accounts of their 
 mothers' influence on Huet," on Fontenelle,^^ on I'Abbe de Choisy,*^ and 
 
 ^ Ihid., I, 223. 8 ij}id.^ X, 411. 
 
 2 Ihid.y III, 528. 9 Nouveaux lundis, V, 204. 
 
 3 Ibid., XII, 232; Nouveaux lundis, XII, 186. " Causeries du lundi, VI, 457. 
 
 4 Causeries du lundi, IV, 3. " Ibid., VII, 86. 
 s Nouveaux lundis, V, 43. " Ibid., II, 166. 
 
 6 Ibid., VII, 405. « Ibid., Ill, 315. 
 
 ' Causeries du lundi, V, 169. ^ Ibid., p. 429. 
 
Ii8 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 on Joseph de Maistre.^ Finally Sainte-Beuve describes Mirabeau's 
 inheritance from his mother in these terms: 
 
 II tenait de sa mere la largeur du visage, les instincts, les appetits prodigues 
 et sensuels, mais probablement aussi ce certain fonds gaillard et gaulois, cette 
 f aculte de se f amiUariser et de s'humaniser que les Riquetti (his father's family) 
 n'avaient pas, et qui deviendra im des moyens de sa puissance.' 
 
 As the mother's influence may be active in a man, so lack of her influence 
 may produce certain traits, as in the case of Volney and of Gibbon, 
 ** ceux a qui a manqu6 cette solUcitude d'une mere ... sont plus aisement 
 que d'autres denues du sentiment de la religion."^ On the whole we 
 may say that, consistently with his maxim concerning the family, it is 
 to the mother's influence that Sainte-Beuve uniformly attributes the 
 most importance. 
 
 While there is not so frequent consideration of the father's influence 
 and the cases are not so specific or detailed, the following instances are 
 to be noted. Huet received much from his father, "le talent poetique 
 qu'il montra, il dut I'avoir herite de lui."4 Mirabeau's father impressed 
 himself upon his son through his indomitable will, his rigidity, and 
 cruelty .5 Pierre Dupont "par son pere tient a la classe des artisans," 
 and this was a distinctive factor in his poetry.^ Sainte-Beuve tells in 
 some detail the life-history of the elder Sainte-Simon, pointing out those 
 things which his son must have inherited or which must otherwise have 
 passed from his father into his consciousness and character: "On 
 decouvre meme dans le pere de Saint-Simon une quaUte dont ne sera 
 pas prive son fils, une sorte d'humeur qui, au besoin, devient de I'aigreur.''^ 
 The characterization of the father of Alexis Piron as the literary as well 
 as the natural parent of his son must also be instanced here. Sainte- 
 Beuve felt that he himself had inherited his Uterary bent and had derived 
 his literary talent from his father,^ and reference must be made again 
 to the article on Littre in which there is a fairly detailed history of 
 Littre p^re, with special bearing upon his spiritual relationship to his 
 son.9 Sainte-Beuve quotes Ducis as saying of the elder Ducis: "C'est 
 lui qui, par son sang et ses examples, a transmis a mon ame ses principaux 
 traits et ses mattresses formes.''''' P. L. Courier's father's quarrel with a 
 
 » Causeries du lundi, IV, 194. ^Ibid., p. 69. 
 
 ' Ibid., ly, 3. 7/6«/.,XV,427. 
 
 3 Ibid., VIII, 436. " Cahiers, p. 56. 
 
 ^ Ibid., II, 167. ' Nouveaux lundis, V, 201. 
 
 s Ibid., IV, 2. " Causeries du lundi, VI, 457- 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 119 
 
 grand seigneur was inherited by his son and became a main tenet in his 
 poHtical creed.^ One of the most extended of the studies of fathers is 
 that of Mme Dacier's parent, an erudite but not pedantic man, who 
 transmitted much of his inspiration and not a Uttle of his knowledge to 
 his distinguished daughter: 
 
 Fille d'un savant et d'un erudit, [elle] ne faisait, en s'adonnant, comme 
 elle fit, a Tantiquite, qu'obeir a Fesprit de famille et ceder a una sorte 
 d'heredite domestique. II faut lui passer d'etre erudite comme a la fille de 
 Pythagore d'avoir ete philosophe, comme a la fille de I'orateur Hortensius 
 d'avoir ete eloquente, comme a la fille du grand jurisconsulte Accurse d'avoir 
 excelle dans le droit.' 
 
 The critic may find a study of the subject's brothers and sisters 
 very fruitful, for in them, says Sainte-Beuve, the peculiarities of the great 
 man may often be seen "plus a nu et a I'etat simple. "^ Sainte-Beuve 
 himseK gives us striking examples of this principle: the sisters of 
 Chateaubriand (who share the essential characteristics of their great 
 brother unmixed with many elements added by his more complex 
 experience); the sisters of Lamartine; Mme de Surville, Balzac's sister; 
 and Juhe, sister of Beaumarchais. This JuHe possessed the spirit of 
 GaUic gaiety which is so marked in her dramatist brother.^ Diderot's 
 sister also exhibited many traits in common with her brother: 
 
 II avait une soeur d'un caractere original, d'un coeur excellent, brave fille 
 qui ne se maria point pour mieux servir son pere, "vive, agissante, gaie, 
 decidee, prompte a s'offenser, lente a revenir, sans souci ni sur le present ni 
 sur Tavenir, ... libre dans ses actions, plus libre encore dans ses propos: une 
 espece de Diogbne femelle.'^ On entrevoit en quoi Diderot tenait d'elle, et en 
 quoi il en differait: elle etait la branche restee rude et sauvageonne, lui le 
 rameau greffe, cultive, adouci, epanoui.s 
 
 M. Couhnann had a beautiful and accomphshed sister, evidently of the 
 same stock as himself,^ and Ernest Renan's sister Henriette was Hke a 
 second mother to him and shared in many of his quaUties.^ Perhaps 
 the best case of all is that of the De Guerins, Maurice and Eugenie, where 
 the latter actually shared her brother's genius and exercised a genuine 
 and traceable spiritual and intellectual influence upon him.^ 
 
 There are perhaps not so many cases in which Sainte-Beuve finds 
 light thrown upon a genius by the study of a brother. The first and 
 
 * Ibid.f p. 323. s Ibid., Ill, 294. 
 
 ' Ibid., IX, 477. ^Nouveaux lundis, IX, 137. 
 
 3 Cf . " Scientific Criticism," p. 36. ^ im., II, 385. 
 
 * Causeries du lundi, VI, 256. ^ Causeries du lundi, XII, 235 ff. 
 
I20 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 classic instance is, however, that of Boileau, in which Sainte-Beuve 
 offers the two brothers of "the lawgiver of Parnassus" as examples 
 and proof of his theory:^ "La nature avait combine en Despreaux les 
 traits de I'un et de I'autre" (of his two brothers), but nature has added 
 to Boileau himself the element of genius. This idea interested Sainte- 
 Beuve so much that he develops it in another passage at some length.* 
 He studies first Gilles Boileau, avocat et rimeur, who lacked only solidity 
 and taste to be like his great brother: then he studies Jacques Boileau, 
 "dit I'Abbe Boileau, ... qui par ses calembours et ses gaietes, me fait assez 
 I'effet d'un Despreaux en facetie et en belle humeur." He sums up: 
 "II me semble que la nature ... essayait deja un premier crayon de Nicolas 
 quand elle crea Gilles ... puis elle fit Jacques ... Gilles est Vehauchey 
 Jacques est la charge^ Nicolas est le portrait.'^^ He draws an outline 
 portrait of Diderot's brother, pointing out what he has in common with 
 the philosopher ;4 he describes Georges de Scudery in his essay on Mile 
 de Scudery ;s the brother of Mezeray is studied to show certain pecuUari- 
 ties of the more famous man and to illuminate certain traits of his 
 character.^ The anecdote he tells about Piron and his brothers being 
 tried out by their father is diverting and illuminating ;' but he treats 
 in a more serious vein the three Perrault brothers, the doctor, the 
 architect, and the writer, all men of genius.* On the whole he seems to 
 have found brothers important as illustrations and illuminations rather 
 than as influences. 
 
 As an example of studying the children of the person under discus- 
 sion Saint-Beuve makes much of the case of Mme de Sevigne and her 
 children, son and daughter; she "semblait d'etre dedoublee dans ses 
 deux enfants: le ChevaUer, leger, etourdi, ayant la grace, et Mme de 
 Grignan, inteUigente mais un peu froide, ayant pris pour elle la raison."' 
 He briefly adduces another in the case of the Comtesse de Fontanes, 
 and her sister — " chanoinesse, fiUe du poete qui m'a aide a mieux com- 
 prendre et a me mieux representer le poete leur pere."" Mme de Stael 
 furnishes an illuminating contrast to her mother, Mme Necker," while 
 Mme Girardin and the Countess O'Donnell aid in explaining their mother, 
 Mme Sophie Gay." More striking and more detailed than any of these 
 
 » Nouveaux lundis, III, 20. ' Nouveaux lundis, VII, 406. 
 
 ' Causeries du lundi, VI, 496. * Causeries du lundi, V, 257. 
 
 3 Ibid.y p. 498. ' Nouveaux lundis, III, 20. 
 
 4 Ibid., Ill, 294. " Ibid., p. 21. 
 
 » Ibid., IV, 121. " Causeries du lundi, IV, 257. 
 
 « Ibid., VIII, 197. " Ibid., VI, 64. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 121 
 
 is his study of the personality of Mme Desbordes-Valmore in that of 
 her daughters Inez and Ondine: 
 
 Ondine etait poetique aussi et meme poete; elle tenait de sa mere le don 
 du chant. ... Cette charmante Ondine avait des points de ressemblance ... 
 avec sa mere. ... A la difference de sa mere qui se prodiguait a tous ... elle 
 sentait le besoin de se recueiUir, de se reserver; ... Ondine etudiait beaucoup.* 
 
 Then follows a quite detailed statement of the Hterary talents and 
 acquirements of the charming Ondine. 
 
 There is no instance in which Sainte-Beuve makes a study of unsuc- 
 cessful or merely negative kindred by way of throwing light on his 
 important personage. The psychology of his day attached no impor- 
 tance to this kind of evidence, and we could scarcely expect him to have 
 appreciated its value. 
 
 Summarizing, we conclude that it is evident from the number and 
 importance of the instances assembled that Sainte-Beuve did have the 
 principle of the study of a man's kindred always in his consciousness, and 
 he found that its appUcation constantly yielded him adequate reward. 
 
 Next in natural order is a discussion of Sainte-Beuve's dictum that 
 it is important for the critic to study the childhood, youth, and education 
 of his subject. It is easy to dispose of this in its most general aspect, 
 for never did Sainte-Beuve fail, when the scope and scheme of his essay 
 permitted it, to give attention, sometimes scrupulous attention, to the 
 educational experience of his subject. It is with intention that the 
 phrase "when the scope and scheme of his essay permitted it" is used, 
 for certain essays are concerned with the review of a single book, certain 
 others deal with an epoch or a movement in which human figures are 
 minimized. In such essays there is no invitation to consider in any 
 detail a separate man's education. But in those papers in which the 
 critic presents a man's life he invariably makes much of his youth and 
 education, both the more formal training which he derived from 
 books, masters, and schools and the informal education that came to 
 him from his physical and social environment. A few typical and 
 significant instances follow. His study of Florian's youth points out 
 those influences which helped to form the pretty talent of the fabulist: 
 he was brought up and educated in an intellectual atmosphere of wit, 
 in a social atmosphere of gentiUty, among people of gentle manners; he 
 was petted and spoiled and praised, and his dwelling in the Alps developed 
 in him "un sentiment tout nouveau, plein de fraicheur, Tamour de la 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, XII, 168. 
 
122 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 nature."' In the case of De Maistre, Sainte-Beuve says of his education 
 that **il avait ete eleve selon I'esprit de la severite antique, et il en garda 
 tou jours le cachet dans ses moeurs et dans son caractere," and then pro- 
 ceeds to show how this "premiere education pure, etroite et forte" 
 made De Maistre what he was, "comme ces chenes qui prennent pied 
 dans une terre un peu apre et qui s'enracinent plus fermement entre les 
 rochers."* A noted instance of his studies of education may be found 
 in the Taine article. Take two of the details of this study: first, the 
 early environment of Taine's childhood, in the Ardennes, educated by 
 his father and uncle, men of sterling worth and character; second, 
 his experience in the £cole Normale, which he entered in 1810, and in 
 which he spent three years. In this school in Taine's day the students 
 did most of the instructing, teaching one another in free debate, only 
 guided by the maUres de conference. Sainte-Beuve traces in much detail 
 the probable result on the young minds and the actual result on Taine: 
 
 Les avantages d'une telle palestre savante ... sont au dela de ce qu'on 
 peut dire ... et Ton salt quelle forte et brillante eUte est sortie de cette educa- 
 tion feconde, orageuse, toute frangaise. Nul, en s'6mancipant, n'y est reste 
 plus fidele que M. Taine et ne fait plus d'honneur a la severite de ses origines.^ 
 
 In his study of Cowper, Sainte-Beuve finds much explanatory material 
 in the childhood and earliest education of the poet. Cowper, deprived 
 almost in infancy of the mother who was so well equipped to train the 
 sensitive, imaginative child, fell into the hands of rigorous teachers. 
 His earliest religious instruction planted ineradicably in his consciousness 
 the terrifying images and the paralyzing doctrines of a thoroughgoing 
 Calvinistic theology. His experience in school subjected him to the 
 dreads and terrors of a cruelty exercised by severe masters and brutal 
 older boys. All these experiences co-operated with his naturally shrink- 
 ing and sensitive temperament to render him the victim, even in his 
 dreams, of nameless and ungovernable fears. Twice he was precipitated 
 into insanity by sheer fright, sheer dread of appearing in public, and all 
 his life he had recurring spells of melancholia, projecting over his life 
 the dim shadows of his childhood's experiences. This interested Sainte- 
 Beuve immensely. He translated in full Cowper's touching poem on 
 his mother's picture, and he draws in full detail the facts of Cowper's 
 childhood.4 Though we know now that Cowper's madness was tempera- 
 
 » Causeries du lundi, III, 232. ' Ibid.^ IV, 193. 3 Nouveaux lundis, VIII, 74. 
 
 ^Causeries du lundi, XI, 141. Compare Sainte-Beuve's treatment with that of 
 Thomas Wright, The Life of William Cowper (1892), pp. 59, 113, 205, 310, 450. He 
 shows that Cowper's melancholia was temperamental, and that his early experiences 
 only colored it. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 123 
 
 mental and his experiences rather the occasion than the causes of his 
 insanity, we still justify Sainte-Beuve's immense interest in his case. 
 Two more cases may be cited with profit, though the Hst could be pro- 
 longed; that of RoUin, who "etait du Pays latin,^^ and to understand 
 whom "il faut remonter a cette vie anterieure durant laquelle il s'etait 
 forme," the university hfe;^ and the second instance, that of Maurice 
 de Guerin, in whom Sainte-Beuve studies the epoque nourricUre of his 
 talent, his stay in Brittany .^ We may say then that Sainte-Beuve in 
 all those essays which took the biographical form gave special considera- 
 tion to the facts of childhood, education, and youth, in certain striking 
 instances amplifying the matter, and in a few cases, as with Taine and 
 Cowper, following in a penetrating study the effects of early experience 
 into the later life and work of his subject. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve reckons as important in the complete understanding of 
 a man the knowledge of "le premier groupe d'amis et de contemporains " 
 with whom he was associated. In a few important cases he himself 
 places the man in his group of contemporaries. He gives as examples 
 the cases of Boileau, La Fontaine, and Moliere; of Chateaubriand, 
 Fontanes, and Joubert; the reunion at Gottingen of Burger, Voss, 
 Holty, and Stolberg; the critical circle of Jeffrey in Edinburgh; the 
 society to which Thomas Moore belonged in Dublin^ — these cases he 
 cites to test his theory. When it comes to his own practice, in many 
 cases he sets the writer firmly in his group, as for example the etcher 
 Gavarni: 
 
 Lui aussi, il etait de ce groupe d'artistes chercheurs, voues a la produc- 
 tion feconde, a la renovation de I'art dans tous les genres, et dent la naissance, 
 remontant aux premieres annees du siecle, a ete comme proclamee a son de 
 trompe dans ce vers celebre: "Le siecle avait deux ans." ... Variez le chiffre 
 ... et vous aurez, en sept ou huit ans, toute la couvee reunie, tout le groupe.^ 
 
 Another example is that of Maurice de Guerin: "Ne le 5 aout 1810 il 
 appartenait a cette seconde generation du siecle lequel n'avait plus deux 
 ou trots ans, mais bien dix ou onze lorsqu'il produisait cette volee nouvelle 
 des Musset, des Montalambert, des Guerin; je joins expres ces noms."s 
 A little later in the century Theophile Gautier and the Jeunes France 
 were occupied d epater le bourgeois when in 1833 he, with Camille Rogier, 
 Gerard de Nerval, Arsene Houssaye, Bouchardy, Celestin Nanteuil, 
 Jean Duseigneur, Petrus Borel, Theophile Dondey (called O'Neddy), 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, VI, 262. 
 
 ^ Ibid., XV, 17. 4 lUd., VI, 143. 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, III, 21. s Causeries du lundi, XV, 3. 
 
124 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 and Auguste Maquet, used to gather every evening in the impasse du 
 Doyenne J The group with which Ampere was connected in his youth — 
 Sautelet, Frank Carre, Jules Bastide, Albert Stapfer — all read Obermann 
 and all suffered from his spiritual malady.' Taine's contemporaries 
 at the ficole Normale were, among others, Edmond About, Prevost- 
 Paradol, Weiss, sharing a common interest and a common vocation.^ 
 At the time of Duclos the literary world was divided between the two 
 great cafes, Procope and Gradot. Duclos patronized the former with 
 Boindin, I'Abbe Terrasson, Freret, and Piron.^ Another instance of 
 Sainte-Beuve's studying le premier milieu is in the case of Parny, who 
 came to Paris in 1770 and there joined 
 
 una petite coterie de jeunes gens ... qui soupaient, aimaient, faisaient des 
 vers, et ne prenaient la vie a son debut que comme une legere et riante orgie 
 ... mais le propre de cette aimable societe ... c'est que la distinction, I'elegance, 
 le gout de Tesprit surnageaient toujours jusque dans le vin et les plaisirs.^ 
 
 Joubert in his youth was a member of a group "ce qu'il fit en ces annees 
 de jeunesse pent se resumer en ce seul mot. II causa avec les gens 
 de lettres en renom; il connut Marmontel, La Harpe, D'Alembert: il 
 connut surtout Diderot ... I'infiuence de ce dernier sur lui fut grande."^ 
 It is to be noted that in the former cases Sainte-Beuve mentions the 
 volee of kindred spirits, the common children of an epoch; while in the 
 case of Joubert the names he mentions are of those friends who exercised 
 a formative influence on him. He says furthermore of these friends 
 of Joubert that "ils se sentaient nes pour une ceuvre commune. "^ 
 
 It is desirable to study a writer, says Sainte-Beuve, at his debut, 
 at the moment of his first success, when he has declared himself, but 
 before he has acquired any mannerisms. This is on the whole the item in 
 his program that Sainte-Beuve most frequently uses, since he holds it 
 important to study a man's first work, analyzing and estimating it at the 
 moment of his entry into the lists. Especially significant are his studies 
 of the first appearance of Montalambert,^ of Mme Recamier,' of Adrienne 
 Lecouvreur,^° of Lacordaire," of Alfred de Musset," of Mazarin," of 
 Leclerq.^4 Indeed, in a large group of biographical essays taken at random 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, VI, 277. * Ihid.^ p. 81. 
 
 » Ibid., XIII, 192. 9 Ibid., p. 127. 
 
 3 md., VIII, 72. " Ibid., p. 204. 
 
 < Causeries du lundi, IX, 208. " Ibid., p. 226. 
 
 s Ibid., XV, 286. " Ibid., p. 297. 
 
 <>Ibid., I, 161. , ^Ibid., 11, 250. 
 
 7 IHd. , »< Ibid., Ill, 546. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 125 
 
 from the two series it was found that nearly all gave attention to the 
 literary debut of the subject, many of them emphasizing it. Among those 
 that emphasize the author's first success and then trace its influence in his 
 later life notable ones are the essays on Parny/ on Pariset,^ on Alfred de 
 Vigny (in this case very carefully) ;^ he makes much of Taine's work on 
 La Fontaine, saying that it forestalls most that was best in his later 
 work.4 Perhaps the best example of his use of this principle is his 
 study of the youth of Moreau before he became spoiled and pessimistic 
 by contact with the world :s "II y eut en ces annees un Hegesippe 
 Moreau primitif, pur, naturel, adolescent, non irrite, point irreligieux, 
 dans toute la fleur de sensibilite et de bonte, anime de tous les instincts 
 genereux, et non encore atteint des maladies du siecle."^ In the case 
 of Magnin, Sainte-Beuve reiterates his principle: " Je vise toujours ... k 
 juger les ecrivains d'apres leur force initiale et en les debarrassant de 
 ce qu'ils ont de surajoute ou d'acquis," and then goes into a long descrip- 
 tion of the youthful qualities of the famous editor of the Globe.'' One 
 more striking example cannot be passed over, that of the youth of 
 Corneille and his first great success: "Quant a Comeille, il n'y a qu'une 
 maniere de le bien apprecier, c'est de le voir a son moment, a son debut. 
 ... Reportons nous a I'heure unique du Cid et a ce qu'elle inaugura. 
 C'est le point de vue veritable d'oii il convient d'envisager Corneille";* 
 and he devotes four essays to the study of this sublime work. 
 
 We might almost predict, knowing Sainte-Beuve's balanced and 
 logical mind, that he would say next that we should know a man's mind 
 at the close of his working life, at the moment "oil il se g^te, oil il se 
 corrompt, ou il dechoit, ou il devie,"'' at the moment of his professional 
 and artistic dissolution. He describes Mme du Deflfand, full of humor 
 and gaiety, "telle elle etait a I'age ou expirent les derniers rayons de la 
 jeunesse,"" but she fought against oncoming old age. Mme Recamier, 
 on the contrary, he finds, did not struggle, but accepted her fate grace- 
 fully, "quand [elle] vit s'avancer I'heure ou la beaute baisse et p^Ut 
 elle fit ce que bien peu de femmes savent faire; elle ne lutta point; elle 
 accepta avec gout les premieres marques du temps,"" and Sainte-Beuve 
 praises her highly for this proof and exhibition of her philosophy and good 
 
 ^ Ibid., XV, 286. 
 
 * Ibid., I, 401, 411. 7 Nouveaux lundis, V, 446. 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, VI, 403. * Ibid., VII, 220. 
 
 4 Ibid., Vin, 73. 9 Ibid., Ill, 36. 
 
 s Causeries du lundi, IV, 53. " Causeries du lundi, I, 418. 
 
 ^ Ibid. " Ibid.y p. 132. 
 
126 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 taste. The fabulist Florian allowed himself to exaggerate some of his 
 quaUties in his old age/ Mile de Scudery and Theodore Leclerq are 
 taken up at this interesting moment of their careers also.^ In no case 
 are the inferences as clear and instructive as the program itself would 
 lead one to expect, and it seems that Sainte-Beuve scarcely made the 
 most of his opportunity in respect to this aspect of his criticism. He 
 seems never to have been as much interested in the investigation of the 
 qualities exhibited in a man's latest work as in those of his earliest. 
 
 The next step in Sainte-Beuve's ritual of criticism carries us into a 
 man's private and intimate life. Here he says that there are certain 
 questions we must ask, the answers to which throw essential Ught 
 on the nature and quaUty of a man's character.^ The first of these 
 questions is, "Que pensait-il de la religion?" Unless the occasion 
 demanded, as in the treatment of a rehgious philosopher or that of an 
 abbe or a preacher, Sainte-Beuve did not often press or answer this 
 question. He throws in a sentence or two, such as this on Barnave: 
 " Ses parents professaient la religion reformee, mais il ne parait y avoir 
 rien puise, en aucun temps, qu'une certaine habitude reflechie et grave. "-» 
 The Abbe GaUani he describes as essentially the rehgious philosopher 
 of the eighteenth century .s The case, however, of Cowper remains the 
 most instructive because his fatalistic Calvinism colored his whole Ufe 
 and work.^ It is scarcely necessary to cite the instances of Pascal, 
 Flechier, Bourdaloue, Francois de Sales, Fenelon, Bossuet, Rousseau, 
 and the philosophers of the nineteenth century, Saint-Simon, Lacordaire, 
 Montalambert and the rest, in which the subject necessitates or suggests 
 the treatment of reUgion. However, aside from those mentioned, 
 scarcely any are of first-rate importance or are worked out in detail. He 
 more often mentions the religion of the women he criticizes than that 
 of the men. 
 
 The second question Sainte-Beuve would ask is, "Comment etait ... 
 il affecte du spectacle de la nature ?" He answers this question in the 
 case of Maurice de Guerin, saying that the poet identified himself 
 with nature and felt himself at one with her: " Tous les accidents 
 naturels qui passent, une pluie d'avril, une bourrasque de mars, une 
 tendre et capricieuse nuaison de mai, tout lui parle, tout le saisit et 
 I'enleve; il a beau s'arreter en de courts instants."^ Mme de Motteville 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, III, 247. 
 
 » Ibid., IV, 139; III, 547. 5 Ibid., p. 429. 
 
 3 Cf. supra, p. 38. ^ Ibid., XI, 146. 
 
 4 Causeries du lundi, II, 24. ' Ibid., XV, 11. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 127 
 
 **avait puise dans sa belle Normandie Tamour de la campagne et de 
 la nature, mais elle n'en savait pas jouir en courant";^ Volney was given 
 to philosophizing in the manner of the eighteenth-century philosophers 
 in the presence of Alpine peaks f Cowper was a lover of the countryside, 
 amant de la nature, knowing each and every one of her aspects and moods ;^ 
 even in Flechier ''on retrouve, sous I'expression artificielle, un certain 
 gout et un sentiment fleuri de la nature. "^ One need but touch on what 
 he says of Bernardin de Saint-Pierres and Rousseau*^ in respect to their 
 appreciation of natural beauty — any critic writing of them would be 
 obhged to discuss so saUent a characteristic; but of peculiar interest is 
 the passage on Chapelle and Bachaumont wherein he practically sums 
 up the attitude of the seventeenth century toward nature and country 
 things, contrasting it with that of the ancients. Their travels through 
 the country were less voyages of discovery than " travestiments et 
 parodies de la nature."^ Only La Fontaine is at home in the country, 
 the first author before Rousseau with a genuine sentiment of nature.* 
 The classical attitude is aptly summed up in Malherbe: "II a tres peu 
 d'images empruntees directement a la nature; c'est un citadin, un homme 
 de cabinet."!' 
 
 The third intimate question for Sainte-Beuve is, "Comment se 
 comportait ... il sur Particle des femmes?" Sainte-Beuve esteemed 
 this an important question, the answer to which revealed more of the 
 man's personaUty than either of the preceding philosophic queries. 
 It chimed in with his practical bent, and then, besides, it expressed some- 
 thing very influential in his thinking; he had what amounted to an 
 obsession on some aspects of the sex question. His subconscious, and, 
 for the matter of that, his superconscious, opinion was that men are 
 loose when they are not licentious in matters of sex, and women but 
 little better. As a matter of course he discusses in a man's life-history 
 his loves proper and those ilUcit, and when he comes upon a man who 
 has had no illicit love affairs of the kind that he was most interested in 
 he remarks upon the fact with disappointed astonishment. Such a case 
 is that of Joubert, whose love for Mme de Beaumont was of the kind and 
 degree known as Platonic, but which Sainte-Beuve regarded as most 
 
 » Ihid., V, 180. » Ihid., VII, 400. 3 md., XI, 179. ^ IhU., XV, 403. 
 
 ^Ihid., VI, 416; Portraits Utter aires, II, iii. 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, VIII, 417; I, 368. ' Ihid., XI, 46-47* 
 
 8/6i^., I, 368, 461; 111,89; XI, 48. 
 
 ^Nouveaux lundis, XIII, 413. 
 
128 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 potent in its influence upon the character of Joubert.^ A similar case 
 was that of Vauvenargues, who was constantly irritated by the refusal 
 of women to remain on a plane of friendship: "Les femmes ne peuvent 
 comprendre, dit-il, qu'il y ait des hommes desinteresses a leur egard."" 
 Nor did Saint-Simon, young-old man that he was, ever enjoy feminine 
 society .3 These are the kind of men that surprised and baffled Sainte- 
 Beuve; most of those whom he discussed were influenced by women — 
 some of them by many women; the currents of the lives of many of 
 them had been altered by their experiences in love. In half the biographi- 
 cal essays these relations of men and women are studied; there is the 
 essay on Chaulieu who had several mistresses,'' each of whom was 
 influential, and those on the various kings of France, Louis XIV,s 
 Francois I, and Henri IV.^ The instance of Roederer is interesting, the 
 feminine influence here being of a different sort: 
 
 Les femmes jouerent toujours un grand r61e dans la pensee de Roederer; 
 il les aimait ... pour leur esprit, pour leur conversation, pour le charme qu'elles 
 mettaient dans la societe, et pour la part de culture qu'elles apporterent dans 
 le formation de la langue.^ 
 
 Retz "etait extremement libertin,"* Rivarol married but separated from 
 his wife, took with him in his travels a certain " Manette, qui joue un 
 certain role dans sa vie intime"; Sainte-Beuve says he speaks of this 
 Manette to show "comment Rivarol n'avait point dans ses mceurs 
 toute la gravite qui convient a ceux qui defendent si hautement les 
 principes primordiaux de la societe," etc.** He follows with interest 
 the marital difficulties of La Harpe^° and the amorous intrigues of 
 Patru." The history of Hegesippe Moreau was different; he had had 
 a first love, "une soeur," as he called her, who retained his image pure 
 and clean in her heart, and remained always to him a reminder of his 
 old and better self, though she could not stay long with him to prevent 
 his becoming embittered with life. He needed a woman's influence: 
 
 II lui fallait, comme a tous les poetes doux et faibles, sauvages et timides, 
 tendres et reconnaissants, il lui aurait fallu une femme, une soeur, une mere, 
 qui melee et confundue avec I'amante, I'etit dispense de tout, hormis de chanter, 
 d'aimer et de r^ver." 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, I, 163. Joubert's supposed Puritanism has recently been 
 disproved by A. Beaunier. i 
 
 ^ lUd., Ill, 139. ^ Ibid., VII, 436; VIII, 400. 
 
 3 Ibid., XV, 430. 7 Ibid., VIII, 387. " Ibid., p. 107. 
 
 4 Ibid., 1, 466. 8 Ibid., V, 43. " Ibid., p. 279. 
 
 5 Ibid., Ill, 451 Q. 9 lUd., p. 77. " Ibid., IV, S4, 61. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 129 
 
 Another of the questions the answer to which Sainte-Beuve con- 
 siders revelatory of character and experience is, "Comment se com- 
 portait-il sur I'article de I'argent? £tait-il riche ? Etait-il pauvre ? " 
 But he himself discussed this matter in very few cases; there is a matter 
 of only twenty-five essays in which he handles it at all. In the Talley- 
 rand he says: 
 
 L'argent tint de tout temps la plus grande place dans les preoccupations 
 de M. de Talleyrand. Et puisque j'y suis, je ne me refuserai pas de couler a fond 
 cet article de cupidite honteuse dent le personnage politique en lui a tant 
 souffert, et s'est trouve si atteint, si gate au coeur et veritablement aviU.^ 
 
 Then follows a study of this passion with anecdotes to illustrate the 
 points. He describes the ruses to which need of money may drive an 
 artist: "L'argent tourmentait beaucoup Bernis," who was driven to 
 many subterfuges to obtain the money he needed for his distinguished 
 social duties.^ Malherbe was a cautious bourgeois in money matters,^ 
 and of Raynouard "on disait qu'il etait tres parcimonieux,"^ but he 
 was very Uberal to his own family. More than once he notes that lack 
 of money produced certain traits of character and conditioned experi- 
 ence, as in the case, once more, of Moreau, who was embittered by 
 poverty: "Moreau ressentait vivement les tortures secretes de cette 
 pauvrete que La Bruyere a si bien peinte, et qui rend I'homme honteux, 
 de peur d'etre ridicule, "s 
 
 Sainte-Beuve would have the critic discover and present the personal 
 appearance, the physical presence, of his subject, with his state of health, 
 his daily regime, and he himself takes pains to do this for his own sub- 
 jects, especially in those cases where there was something unusual or 
 anything that was likely to react upon the mental life. For example, 
 the Abbe GaUani was not more than four feet and a half in height, with 
 "un petit corps tres bien taille et tres joli, ce n'etait qu'esprit, grace, 
 sailUe et sel pur," and at the same time so wise and so learned as to merit 
 the name of Harlequin-Plato;^ Mirabeau "etait d'une atroce laideur," 
 pock-marked and broad-faced, but with beautiful eyes and an immense 
 and abounding physical force ;' Benjamin Constant "etait un beau 
 grand jeune homme, d'un blond hardi, muscadin, a Fair candide," etc.;* 
 the feminine prettiness of the Abbe de Choisy contributed largely to 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, XII, 54. s Ihid., IV, 57. 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, VIII, 17. ^ Ibid., II, 421. 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, XIII, 394. 7 Ibid., IV, 4. 
 
 4 Causeries du lundi, V, 21. ^ Nouveaux lundis, I, 415. 
 
I30 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 making him effeminate;^ he discusses the personal appearance of Retz,* 
 Le Brun-Pindar,3 Stendhal,^ Saint-Martin,^ not to mention others, for 
 indeed he rarely neglects this point. 
 
 At times the bad health of the author reacts upon his work, as 
 in the case of Moreau, whose sickness and physical misery left him des 
 douloureux souvenirs^ reflected in his verse.^ This had something to 
 do with Pope's poetry also,^ with the social and reUgious philosophy of 
 Saint-Martin.^ It is needless to cite more instances, as they are to be 
 found in almost all the biographical essays. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve very often has something to tell his readers concerning 
 the habits, the personal regimen, of his subject, his manilre journali^re de 
 vivre. He esteemed such matters very illuminating and is fond of the 
 anecdote that records details of habit and personal peculiarities. ' Most 
 of the critics of Sainte-Beuve have noted and emphasized this. He 
 notes, for example, that Michaud never cleaned his nails: "II les avait 
 fort noires les ongles";^'* he tells of Magnin that he used to put his grand- 
 mother to bed at a certain hour every night. He tells anecdotes of 
 Chateaubriand that would leave his admirer no shred of illusion." 
 Worth quoting is this, "qu'on me permette k ce propos une remarque 
 sur le regime et la diete de Bernis; ce regime n'etait pas ce qu'on pourrait 
 croire." Though he had a very good cook and fed his guests very well, 
 he himself "ne mangeait que des petits plats de legumes."" La Harpe's 
 gourmandise is described,^^ and also what Mme Mere du Regent liked to 
 eat, sausages and sauerkraut, as it happened,^'' and Talleyrand's regimen 
 is given in detail.^s An interesting instance is that of the Countess of 
 Albany .^^ Examples of this nature can be enumerated almost without 
 end, but it is not worth while merely to multiply them when it is clear 
 that Sainte-Beuve fulfilled his own requirements in respect to showing 
 the manner of the daily Ufe of his subject.^? His, indeed, was a gossip- 
 ing, human sort of a mind. He delighted in these realistic anecdotes, 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, III, 428. s Ibid., X, 244. 
 
 ' Ibid., V, 43. ^ Ibid., IV, 59. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 145. ' Nouveaux lundis, VIII, 109. 
 
 * Ibid., IX, 341. * Causeries du lundi, X, 244. 
 
 ' Babbitt, Masters of Modern French Criticism, p. 182. 
 " Causeries du lundi, XI, 486. 
 " Saintsbury, History of Criticism, III, 182. 
 
 " Causeries du lundi, VIII, 49. ^^ Nouveaux lundis, XII, 125. 
 
 »3 Ibid., V, 135. '^ Ibid., V, 437- 
 
 '4 Ibid., DC, 43. »7 Cf. supra, p. 38. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 131 
 
 and one may fairly wonder if he were always conscious of a critical 
 purpose when he was retelling them. 
 
 It will be remembered that there are several questions to be espe- 
 cially applied to women. Concerning any woman to be studied the 
 critic should ask, Was she pretty ? Was she ever in love ? If she was 
 religious, what was the determining motive of her conversion?^ In 
 the large majority of his essays on women Sainte-Beuve himself answers 
 the first two of these questions, and occasionally he answers all three, 
 as in the case of Mme Swetchine,^ but he rarely does more with the third 
 question than to say perfunctorily that she was a devout Catholic, or 
 a sincere Protestant, or had no religion. Of descriptions of personal 
 appearance there are many: "On se demande d'abord de Mme de 
 Motteville, comme de toute femme, si elle etait belle, et il parait bien 
 qu'elle retait";^ this seems definitely to indicate that Sainte-Beuve 
 always intended to ask this question about every woman he chose to 
 study. Other examples are those of Mile de La Valliere,^ Adrienne 
 Lecouvreur,5 Mme de Latour-Franqueville,^ Gabrielle d'Estrees,^ Mme de 
 VerdeHn,^ Mme Dacier,^ Marie Antoinette," Mme Recamier" — these 
 are a few among the many that might be cited. As to the second prob- 
 lem in which Sainte-Beuve especially delighted, he practically always 
 attempts to answer, when he is writing of a woman, the question 
 whether or not she was ever in love. Examples are in the essays on Mme 
 Swetchine," on Julie de Lespinasse, whom he follows through two different 
 love affairs,^3 on Mme d'Epinay, who loved Francueil and later Grimm,'^ 
 on Mme Recamier.^s He makes much of the women who have been mis- 
 tresses — Gabrielle d'Estrees, Mme de Maintenon, Ninon de L^Enclos, 
 Mile de Lespinasse — the Hst is lengthy. As to the last question. What 
 was the determining motive of a woman's conversion? we have said 
 already that he considered this in only a few cases; two are worth citing, 
 Joseph de Maistre's conversion of Mme Swetchine which Sainte- 
 Beuve says "est devenue litterairement un fait eclatant,"^^ and that of 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, I, 213. ' Causeries du lundi, IX, 512. 
 
 ' Ibid. " Nouveaux lundis, X, 343. 
 
 3 Causeries du lundi, V, 172. " Ibid., Ill, 13, etc. 
 
 4 Ibid., Ill, 453. " Ibid., I, 213. 
 
 s Ibid., I, 203. . ^3 Causeries du lundi, II, 125 ff. 
 
 ^ Ibid., II, 69. ^4 Ibid., II, 200. 
 
 ' Ibid., VIII, 403. ^5 Nouveaux lundis. III, 89. 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis, IX, 411. ^^ Causeries du lundi, XV, 82. 
 
132 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 Mme Dacier and her husband, who embraced Cathohcism from motives 
 of expediency and were suitably rewarded by Louis XIV.^ 
 
 There can be no question of Sainte-Beuve's own use of his advice 
 that the critic should gather the testimony of a man's contemporaries 
 as to his character and conduct. He scarcely ever overlooks or neglects 
 this process. In fully three-fourths of the essays which permitted 
 this procedure he uses it. Indeed this recording of contemporary 
 testimony is so well known as a fundamental characteristic of Sainte- 
 Beuve that one need only give references to a few passages in which it 
 is effectively applied.^ 
 
 The principle that a man should be studied in his Uterary descend- 
 ants, his artistic children, Sainte-Beuve uses rarely. However, a 
 few striking cases are at hand, first as to Musset, Malherbe, and Rous- 
 seau. M. de Musset has a host of imitators, who copy what imitators 
 usually copy — ^form, surface, the "smart" tone, the sprightly gesture, 
 the dashing faults, things which he himself might be able to carry off 
 with a certain ease,^ they laboriously copy. They imitate his vocabulary, 
 they repeat the names of his girls — Manon, Ninon, Marion — his jingle 
 of courtiers and marquises. They took the form and the bad habit; but 
 the fire, the passion, the elevation, and the lyrical power they could not 
 borrow from him.4 One can detect the large amount of criticism of 
 Musset which Sainte-Beuve managed to pack into this passage, con- 
 cerned ostensibly only with his school of imitators. Similarly the dis- 
 ciples of Malherbe (Racan and Maynard) are examined as exhibiting 
 the merits and defects of their master.^ Concerning the relationship 
 of Rousseau with Lamennais, Sainte-Beuve says that passages in the 
 Songe du philosophe of Rousseau recall to him passages in Les paroles 
 d'un croyanty "II n'y a rien la qui doive etonner; le maitre, comme par 
 anticipation, s'est mis cette fois a ressembler au disciple: cela arrive 
 parfois aux maitres. Rien ne ressemble a du mauvais ou a du mediocre 
 Rousseau comme du bon Lamennais."*' He calls the authors of comedies, 
 proverbes and spectacles dans un fauteuil, disciples of Marivaux: "lis 
 ont reconnu en Marivaux un aine sinon un maitre, et lui ont rendu plus 
 d'un hommage en le rappelant ou en I'imitant";' he passes in review 
 the imitators of Chapelle and Bachaumont(Bouflers, Bertin, and others), 
 
 * Causeries du lundi, IX, 485. 
 
 ^Ibid., I, 199, 393; II» 191, 400, 423; III, 292; VIII, 131; XV, 167; Nouveaux 
 lundis, I, 203; V, 395, etc. 
 
 3 Causeries du lundi, I, 305; V, 382. 
 
 4 Ibid., I, 305. 5 Ibid., VIII, 69 ff. « Ibid., XV, 236. » Ibid., IX, 379. 
 
 I 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 133 
 
 saying: *'Ils ont tous cela de commun, de ne pas prendre la nature au 
 serieux, et de ne la regarder en sortant du cabaret ou du salon que pour 
 y mettre une grimace et de I'enluminure " ;^ Pontmartin's impoliteness 
 and excess are reflected in a disciple of his, and he would be much 
 embarrassed by ''des grossieretes de style de ce marquis-la."^ Poetry 
 in 1852, Sainte-Beuve says, is too much given to imitation; it is easy 
 to adopt the externals of a poet's manner, but then one is only a copyist: 
 "On I'etait, il y a quinze et vingt ans, lorsqu'on ramassait dans ses vers 
 les epis tombes des gerbes de Lamartine; on Test aujourd'hui quand 
 on ramasse les bouts de cigares d' Alfred de Musset."^ 
 
 In Sainte-Beuve's program for the biographical critic comes a very 
 important step, that of summing up the author and placing him in 
 his family of minds, applying to him his "appellation vraie et necessaire."^ 
 All the examples of his application of this rule are not so clear and true 
 to type as that in the Chateaubriand article, where this master is called 
 the prototype of his own Rene,5 but they are numerous and recognizable. 
 The citation of a few will suffice: M. de Feletz "me representait en 
 perfection le galant homme litteraire " ;^ Etienne Pasquier is "un 
 judicieux tempere d'aimable";' Montaigne is "notre Horace";^ 
 La Fontaine is "notre veritable Homere, THomere des Frangais, qui le 
 croirait ? c'est La Fontaine" ;'' Carrel is "le Junius de la presse frangaise." 
 Jasmin "me parait une sorte de Manzoni languedocien " ;" Halevy "^ 
 le definir poetiquement, je dirais: C'etait une abeille qui n'avait pas 
 trouve a se loger completement dans sa ruche, et qui etait en quete de 
 faire son miel quelque part ailleurs";" Gourville is "le type le plus 
 complet et le plus parfait de I'homme d'affaires " ;^3 the Due d'Antin is 
 " le parfait courtisan " ;^4 Stendhal is named " un hussard romantique " ;^s 
 Bossuet "c'est le genie hebreu, etendu, feconde par le Christianisme " ;^^ 
 the role of M. Denne-Baron is summed up thus: "II a ete un pre- 
 curseur."^7 Other summaries are not so epigrammatic in tone and deal 
 rather more with qualities and habits of mind. Two will be enough to 
 
 ^ Ihid., XI, 50. 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis, II, 14. " Ibid., VI, 127. 
 
 3 Causeries du lundi, V, 387. " Ibid., IV, 322. 
 
 4 Nouveaux lundis, III, 22. " Nouveaux lundis, II, 243. 
 
 s Causeries du lundi, I, 452. ^^ Causeries du lundi, V, 360. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 371. ^^Ibid., p. 479. 
 
 V Ibid., Ill, 268. ^5 ibid.^ IX, 303. 
 
 nbid., IV, 95. '^ Ibid., X,iSi. 
 
 9 Ibid., VII, 519. ^7 Ibid., p. 384. 
 
134 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 show the tone of these. Of Adrienne Lecouvreur he says that her 
 "principal merite, au theatre comme dans la vie, a ete d'etre la verit6, 
 la nature, le contraire de la declamation meme. Ces simples mots 
 resument le caractere de Mile Lecouvreur";^ and finally as to Leconte 
 de Lisle: "C'est un contemplatif arme de couleurs et de sons, mais las 
 et ennuye du spectacle m^me, comme si regarder etait deja trop accorder 
 a Paction."^ As may be seen, some of these judgments and summaries 
 are mere implications and adumbrations, but the literary phraseology 
 does not conceal their real nature. 
 
 This placing of the author in his category or his class is largely 
 determined by two things, the discovery of his famille d^esprits and the 
 isolation of his trait saillant or his faculte maitresse. It is necessary to 
 distinguish between the trait saillant, the faculty maitresse, and the 
 passion maitresse or dominante.^ It seems to be a matter of degree; the 
 exaggeration of the trait saillant leads to its becoming the facultS maitresse 
 and the exaggeration to the point of madness of the faculte maitresse 
 leads to its becoming the passion maitresse, which is no longer under 
 control. An example or two of each will suffice. The trait saillant of 
 Louis XIV was le bon sens,^ in Montluc it was the love of arms and war ,5 
 in Raynouard it was the fact that he came from the south of France,*^ 
 Hamilton was above all an observer.' The faculte maitresse is the exag- 
 geration of the trait saillant. Sainte-Beuve, being the student of char- 
 acter, the analyst, rather than the historian of action, preferred to deal 
 with the dominant trait while it still was a quaUty of character rather 
 than a principle of action. Therefore we find many studies of facultis 
 maitr esses and fewer of passions maitr esses. The faculte maitresse of 
 Marie Antoinette in her last days resolved itself into mother-love, the 
 determining motive of her every action;^ Horace Vernet had a genius 
 for painting and could not have helped being an artist even though he 
 had struggled against it;^ MoUere started in the theater when he was 
 the merest child: "La vocation I'emporte, et le demon fait rage en lui 
 pour ne plus cesser, ... le theatre avait besoin de lui, et il avait besoin 
 du theatre."" Racine's leaning toward the theater did indeed pass over 
 from a dominant trait into a passion maitresse.^^ . The factdti maitresse 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, I, 220. 
 
 ' Nouveaux lundis, II, 249. ^ Ibid., I, 96. 
 
 3 See supra, p. 41. « Ibid., IV, 342. 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, V, 314. » Nouveaux lundis, V, 43. 
 
 5 Ibid., XI, 56. «> Ibid., p. 270. 
 
 « Ibid., V, 2. " Ibid., Ill, 59- 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 135 
 
 of Mme de Genlis was pedagogy: "Le gout d'enseigner ne doit point 
 se considerer chez elle comme un travers, c'etait le fond meme et la 
 direction de sa nature";^ Rigault too '^etait ne professeur; il etait la 
 conune chez lui, il y allait comme on va a la danse";^ Eugene Gandar 
 also shared this call to be a teacher.^ Fontenelle shared one thing 
 with his great kinsman Corneille, intelligence: "Or, dans Fontenelle, 
 cette partie d'esprit pur et de bel-esprit sans aucun reste de chaleur 
 composa tout rhomme";^ as for Mile de Lespinasse: "Ainsi tout pour 
 elle se rapporte a la passion, tout I'y ramene, et c'est la passion seule 
 qui donne la clef de ce cceur etrange et de cette destinee si combattue'*;^ 
 and Bourdaloue felt inclined to the priesthood from his infancy: *'Le 
 merite de Bourdaloue s'annonja des I'enfance."^ A striking instance 
 of the self-determination of a man's category Sainte-Beuve finds in 
 Piron, who was, he says, a sort of machine for making epigrams: "Talle- 
 mant portait des anecdotes, Petrarque distillait des sonnets. La Fontaine 
 poussait des fables, Piron eternuait des epigrammes — eternuer, c'etait 
 son mot a lui. Eh bien! on ne retient pas un eternument."? Sainte- 
 Beuve's interest and faith in the faculte maitresse are testified to by the 
 fact that in about half of the essays on persons he isolates and discusses 
 this quaUty, generally using it to place the person in the group or class 
 to which he belongs. Of the passion maitresse which amounts to obses- 
 sion Sainte-Beuve cites several examples in giving his and Pope's 
 theory* but finds no occasion to study extensively this aspect of madness 
 in any of the writers he takes up. 
 
 Of the conception of families of minds Sainte-Beuve does not make 
 so frequent or so practical a use. It is not an idea that admits of scien- 
 tific or even definite delimitations. It was indeed something that, while 
 it was very real, remained a bit mystic and intangible. Still Sainte- 
 Beuve had it in his consciousness, and again and again it rises above the 
 threshold to figure in the analysis of the person under consideration. 
 We have a few instances in which he definitely assigns a man to his 
 famille d^esprits. Renan, for example, is given a place in the ranks of 
 the high intelligences, among the Montesquieus, the Buffons, the 
 Rousseaus of the French nature rather than among the Chaulieus, the 
 Pirons, the Voltaires, assigning the one group to the GalHc, the other to 
 the Celtic, strain: "Dans un pays comme la France, il importe qu'il 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, III, 37. s Ibid., II, 141. 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, I, 259. ^ Ibid., IX, 264. 
 
 3 Ibid., XII, 341. ' Nouveaux lundis, VII, 409. 
 
 4 Causeries du lundi, III, 316. * Ibid., VIII, 129. 
 
136 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 vienne de temps en temps des intelligences elevees et serieuses qui fassent 
 contrepoids a I'esprit malin, moqueur, sceptique, incredule, du fonds de 
 la race; et M. Renan est une de ces intelligences."^ The distinction in 
 French literature between the Gaulois strain and the other, which he 
 sometimes called the Celtic strain, he recurs to in other places. Of the 
 opposite family to Renan is Beranger, assigned to la race gauloise: 
 ** Voyez Voltaire, Moliere, La Fontaine, et Rabelais et Villon ses aieux."^ 
 Saint Evremond "nous represente toute une race de voluptueux dis- 
 tingues et disparus, qui n'ont laisse qu'un nom: M. de Cramail, Mitton, 
 M. de Treville; mais il est plus complet que pas un."^ There remains 
 the case of Cowper: 
 
 II faut reconnaitre les diverses families d'esprits et de talents. ... Cowper 
 est le poete de la famille, quoiqu'il n'ait ete ni epoux ni pere. ... Les poetes 
 ourageux et hardis comme Byron, les natures mondaines et vives comme Thomas 
 Moore ou HazUtt devaient assez peu I'aimer," etc* 
 
 This completes the examination of Sainte-Beuve's critical practice 
 as concerns those biographical, as it were biological, dicta which he formu- 
 lated for the typical procedure of the critic who would make a scientific 
 approach to his subject. We have seen that while he did not consistently 
 and constantly apply all the precepts in any one essay, he had them con- 
 stantly in mind, and in specific cases he found in one or more of these 
 formulae, these avenues of approach, the road into the very heart of his 
 subject. 
 
 It remains to investigate Sainte-Beuve's practice in the aesthetic, 
 the artistic, the Hterary treatment of a subject. The principles upon 
 which he himself says that a judgment should be based have been drawn 
 together from his own work; these fundamental universal principles 
 are taste, truth, tradition, logic, consistency, and, occupying a minor 
 and by no means so stable a place, morality.^ 
 
 But before examining his practice it would perhaps be well to find 
 an answer to the question, Does Sainte-Beuve render judgments, does 
 he habitually or often give or adumbrate a final appraisement^ or advance 
 an absolute evaluation? Seeking an answer to this question we will 
 divide the essays into three groups on somewhat arbitrary fines: 
 (i) essays dealing with periods or epochs, such as *'De la critique Ht- 
 teraire sous Tempire,"? "De la poesie en 1865";* (2) articles devoted to 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, II, 399. ' See supra, pp. 54 ff. 
 
 " Causeries du lundi, II, 291. * See supra, pp. 46 ff. 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, XIII, 455. ' Causeries du lundi, I, 60. 
 
 < Causeries du lundi, XI, 186. * Nouveaux lundis, X, 113. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 137 
 
 the life and works of one man, which constitute the large mass of Sainte- 
 Beuve's work and compose his characteristic production; (3) essays 
 dealing with a single work, such as those on Flaubert's Madame Bovary 
 and Salammbo and on Feuillet's SibylleJ- 
 
 That he considers it possible to pass final judgment on an entire 
 age is witnessed by the fact that in studying the "Mai de Rene" he 
 says that there are times when a whole age suffers from some such 
 spiritual malady, and he calls Baudelaire's sadness "le dernier sympt6me 
 d'une generation malade."^ Three other sweeping judgments are strik- 
 ing: one on the seventeenth century, the eloquent passage beginning, 
 "Saluons et reconnaissons aujourd'hui la noble et forte harmonie du 
 grand siecle,"^ and leading up to the domination of Boileau in the Htera- 
 ture of the age ; the second passage is his comprehensive summary of the 
 realism of Flaubert and Zola, pointing out its faults and shortcomings, 
 condemning it on the grounds that it provides no place for transcending 
 facts and therefore fails to be art;^ and, finally, his opinion on the state 
 of poetry in 1852, saying that there is plenty of intelligence and skill 
 but no inspiration. s 
 
 Conclusive and apparently final judgments upon persons, individual 
 authors, or thinkers are common enough. A few of the most interesting 
 examples will indicate the scope and certainty of Sainte-Beuve's judg- 
 ments. Two occur on Beranger : " Pour ne pas abuser des termes, Byron, 
 Milton, Pindare restent seule les vraiment grands poetes, et Beranger 
 n'esi qu'un poete charmant. Telle est ma conviction, que je viens de me 
 confirmer a moi par une entiere lecture";^ and the other: "Resume! 
 Beranger, comme poete, est un des plus grands, non le plus grand de 
 notre age ... dans cette perfection tant celebree, il entre aussi bien du 
 melange. Compare aux poetes d'autrefois, il est du groupe second et 
 encore si rare des Burns, des Horace, des La Fontaine"; but they are 
 higher in rank than he is because they never gave themselves over to 
 merely partisan feeling.? His summary of Rousseau contains both 
 praise and blame: 
 
 Je n'ai pu indiquer qu'en courant dans I'auteur des Confessions les grands 
 cotes par lesquels il demeure un maitre, que saluer cette fois le createur de la 
 reverie, celui qui nous a inocule le sentiment de la nature et le sens de la reaUte, 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, XIII, 346; Nouveaux lundis, IV, 31; V, i. 
 
 ' Carres pondance, I, 220. s Causeries du lundi, V, 399. 
 
 3 Causeries du lundi, VI, 511. ^ Ibid., II, 298. 
 
 4 Nouveaux lundis, IV, 136. ' Ibid., p. 305. 
 
138 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 le pere de la Ktterature d'intime et de la peinture d'interieure. Quel dommage 
 que Torgueil misanthropique s'y mele, et que des tons cyniques fassent tache 
 au milieu de tant de beautes charmantes et solides."^ 
 
 The judgments on George Sand, Merimee, Eugene Sue, and Dumas 
 pirCy comparing them collectively and individually with Balzac and 
 pronouncing their real valuation in the Hterary history of the future, 
 are to the point.^ So also is the appraisement of Malherbe as a poet 
 who just missed being great: "Nous nous sommes convaincus que ce 
 bon sens pratique n'avait qu'a s'appliquer a de dignes objets pour se 
 conciHer avec la grandeur"; he failed in this respect, but in others he 
 was un vrai mattre? Rollin is put in his proper perspective — he makes 
 no appeal to our scientific generation, for we demand a medium of expres- 
 sion quite different from his and "celui du bon Rollin, certes,y echouerait. 
 ... Dans tout ceci, en ressongeant au bon RolUn dont le nom revient 
 encore par un reste d'habitude, je crois qu'il est impossible d'en faire 
 autre chose qu'un honorable, un pieux et lointain regret. "^ La Touche 
 is set up as an awful example of the fate of the virulent critic; all his 
 real merits are hidden by his violence.^ Paul Louis Courier 
 
 n'etait pas un tres-grand caractere, nous le verrons; je dirai meme tout d'abord 
 que ce n'etait pas un esprit tres-etendu ni tres-complet dans ses points de vue. 
 II voit bien, mais par parties; il a de vives idees, mais elles ne sont ni tres- 
 variees ni tres-abondantes: cela devient tres-sensible quand on le lit de suite 
 et dans sa continuite.^ 
 
 There is a final appraisement of Rivarol: "II n'etait point un homme 
 de genie, mais c'etait plus qu'un homme d'esprit: il realisait tout ^ 
 fait I'ideal de I'homme de talent, tel qu'il I'a defini: *Le talent, c'est un 
 art mele d'enthousiasme.' "7 The Pensies at the end of Volume XI of 
 the Causeries du lundi are replete with these completed judgments, 
 too numerous to be quoted in full. Take for an example that on Ampere: 
 
 Ampere, comme erudit, manque de rigueur, et comme ecrivain, de couleur. 
 Avec cela, prenez-le comme curieux et causant de tout, il a bien de I'instruction 
 et de I'agrement. ... Tout le feu d'Ampere se passe dans la recherche, et il ne 
 lui en reste rien pour I'execution. En cela, il n'est pas artiste.* 
 
 Barbier does not understand his own talent: "II s'y noye ... ce qui me 
 fait dire de lui: 'Barbier, c'est un poete de hasard."^^ There are similar 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, III, 97. 
 
 » Ibid., II, 460. <* Ibid., VI, 322. 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, XIII, 423. ^ ibid., V, 83. 
 
 4 Causeries du lundi, VI, 281. * Ibid., XI, 478. 
 s Ibid., Ill, 491. s> Ibid., p. 448. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 139 
 
 appraisals of Lamennais, Barante, De Vigny, Villemain, Lamartine, 
 Genin, and notably of Thiers and Balzac; about the latter he is mali- 
 ciously witty: "Balzac — le romancier qui savait le mieux la corruption 
 de son temps, et il etait meme homme a y ajouter";^ but Sainte-Beuve 
 admired him as an artist. 
 
 In summary then, it is clear that Sainte-Beuve did judge authors, 
 did offer a final appraisement, and was not always content to rest 
 in his analysis. It is noticeable, however, that it is chiefly in the 
 cases of the minor writers that he gives what may accurately be called 
 a literary judgment; he took for granted the positions and the rights of 
 the real giants — Goethe, Shakespeare, Horace;^ positions so permanent 
 and elevated as theirs needed no readjustment from the critic. 
 
 When Sainte-Beuve says that the critic's processes are based upon 
 the principles of taste, truth, tradition, logic and consistency, and 
 morality, he did not mean, of course, that he criticized first upon one of 
 these principles and then upon another, so that the student of his opinion 
 could discriminate and say, "This judgment is based upon taste, this 
 upon tradition," etc. Rather are the elements of critical judgment 
 mingled and interamalgamated into a unified whole. In these judg- 
 ments which cover entire works of art, or the whole character of a man, it 
 is the completely trained critical mind speaking, and one cannot isolate 
 the specific principles and criteria, though it is more nearly possible to 
 do this when details of matter and technique are under judgment. It 
 is, however, not impossible to offer examples of judgments in which 
 approval or disapproval has a dominant flavor of taste — ^for the matter 
 of that, certain exceptional and striking verdicts may be based entirely 
 upon taste, certain others may lean chiefly upon tradition, certain others 
 make the appeal to truth. It is these more unmixed judgments that 
 are offered with the warning that they are seldom quite unmixed. 
 
 Again we are following an arbitrary grouping: (i) judgments of 
 whole works of art or a man's work as a whole; (2) judgments of detail 
 or aspects of matter and technique. 
 
 Predominantly based upon taste, though always with tradition in 
 the background, is a group of verdicts upon whole works of art. 
 The opinion on Flaubert's Madame Bovary is worth quoting because 
 posterity has largely confirmed it: 
 
 Una qualite precieuse distingue M. Flaubert des autres observateurs ... ila 
 le style. II en a meme un peu trop, et sa plume se complait a des curiosit6s ... 
 
 ' Ibid., p. 483. 
 
 2 See " Precepts and ProcedeSy^' pp. 83 ff. However, he leaves a very definite idea 
 as to his opinion of Balzac, who could certainly not be classed as a minor writer. 
 
140 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 de description continue qui nuisent parfois a I'effet total. Chez lui, les 
 choses ou les figures les plus faites pour etre regardees sont un peu eteintes ... par 
 le trop de saillie des objects environnants. Emma Bovary elle-meme ... nous 
 est si souvent decrite en detail et par le menu, que physiquement je ne me la 
 represente pas tres-bien dans son ensemble ni d'une maniere bien distincte et 
 definitive.* 
 
 All the persons in Madame Bovary he says are bad and disagreeable, 
 displaying not one touch of humanity or heroism; he condemns in 
 the book its mass of unnecessary, disgusting, and unnecessarily disgusting, 
 details: "Apres tout un livre n'est pas la realite meme."^ The same 
 author's Salammho comes in for substantially the same criticisms, 
 summed up in what amounts to a final appraisement : " On I'a [Salammbd] 
 beaucoup lu et on le lira; mais le relira-t-on? La lecture d'un roman- 
 poeme doit-elle produire sur nous le meme effet que si Ton entrait dans 
 un bataillon herisse de piques ? "^ The book is too difficult to read in its 
 mass of details and its inhumanity of subject-matter. Flaubert by 
 way of reply to this severe condemnation asked Sainte-Beuve if he was 
 sure that he had not merely sufifered a nervous revulsion from the subject- 
 matter of the book;4 the critic made no public reply to this inquiry, but 
 in consonance with what he has repeatedly said elsewhere we are sure 
 of his saying in effect: "Apres tout un livre n'est pas la reaHte meme." 
 For even though things so revolting do exist in life, the presentation of 
 them constitutes a violation of taste, that indefinable perception of 
 unity, of simplicity, of dignity: "L'amour du sense, de I'eleve, de ce 
 qui est grand sans phrases." Elsewhere he exclaims without qualifica- 
 tion: *' Voila un bon, un excellent livre. "s Of Raynouard's Templiers: 
 II est impossible de prodiguer moins qu'il ne I'a fait les moyens nouveaux, 
 et de tirer un plus heureux parti des quatre ou cinq mots ou hemistiches qui 
 deciderent du triomphe de sa piece. II avait ete econome de sublime, mais, 
 du peu qu'il y avait mis, rien n'avait ete perdu.* 
 
 Roucher's poem Les Mois is "trop imbu des fadeurs sentimentales du 
 siecle," etc.^ Michelet's study of Louis XIV and Le Due de Bourgogne 
 is marred by the haste of his manner : 
 
 La narration, proprement dite, qui n'a jamais 6t6 son fort, est presque 
 tout sacrifice. Ne cherchez point de chaussee historique, bien cimentee, 
 soUde et continue: le parti pris des points de vue absolus domine; on court 
 
 * Causeries du lundi, XIII, 351. 
 
 ' Ibid.f p. 360. 5 Ibid., I, 315. 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, IV, 93. ^ Causeries du lundi, V, 12. 
 
 * Ibid., TV, AS5' T Ibid., XI, 133, 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 141 
 
 avec lui sur les cimes, sur les pics, sur les aiguilles de granit, qu'il se choisit 
 comme a plaisir pour en faire ses belvederes. On saute de clocher en clocher. 
 II semble s'etre propose une gageure impossible et qu'il a pourtant tenue, 
 d'ecrire Thistoire avec une suite d'eclairs.^ 
 
 M. C. de Lafayette he counsels to cut down his Poeme des champs and to 
 perfect its technique: "Le dernier et huitieme livre me parait trainant 
 et trop raisonne."^ The Crise of Octave Feuillet has "trop de style 
 ou de ce qu'on appelle ainsi: les personnages parlent trop comme on 
 ecrit quand on se soigne; c'est du style habille et pare."^ "J'etais ne, 
 surtout pour etre un professeur de rhetorique, tant ... je prends feu sur 
 ces details et ces miseres de phrases, "^ he writes. 
 
 Discussions of passages and details on the basis of taste occur 
 frequently, though quotable instances are not easy to isolate from their 
 contexts. The following are typical: Of an expression on one of Sully 
 Prudhomme's poems he says, "Mordre Vinconnu est dur; le gout, ce je 
 ne sais quoi d'indefinissable qui devrait etre de tous les temps et de 
 toutes les ecoles, rejette de pareilles expressions " ;s Mme de Girardin 
 lacks taste completely and her work shows the result, as in this passage, 
 bienheureux seraphins, vous habitants des cieuXy etc., on which 
 Sainte-Beuve comments: "Ces seraphins, qui tombent du ciel ou du 
 plafond, viennent la comme, en d'autres temps, seraient venus les 
 Amours et les Cupidons; on les introduisait sans y croire";^ as to 
 Moreau he criticizes, analyzes, and concludes: "II lui manque la puret6 
 et le gout dans le style ";' even Chateaubriand in Les memoir es d^ Outre- 
 tombe disturbs this taste of Sainte-Beuve's;^ the article on Le Brun- 
 Pindare is full of opinions on his verse, the critic using such expressions 
 as indecence d'adulation, execrable, hideux, and, on the other hand, 
 mollesse heureuse to describe it;' about Parny's poetry he employs 
 these adjectives: "pure, tendre, egale, d'un seul souffle, d'une seule 
 veine," and continues, "simplicite exquise, indefinissable, qui se sent 
 et qui ne se comment pas";^'^ Monselet's La Bibliotheque en vacances 
 stopped just on the verge of being in bad taste, "un pas de plus, on est 
 dans la gaminerie: le gout comme la justice conseillait et commandait 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, II, 112. ^ Causeries du lundi, III, 391. 
 
 » Ibid., p. 288. 7 Ibid., IV, 65. 
 
 3/6tt/., V, 8. »Ibid.,l, 437- 
 * Correspondance, II, 169. ' Ibid., V, 160. 
 
 5 Ibid., X, 161. , " Ibid., XV, 293. 
 
142 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 de raster en de^a."^ Paul Verlaine is counseled by Sainte-Beuve to be 
 a little bit more careful in versification; the critic saying of certain 
 cesuras and coupes that " I'oreille la plus exercee a la poesie s'y deroute 
 et ne peut s'y reconnaitre. II y a limite a tout. Je ne puis admettre 
 ce mot retrait qui decele une mauvaise odeur," etc' *'I1 lui arrive 
 [a Pontmartin] de manquer de propriete dans les termes. ... Voyez un 
 peu ... dans quel jargon metaphorique il retrace I'etat des esprits au 
 sortir du regime de la Terreur."^ A poem of Lacaussade has "trop 
 d'irritation. Je distingue entre Firritation et I'indignation : celle-ci 
 peut ^tre une muse, non pas Fautre.''^ The De Goncourt brothers in 
 their study of eighteenth-century women Used many technical and semi- 
 technical words: *'Un peu trop de scintillement, dis-je, et de clique tis 
 est Finconvenient de cette quantite de mots et de traits rapportes de 
 toutes parts et rapproches. ... J'y voudrais parfois un peu plus de 
 repos, un peu plus d'air, d'espace, le temps de souffler et de reprendre 
 haleine."5 Sainte-Beuve praises the verse from De Vigny's EloGf 
 ^^ Monte aussi vite au del que Viclair en descend — est un de ces vers 
 immenses, d'une seule venue, qui embrassent en un clin d'oeil les deux 
 p61es."^ Of a poem of Boulay Paty he says, "c'est trop de mots pour 
 trop peu de sens."^ Such judgments as these, taken at random from 
 thousands, have this in common, that they are all based on Sainte- 
 Beuve's personal and instinctive taste and on that only. 
 
 The judgments based on truths for which term he sometimes sub- 
 stitutes that of reality^ are easier to identify and are abundant. This 
 was partly due to the fact that Sainte-Beuve was a lover of "truth," 
 a scientifically minded man, and partly due to the fact that it came his 
 way to consider the realists of his own day and to examine their pre- 
 tensions to truth. Such judgments are those he offers on the two novels 
 of Octave Feuillet, Sibylle and La petite comtesse. Of the former he 
 says: 
 
 Ma conclusion, c'est que les caracteres, dans cette Histoire de Sibylle, ne 
 sent pas vrais, consistants, humainement possibles; ils n'ont pas H€ assez 
 Studies ... sur le vif. C'est un livre trop fait de tete et d'apres quelque 
 inspiration demi-poetique et rev^e, demi-actuelle et entrevue, pas assez fondue 
 ni assez murie.^ 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, X, 88. « Ibid., IV, 6. 
 
 * Correspondance, II, iii. ^Ibid., VI, 411. 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, II, 7. ^ Ibid., X, 183. 
 
 4 Ibid., p. 256. « Ibid., V, 36. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 143 
 
 And he questions in the same spirit the latter work: "C'est inhumain, 
 c'est dur et bien pen naturel. En fait, les personnages etant ce qu'ils 
 sont et les choses ainsi posees et amenees, que se passerait-il dans le 
 monde, dans la vie reelle et hors du roman?"^ His dissatisfaction with 
 those men and works which falsify life is outspoken and uncompromising; 
 as for example on Dominique of Fromentin, which forces its psychology: 
 "Ici ... j'oserai me permettre une critique: ... le lecteur n'est pas 
 satisfait. ... Le roman n'est pas d' accord avec la verite humaine, avec 
 I'entiere verite telle que les grands peintres de la passion Font de tout 
 temps con^ue."^ Even George Sand receives a shaft: " EUe ne calomnie 
 jamais la nature humaine, elle ne Tembellit pas non plus; elle veut la 
 rehausser mais elle la force et la distend en visant a ragrandir";^ she, 
 like Balzac and Eugene Sue, forces nature into a mold of her own making.^ 
 He admires Feydeau's Fanny as being *'une histoire vecue";s and he 
 commends Louis Veuillot for being "un peintre vigoureux de la realite."*^ 
 Certain reaUsts he condemns because he considers them false to life 
 in the fact that they go out of their way to develop and accumulate 
 whatever is sinister and disagreeable. He therefore condemns the 
 De Goncourt brothers because, not being content with impartially 
 setting down the crudities of life, they went deliberately seeking crudities, 
 which is by way of being false to life and to art. Any undue collection 
 of disagreeable matter is a misrepresentation of facts: "Ne forcent-ils 
 pas le reel en le decoupant de la sorte ? " he questions, "ne lui donnent-ils 
 pas un rehef sans accompagnement ni contre-partie ? "7 His kindred 
 judgment of Balzac's Cousine Bette and other stories is famous: of 
 Cousine Bette he says that her vindictiveness was so exaggerated as to 
 falsify human nature: "Notre societe gsLtee et vicieuse ne comporte 
 point de ces haines atroces et de ces vengeances. Nos peches certes 
 ne sont pas mignons, nos crimes pourtant sont moins gros"; when one 
 has finished reading Les parents pauvres one has need of a little refresh- 
 ment, "de se plonger dans quelque chant de Milton, in lucid streams, 
 dans les purs et lucides courants, comme dit le poete."^ In other cases 
 he condemned a too detailed treatment of fact, or an unnecessary 
 fideUty to it, without unification or imagination. It is on this ground 
 that he objects to Flaubert' and Zola, of the latter of whom he says: 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 18. sibid.,XlV, 176. 
 
 » Ibid., VII, 146. ^ Nouveaux lundis, I, 51. 
 
 3 Causeries du lundi, II, 461. ' Ibid., X, 401. 
 
 4 Ibid. ^ Causeries du lundi, II, 459. 
 ^Ibid., XIII, 362; Nouveaux lundis, IV, 35 ff. 
 
144 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 "En reduisant I'art a n'^tre que la verite, elle me parait hors de cette 
 verite." In shutting out the ideal, art becomes false/ Francois Coppee, 
 even, becomes unnatural in becoming too pessimistic* Gautier he 
 accuses of " une repugnance pour le reel proprement dit et une habitude 
 de tout voir a travers un certain cristal";^ and Alfred de Vigny, too, 
 "ne voit la realite qu'a travers un prisme de cristal qui en change le 
 ton, la couleur, les lignes," which leads him to "alterer et fausser I'his- 
 toire" in La grandeur et servitude militaires.^ Le rouge et le noir of Stendhal 
 "manque aussi de cette suite et de cette moderation dans le developpement 
 qui peuvent seules donner idee d'un vrai tableau de moeurs" and the per- 
 sonages "ne sont pas des etres vivants, mais des automates ingenieuse- 
 ment construits," etc.s C. de Lafayette's main fault in writing nature 
 and farmyard poetry "c'est surtout d'avoir mal observe et connu son 
 sujet," to have attributed to a hen the sentiments of a woman.*^ On 
 a detail of a poem of Mme Valmore, Sainte-Beuve says: "L'image ... 
 est saisissante; on sent que c'est pris sur nature, et que ce n'etait pas 
 une fiction du poete";' and he praises Parny in these terms: "La 
 nature parle."* An interesting light is thrown on his judgments with 
 this basis by the fact that he heartily commends a minor, if not a third- 
 rate, author, Fromentin, for approximating the synthesis of reaUty and 
 the ideal, a combination which was his own ideal of true art.^ It is 
 to the credit of Sainte-Beuve's honesty that he immediately adds that 
 Fromentin does lean a little toward the side of idealization, forcing 
 reality lightly in a romantic way. It is clear from this series of observa- 
 tions that the criterion of truth to life or reality was one of the most 
 important of the principles whereby Sainte-Beuve formed his critical 
 judgments. 
 
 When Sainte-Beuve judged a work or a man on a basis of tradition 
 he might have in mind the purely classical tradition which during the 
 whole of his third period he held in veneration, or he might have in mind 
 the body of good usage and cumulating opinion built up through all 
 the ages, not exclusively classical, but recording the usage and opinion 
 of all authoritative writers. In certain cases Sainte-Beuve makes 
 direct appeal to some classical writer whom he considered authorita- 
 tive, to Horace for instance; or he compares directly the seven teenth- 
 
 ^ Correspondance, II, 314. 
 
 ' Ibid., p. 113. ^ Nouveaux lundis, II, 287. 
 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, VI, 267. ^ Ibid., XII, 159. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 421. ' Causeries du lundi, XV, 294. 
 
 s Causeries du lundi, IX, 330. ' Nouveaux lundis, VII, 147. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 145 
 
 century manner of describing nature with that of the ancients^ and 
 the nineteenth-century manner of C. de Lafayette with that of Hesiod 
 and Virgil and Lucretius.^ In other cases he assumes the authority of 
 the rhetoricians and of accepted artists. In larger, vaguer matters he \ 
 seems to have as his standard the practice of the ancient classical writers 
 or of those later writers who imitated them. In minor matters, and 
 matters of form, style, and technique in general, he brings all things 
 to the bar of the seventeenth century. 
 
 He writes to a correspondent concerning his small esteem of Balzac: 
 *'In spite of everything, I have remained of the classical school, that of 
 Horace and the singer of Windsor Forest."^ It is no wonder that the 
 admirer of Horace and Pope should condemn his own generation for 
 demesure, its lack of moderation, its inerudition. When he appeals 
 for "truth" he is speaking for classical truth, faithfulness to typical 
 and universal human nature; and in the name of this sane, tested i 
 tradition he begs for le juste milieu and protests against the violence 
 of Hugo's romanticism, the brutahty of Balzac's realism, the flabbiness 
 of Chateaubriand's sentimentalism, the squalor of the naturalism of 
 Flaubert and the De Goncourts, and the corruption of Baudelaire's 
 consumptive muse. Merimee is compared and contrasted directly 
 with the ancient writers of history as to his volume Le faux Demetrius. 
 Cicero, Livy, Xenophon, and Caesar are quoted and Merimee is called ^ 
 
 "fidele a I'esprit classique."^ Instances are almost innumerable of 
 references to the classics and comparisons of French writers with them. 
 Horace is compared with Beranger, with Boileau, with Montaigne, with 
 Beaumarchais;s Cicero with Foucault and with others;^ Virgil with 
 George Sand, with C. de Lafayette, with Flaubert, and with the 
 De Goncourt brothers ;7 Theocritus with George Sand, with Leopold 
 Robert, and with Fromentin;^ Lucretius with Seiyes and Cowper;' 
 Euripides with Racine;^" Homer with Fenelon, Bossuet, and Milton." 
 In French literature more narrowly it is the seventeenth century which 
 provided him with a measure, and the writers of that epoch were his 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, XI, 46 fiE. 3 Quoted by Babbitt, op. cit., p. 137. 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, II, 272 ff. ^ Causeries du lundi, VII, 378. 
 
 sibid., II, 289; VI, 503; Nouveaux lundis, VI, 250, 376. 
 « Ibid., Ill, 460. 
 
 7 Causeries du lundi, I, 352; Nouveaux lundis, II, 280; IV, 83; X, 409. 
 ® Causeries du lundi, I, 362; X, 429; Nouveaux lundis, VII, 130. 
 9 Causeries du lundi, V, 197; XI, 135. 
 " Nouveaux lundis, VI, 46. " Ibid., II, 131, 340; XIII, 184. 
 
146 SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 standards of excellence; La Fontaine is compared with Lamartine, with 
 Courier, with Etienne, with Cowper, with Nodier and Ducis;^ Pascal 
 with Napoleon, with Vauvenargues, with Bonald, with Beaumarchais, 
 with Jouffroy, with Gibbon, with Scherer;^ Racine with Chenier, with 
 Ducis, with Cowper, with Parny;^ Retz with Condorcet, with Pellisson, 
 with Mirabeau, with Walpole and Malouet;^ Bossuet with Monald and 
 Montesquieu, among others.^ 
 
 Sainte-Beuve makes use of the criterion of logic and consistency in 
 a few cases. The case of Zola's Therbse Racquin has already been cited; 
 Flaubert's Salammbo is open to a similar attack when the author 
 decrit ... ce qu'on ne voit pas, ce qu'on ne peut raisonnablement remarquer. 
 Par example, si Ton marche la nuit dans I'obscurite ou a la simple clart6 des 
 etoiles, on ne devrait pas decrire minutieusement des pierres hleues sur les- 
 quelles on marche, ou des taches jaunes au poitrail d'un cheval, puisque 
 personne ne les voit;*" 
 
 and in giving to the barbarians who are attacking Carthage all the latest 
 machines of war he is violating probability, since it would be impossible 
 to procure them.' A third instance will illustrate this minor point; it 
 is that of a verse in Les templiers by Raynouard, where to enhance the 
 pitifulness of the slaughter the herald tells of the large number who were 
 slain: "Sire, ils etaient trois mille." Why, questions Sainte-Beuve, if 
 they were so large a number did they surrender without resistance to 
 the Saracen ? Raynouard has overreached himself.* 
 
 The fifth and last criterion, that of morality, played a very minor 
 part in Sainte-Beuve's critical practice. Indeed he was more often 
 advocatus diaboli than the censor of public morals. His attitude is 
 summed up in the words "ne soyons pas nous-memes plus rigoriste qu'il 
 ne convient."5> it is not that he shunned the consideration of moral 
 obUquities in the men he studied, but that he palliated them and glossed 
 them over. Nevertheless he does at times condemn severely, as he 
 did in the case of Talleyrand: "La venaUte, en effet, c'est la la plaie 
 de Talleyrand, une plaie hideuse, un chancre rongeur et qui envahit 
 
 » Causeries du lundi, I, 25; VI, 357, 490; XI, 163; Nouveaux lundis, IV, 315, 404. 
 » Causeries du lundi, 1, 182; III, 143; IV, 438; VI, 133; VIII, 297, 450; XV, 55. 
 3 Nouveaux lundis, III, 334; IV, 331; XI, 169; XIII, 165. 
 * Causeries du lundi, III, 270; XIV, 196; Nouveaux lundis. III, 299; IV, 16; 
 XI, 200. 
 
 5 Causeries du lundi, IV, 435; VII, 65. 
 
 ^ Nouveaux lundis, IV, 89. * Causeries du lundi, V, 12. 
 
 ' Ibid., IV, 74. ' Nouveaux lundis, V, 9. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 147 
 
 le fond";^ and he elsewhere speaks of his corruption consommee.* He 
 deplores too great an appeal to the senses in Mile de MaupiUy^ and 
 notices the grossierete of the sixteenth century .4 The youthful Organt 
 epic poem of Saint- Just is frankly condemned for immorality, and 
 Sainte-Beuve comments that in its author "les vices honteux avaient 
 precede en lui les vices feroces; au fond de ce coeur il y avait une caverne 
 toute preparee."s 
 
 There are a few points not provided for in Sainte-Beuve's formal 
 declaration of critical principles, noted above in " Precepts and ProcedeSy^' 
 which ought to be tested by an examination of his own practice; such 
 for example as his choice of subjects. He declares that a subject should 
 be of immediate interest to his readers, that it be timely. In most 
 of the essays we find this principle of timehness observed, a new biog- 
 raphy, publication of correspondence, a new striking work of an artist; 
 Sainte-Beuve's declaration that the critic must not be premature ou 
 retarde seems to have been his own rule of choice.^ 
 
 He points out the difficulties and dangers of judging a work which 
 is far in advance of the public's acceptance, or in opposition to it; in 
 this matter he himself was fearless, never hesitating to commit himself. 
 He had many prejudices but no cowardices. So far from fearing to run 
 counter to public opinion, he seemed to enjoy it and quite clearly often 
 felt it his duty to do so. Chateaubriand was the idol of France at the 
 time Sainte-Beuve wrote his epoch-making book attacking him, and 
 he unhesitatingly pointed out the faults he saw in Hugo, in Lamartine, 
 in Balzac, in Lamennais, when they were literary heroes at the height 
 of their fame. He was equally bold in reviving and defending those 
 to whom the public was indifferent or hostile. His first great work of 
 criticism was a Tableau de la litterature frangaise au 16^" sidckj defend- 
 ing the hitherto discredited and forgotten literature of the Pleiade. He 
 came valiantly to the defense of Feydeau when his Fanny had stirred 
 popular hostiUty, and he defended Flaubert's Madame Bovary under the 
 same circumstances. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve enunciated as a practical working principle the rule 
 that the critic must find out all that he possibly could about his subject, 
 approaching it from every possible side before writing about it. One 
 
 ^ Ibid., XII, 43. ^ Ibid., p. 59. ' ibid., VI, 286. 
 
 4 Causeries du lundi, VII, 44. s Ihid., V, 338. 
 
 ^ Interesting light is thrown on this matter by Sainte-Beuve's notes to M. Ch6ron, 
 curator of the Bibliotheque Imperiale, to whom he applied for the books needed for the 
 various articles. 
 
148 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 can say without reservation that Sainte-Beuve applied this principle 
 uniformly in practice. His patience and application were indefatigable, 
 his erudition enormous. His biographers tell striking stories of his 
 scrupulousness as to facts, his meticulous care in spelling and in other 
 matters which seemed very minor, his untiring pursuit of the truth and 
 the whole truth. Whatever discoveries and reversals of opinion sub- 
 sequent scholarship may have made, it can be maintained that from the 
 point of view of his own age and of material available to him he was 
 practically never mistaken in his facts and rarely in his opinions.' 
 
 The critic, says Sainte-Beuve, even though he have a definite critical 
 procedure, should ideally have no fixed ideas or a priori philosophical 
 and social principles; he must be able to attack his subject without 
 hypothesis, with no ready-made categories; he must pursue his examina- 
 tion with his eyes wide open, in that state of mind which Babbitt calls 
 **the wisdom of disillusion" but for which one would Hke to coin the 
 term " unillusion." Sainte-Beuve fulfilled in this matter his own require- 
 ment in a remarkable degree. He was, as so human-minded a man was 
 sure to be, full of personal emotions, but he usually knew how to keep 
 them from functioning as prejudices. He had examined, sampled as it 
 were, many philosophies, he had sometimes exchanged his old philo- 
 sophical lamps for new, but he had not committed himself; he sought 
 no haven in any absolutism; he was a relativist, a pragmatist born 
 out of season, allowing for all and any phenomena that emerged from the 
 ever-flowing stream of things. But for all that Sainte-Beuve had no 
 conditioning philosophy, no system of thought or school of social practice 
 to which he committed himself; he was not always an impartial judge 
 and at times he was a very severe one. His personal likes and disUkes 
 color his judgment, particularly of his contemporaries. His attack 
 on Hugo and his associated romanticists, in the regrettable article '*Les 
 regrets"* is a case in point; his hatred of Balzac appears in some of 
 his articles on the great novehst;^ and his over-admiration of Mme 
 Desbordes-Valmore could only be the result of a personal feeling.^ His 
 mere dislike, personal as well as literary, of Chateaubriand, his opposi- 
 tion to Lamartine stand out in his papers on these two artists. 
 
 A very interesting injunction of Sainte-Beuve 's, that the critic in 
 his criticism should preserve the tone of his subject, is exemplified in 
 his own works. It is fascinating to see his critique taking on the atmos- 
 
 ^ L6on S6ch6, Sainte-Beuve (Paris, 1904). 3 Ibid., Ill, 69. 
 
 =» Causeries du lundi, VI, 397. ■♦ Nouveaux lundis, XII, 134. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 149 
 
 phere of the man that he is studying, as in the essays on Rabelais/ on 
 Montluc,^ on Joinville,^ in which his style takes on an antique flavor; 
 that on Marivaux, where he catches himself up on this very thing: " Mais 
 je m'aperjois que j'ai a me garder moi-meme d'aller I'imiter en le definis- 
 sant."'* There are passages in which the expression becomes flowing 
 and turgid to suggest Lamartine, romantic and sentimental to create 
 the proper atmosphere for Mme Desbordes-Valmore. This is all the 
 more striking from the fact that he manages to keep the tinge of per- 
 sonality in his own style moyen, not changing it completely. On occa- 
 sion he creates the tone of his subject not by any modification of his 
 style but by adopting the ideas and habits of thinking of the person 
 studied; as for example treating of Mme Genlis, who was in essence a 
 teacher and a moraUst, he says: "You see, in fact, that in speaking of 
 her I imitate her and draw my morale's 
 
 Finally, Sainte-Beuve advised copious citation as a conscious and 
 deliberate procedure. He saw, in judiciously chosen quotations, the 
 best analysis and interpretation of a man's work. He himself possessed, 
 either instinctively or by virtue of long and rigorous training, the ability 
 to choose the passages in which the core and the essence of the character 
 under consideration was most completely crystallized. In every essay 
 whose plan permitted it he gave in generous profusion those repre- 
 sentative and illuminating excerpts in which a man speaks for himself. 
 The large number of such passages is obvious to anyone who but glances 
 at the essays. Their adequacy would have to be proved by an excursus 
 too long and too complicated to be undertaken here. But one soon 
 becomes convinced that Sainte-Beuve had the rare gift of adequate 
 representative selection. 
 
 Though Sainte-Beuve did not publish even indirectly a system of 
 rhetoric, a word must be said about Hterary style, since this matter 
 loomed large in his opinion about an author, and since he practically 
 never fails to comment on it. He was a clear and penetrating observer 
 of the propriety of words, phrases, and images. He admired the clear, 
 limpid, but colorful and individuaUstic, style of the classic school of 
 French writers; he praises the manidre attique above and rather than 
 the mani^re asiatique, Hamilton rather than Balzac.^ Among the first 
 requirements he made of style is that it should be individual, should 
 
 ^ Causeries du lundi, III, i. ^ Ibid., IX, 362. 
 
 « Ihid., XI, 56. 5 Ihid., Ill, 37. 
 
 3 Ihid.^ VIII, 495. ^ See "Precepts and Procedes," pp. 99 ff* 
 
150 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 reflect the man whose vehicle it is. He institutes on this basis a remark- 
 able contrast between Cousin and Chateaubriand: "Quand on approche 
 de Cousin, on trouve un tout autre homme que celui qui se donne k con- 
 naitre par ses Merits ... toute une moitie ... de ses qualites distinctives 
 et de ses traits saillants n'est nullement representee dans cette maniere 
 d'6crire." Chateaubriand on the other hand ''ecrit bien moins pure- 
 ment, ... mais comme son style est a lui! quaUtes et defauts!"' 
 Chateaubriand's style is effective, it cuts, while the subUme manner of 
 Cousin's long periods misses the mark. He contrasts Mme de Stael 
 with Bossuet. She must be read by understanding eyes, the eyes of 
 people who, for the magnificence of the ensemble, will ignore the faults 
 of detail. She omits too many of the links of her thought and becomes 
 obscure, so that when the Academy comes to make an analysis of her 
 style for the dictionary they are much troubled: *'0n allegue tant6t 
 le vague de I'expression, tantot I'impropriete des termes ou le peu 
 d'analogie des membres. ... Autant Bossuet, meme ainsi demembr6, 
 gagne a tout coup et triomphe, autant Mme de Stael resiste peu."' 
 This delight in a clear, exact style may help to explain his otherwise 
 mysterious admiration for the Bishop of Meaux. Though Sainte-Beuve 
 leaves no doubt as to his preference of the Attic above the Asiatic style, 
 he was not blind to the florid beauties of Balzac, his praise of which is 
 saved from fulsomeness only by a shght touch of irony: 
 
 J'aime de son style, dans les parties delicates, cette efflorescence ... par 
 laquelle il donne a tout le sentiment de la vie et fait frissonner la page elle- 
 m^me. Mais je ne puis accepter, sous le couvert de la physiologie, Tabus 
 continuel de cette qualite, ce style si souvent chatouilleux et dissolvant, enerv6, 
 rose, et vein6 de toutes les teintes, ce style d'une corruption dehcieuse, tout 
 asiatique comme disaient nos maitres, plus bris6 par places et plus amolli 
 que le corps d'un mime antique.^ 
 
 An illuminating comment on Flaubert is this: "le style est tres-soign6 
 dans I'ouvrage de M. Flaubert, ... mais il est trop tendu, trop uniforme 
 de tours. Les expressions, pour vouloir rencherir sur ce qui a ete dit 
 deja, semblent forc^es bien souvent. "^ A kindred criticism, allowing 
 for the difference in tone, he offers upon the style of Lamennais: ''A 
 chaque page, c'est un coup de tocsin perpetuel, il n'y ont que des 
 alarmes." He cannot rest in the beautiful style moyen but must produce 
 force and astonishment until his style falls into monotonous exaggeration, 
 stunning the mind by repeated blows and finally destroying its recep- 
 
 » Causeries du lundiy XI, 470. ' Causeries du lundi, II, 442. 
 
 * Nouveaux lundis, II, 332. * Nouveaux lundis, IV, 91. 
 
PRACTICE IN CRITICISM 151 
 
 tivity.* This is at the opposite pole from that which is Sainte-Beuve's 
 ideal style, that of the seventeenth century, the style of the regency,' 
 of Hamilton, of Mme de Sevigne, of Mme de Maintenon, who possesses 
 "de I'ampleur, ... de I'abondance, de la recidive, une aisance libre et 
 un cours heureux; mais ce qui me parait tou jours y dominer plus que 
 tout, c'est la justesse, la nettete et une parfaite exactitude, quelque 
 chose que le terme d'ampleur enveloppe et depasse."^ After all, however, 
 it is Retz whom he admires most: "Le style de Retz est de la plus belle 
 langue; il est plein de feu, et I'esprit des choses y circule."^ He praises 
 with enthusiasm Retz's use of words, of figures, his ease and grace, his 
 complete freedom from effort. All told, he seems to find in Cardinal 
 Retz the nearest approach to his full ideal of style. This style, as we 
 may gather from the well-nigh innumerable notes on this subject, should 
 be simple, straightforward, and clear, yet not unpoetic. He criticizes 
 Guizot because his "style est triste et ne rit jamais ";* Necker because 
 he is too abstract,^ while Stendhal desiring to secure clarity and limpidity 
 has excluded all poetry and color: "ces images et ces expressions de 
 genie qui rev^tent la passion."' 
 
 It seems to us just in final summary to say that, keeping in mind the 
 eclecticism and catholicity of Sainte-Beuve's mind and the practical 
 and sane character of his critical procedure, remembering also that his 
 dicta include principles from the old rhetorical and aesthetical as well 
 as from the newer historical and scientific schools, his critical practice 
 strikingly conforms to and embodies his theory of criticizing and his 
 program of work. Without rigidity and formality, with great flexi- 
 bihty as to detail, he keeps his general scheme always in mind, both in 
 appreciation and exposition of men and their work and in placing them 
 in their types and classes and giving final judgments as to their values. 
 
 ^CahierSy p. 118. 
 
 ' Causeries du lundi, I, 93. s Ibid.y I, 321. 
 
 3 Ibid., XI, 1 16. ^ Ibid., VII, 369. 
 
 * Ibid., V, 60. T Ibid., IX, S17. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 This list of books contains only those works which the author has found 
 most useful in the study of Sainte-Beuve's literary criticism. Good bibliog- 
 raphies on Sainte-Beuve are easily accessible in Lanson, Manuel bibliographique 
 de la litUrature franqaise moderne (i 500-1 900), Paris, 191 2; in Thieme, Guide 
 bibliographique de la literature franqaise de 1800 d igo6, Paris, 1907; in Harper, 
 Sainte-Beuve^ Philadelphia and London, 1909; and in Michaut, Sainte-Beuve 
 avant les lundis, Fribourg, 1903. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve. Port-Royal. 5 vols., 1849-59. 
 Portraits littiraires, 1862-64. 
 Portraits contemporains, 1869-71. 
 
 Chateaubriand et son groupe litUraire sous V empire, 1861. 
 Causeries du lundi (3d ed., revised), 1857-72. 
 Nouveaux lundis (2d ed., revised), 1864-78. 
 Correspondance, 1877-78. 
 Nouvelle correspondance, 1880. 
 
 Cahiers de Sainte-Beuve: suivis de quelques pages de littirature 
 antique, 1876. 
 A. A. (Alfred Austin). ''Sainte-Beuve's Critical Method." Cornhill Magazine, 
 July, 1878. Arnold, Matthew. "Sainte-Beuve," in Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica. 
 
 . "Sainte-Beuve," in Essays in Criticism, Third Series, reprinted, 
 
 Boston, 1910. 
 Babbitt, Irving. "Impressionist versus Judicial Criticism," in Publications 
 of the Modern Language Association of America. New Series, XIV, No. 3 
 (1906), p. 687. 
 
 . Masters of Modern French Criticism. New York, 191 2. 
 
 Brunetiere, F. V Evolution des genres: la critique. Paris, 1890. 
 
 . "Sainte-Beuve," Living Age, CCXLV, 513. 
 
 Caumont, A. La critique littiraire de Sainte-Beuve. Frankfort a.M., 1887. 
 Faguet, E. £.tudes critiques du XIX sibcle. Paris, 1887. 
 
 . Politiques et moralistes du XIX sitcle. Third Series. 3 vols. Paris, 
 
 1891-99. 
 . "Sainte-Beuve, critique dramatique," Propos de thidtre (Paris), V, 
 
 228 ff. 
 
 152 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 153 
 
 Gayley (C. M.) and Scott (F. N.) An Introduction to the Materials and Methods 
 
 of Literary Criticism. Boston, 1899. 
 Giraud, V. Essai sur Taine. 3d ed., 1902. 
 
 . "L'oeuvre de Sainte-Beuve," in Revtie des deux mondes, II, 112. 
 
 . Table alphabitique et analytique des ^'Premiers lundis" "Nouveaux 
 
 Lundis" et "Portraits Contemporains'* avec 6tude sur Sainte-Beuve et son 
 
 osuvre. Paris, 1903. 
 Gu6rard, A. L. French Prophets of Yesterday. London and New York, 1913. 
 Harper, G. M. Masters of French Literature. New York, 1901. 
 
 . Sainte-Beuve. Philadelphia and London, 1909. 
 
 . "Sainte-Beuve," Scribner^s Magazine, XXII, 594. 
 
 D'Haussonville. Sainte-Beuve, sa vie et ses osuvres. Paris, 1875. 
 
 Lanson, G. " Sainte-Beuve: ce qui fait de lui maitre de la critique et le patron 
 
 des critiques," Revue de Belgique, 2^^ s^rie, XLIII, 5; Remie universitaire, 
 
 XIV (I), 119. 
 Levallois, J. Sainte-Beuve: Voeuvre du pobte, la mitkode du critique, Vhomme 
 
 public, Vhomme prive. Paris, 1872. 
 Mazzoni, G. Tra libri e carte. Milan, 1887. 
 Michaut, G. J^tudes sur Sainte-Beuve. Paris, 1905. 
 
 . Pages de critique et d'histoire littiraire: XIX si^cle. Paris, 1910. 
 
 . Sainte-Beuve avant les lundis; essai sur la formation de son esprit et 
 
 de sa mSthode. Fribourg, 1903. 
 Pellissier, G. Le mouvement litter aire au XIX sihcle. Paris, 1889. 
 . ''Sainte-Beuve, Taine et la critique contemporaine," Revue des 
 
 Revues, XL VIII (1904), 499. 
 Pontmartin, Armand. Nouveaux samedis. Paris, 1870. 
 Robertson, J. M. Essays toward a Critical Method. London, 1889. 
 Saintsbury, G. A History of Criticism. New York and London, 1904. 
 Scherer, E. Etudes critiques sur la litterature contemporaine. Paris, 1863-82. 
 Sech6, Leon, Etudes d'histoire romantique: Sainte-Beuve. Paris, 1904. 
 Taine, H. Dernier s essais de critique et d'histoire. Paris, 1894. 
 
INDEX 
 
 i 
 
INDEX 
 
 Note. — The detailed analytic table of contents constitutes an index of the subject-matter. It 
 were obviously impossible and unnecessary to index the name Sainte-Beuve, or the citations of the 
 Causeries du lundi, the Noveaux lundis, the Portraites littiraires, and the Correspondance. 
 
 About, Edmond, 124 
 Alambert, d', 124 
 Albany, Countess of, 13a 
 Ampere, 124, 138 
 Antin, Due d', 133 
 Arago, 23 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 15, 92 
 Aubign^, d', 94 
 Aurevilley, Barbey d', 47 
 
 Babbitt, Irving, 7, 10, 19, 20, 39, 41, 42, 
 
 43, 59, 81, 85, 130, 145 
 Bachaumont, 86, 127, 132 
 Bacon, 37 
 Balzac, Honor6 de, 19, 25, 44, 72, 88, 116, 
 
 138, 143, 145, 149 
 Barante, 139 
 Barbier, 138 
 Barnave, 126 
 Barth61emy, 104 
 Bastide, Jules, 127 
 Bazin, 12 
 
 Beaumarchais, 98, 119, 145, 146 
 Beaumont, Mme de, 127 
 Beaunier, 128 
 
 B^ranger, 20, 88, 113, 136, 137 
 Berenice (Racine), 18 
 Bemis, 129, 130 
 Beyle, Henri, 16 
 Bihle de Royaumont, 30 
 
 Boileau, 14, 18, 28, 42, 43, 66, 69, 77, 81, 
 
 82, 102, 120, 123, 137, 14s 
 Boileau, Gilles, 120 
 Boileau, Jacques, 1 20 
 Boindin, 124 
 Bonald, 146 
 Borel, 123 
 Bossuet, 20, 58, 61, 66, 75, 76, 94, 96, 
 
 126, 133, 145, 146 
 Bouchardy, 123 
 
 Bourdaloue, 126, 135 
 Bourgogne, Due de, 36 
 Brentano, Bettina, 114 
 Broglie, Due de, 77 
 Brosses, de, 117 
 Brownell, 47, 56 
 Bruneti^re, 5 
 Burger, 123 
 Buffon, 98, 13s 
 Bums, 137 
 Bussy-Rabutin, 114 
 Byron, 136, 137 
 
 Caesar, 145 
 
 Cahiers, essay on, 8, 10, 17, 22, 24, 27, 
 
 40, 43, 44, 45, 50, SI, 60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 
 
 71, 76, 92, 97, 99, IIS, 118 
 Callot, 116 
 
 Caracteres (La BruySre), 116 
 Carr6, Frank, 124 
 Carrel, 93, 133 
 Catherine of Russia, 91 
 Caylus, Mme de, no 
 C^nacle, la, 64 
 Cervantes, 12, 33 
 Champfleury, 56 
 Chapelle, 86, 127, 132 
 Chaulieu, 128, 13s 
 Chateaubriand, 13, 15, 19, 30, 40, 55, 66, 
 
 95, 98, 100, 119, 123, 130, 141, 145, 
 
 147, 148 
 Chateaubriand et son groupe littSraire 
 
 (Sainte-Beuve), 2, 4, 8, 13, 19, 25, 30, 
 
 34, 36, 64, 70, 71, 76, 108, III, 133 
 Ch^nier, Andre, 62, 66, 71, 98, 146 
 Cheron, 147 
 Chesterfield, 113 
 Childe-Harold (Byron), 6s 
 Choisy, I'Abbe de, 117 
 Chrysostome, 65 
 
 IS7 
 
158 SAINTE-BEUVES CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 Cicero, 66, 145 
 
 Coleridge, 72 
 
 C0II6, 113 
 
 Condillac, 107 
 
 Condorcet, 146 
 
 Confessions (Rousseau), 137 
 
 Confucius, 42 
 
 Constant, Benjamin, 116, 129 
 
 Contes (LaFontaine), 18 
 
 Copp^e, Francois, 144 
 
 Coraeille, 29, 102, 104, 114, 125 
 
 Coulmann, 85, 119 
 
 Courier, 118, 138, 146 
 
 Cousin, 40 
 
 Cousin Bette (Balzac), 143 
 
 Cowper, 122, 123, 126, 127, 136, 145, 146 
 
 Cramail, de, 136 
 
 Crise (Octave Feuillet), 141 
 
 Criticism (Brownell), 47 
 
 Cuvier, 30 
 
 Dacier, Mme, 31, 119, 131 
 
 Dangeau, 86 
 
 Dante, 45, 86 
 
 Defifand, Mme du, 74, 114, 125 
 
 De la literature (Mme de Stael), 31 
 
 Delecluze, 105 
 
 Delphine (Mme de Stael), 103 
 
 Denne-Baron, 133 
 
 Desbordes-Valmore, Mme, 71, 109, 117, 
 
 120, 148 
 
 Deschanel, 11 1 
 
 Diderot, 17, 26, 74, 81, 82, 120, 124 
 
 Discours sur la revolution (Guizot), 87, 88 
 
 Dominique (Fromentin), 143 
 
 Dondey, Th6ophile, 123 
 
 Don Quixote, 26, 27 
 
 Ducis, 117, 118, 146 
 
 Duclos, 113, 124 
 
 Dumas, p6re, 136 
 
 Dupont, Pierre, 118 
 
 Duseigneur, Jean, 123 
 
 Duveyrier, 83, m 
 
 Eckerman, 86 
 
 Epinay, Mme d', 76, 131 
 
 Essai de critique naturelle, Deschanel, iii 
 
 Essai sur Taine (Giraud), 40 
 
 Essay on Criticism (Pope), 69 
 Essay on Man (Pope), 43 
 
 Essay toward a Critical Method (Robert- 
 son), 48 
 
 Estr^es, Gabrielle d', 131 
 Etienne, 13, 146 
 
 Etudes critiques sur la literature contem- 
 
 poraine (Scherer), 4 
 Euripides, 59, 66, 145 
 
 Fables (LaFontaine), 18 
 
 Faguet, fimile, 5, 47, 103 
 
 Fanny (Feydeau), 143, 147 
 
 Fauriel, 81 
 
 Feletz, de, 113, 133 
 
 F6nelon, 42, 66, 96, 100, 126, 145 
 
 Feuillet, Octave, 116, 137, 141, 142 
 
 Feydeau, 68, 143, 147 
 
 Firdousi, 42 
 
 Flaubert, 17, 19, 63, 65, 68, 93, 137, 139, 
 
 143, 145, 146, 147 
 F16chier, 100, 126, 127 
 Florian, 121, 126 
 Fontanes, 19, 69, 81, 120 
 Fontanes, Comtesse de, 1 20 
 Fontenelle, 117, 135 
 Foucault, 145 
 France, Anatole, 49, 76 
 Francueil, 131 
 Fr^ret, 124 
 Fromentin, 143, 144, 145 
 
 Galiani, I'Abb^, 126, 129 
 
 Gandar, Eugene, 135 
 
 Gautier, Th6ophi]e, 103, 123, 144 
 
 Gavami, 123 
 
 Gay, Mme Sophie, 120 
 
 Gayley and Scott, 24 
 
 G6doyn, l'Abb6, 53 
 
 G^nin, 80 
 
 Genlis, Mme de, 78, 135, 147 
 
 George Dandin (Moli^re), 18 
 
 Gibbon, 118, 141 
 
 Gil Bias (Le Sage), 100 
 
 Girardin, Mme de, 53, 120, 141 
 
 Girardin, Saint-Marc, 15, 30, 43 
 
 Giraud, Victor, 40 
 
 Globe, The, 2 
 
 Goethe, 44, 65, 66, 80, 81, 82, 86, 113, 139 
 
INDEX 
 
 159 
 
 Goticourts, de, 65, 142, 144 
 
 Gourville, 137 
 
 Grignau, Mme de, 120 
 
 Grimm, 15, 71, 76, 89, 131 
 
 Gu6rin, Eug6nie de, 119 
 
 Gu6rin, Maurice de, 115, 117, 119, 123, 
 
 126 
 Guizot, 40, 87 
 
 Hal6vy, 133 
 
 Hamilton, 99, 113, 134, 149 
 
 Hamlet, 6$ 
 
 Harper, George McLean, 7, 14, 20, 28, 
 
 47, 58, 61, 6s, 79, 86, loi 
 d'Haussonville, 47 
 Hazlit, 136 
 Helv^tius, 15 
 H6ron, Eugene, 31 
 Hesiod, 145 
 Histoire de la Uttirature anglaise (Taine), 
 
 32,35 
 Histoire de la litUraturefranqaise (Nisard) , 
 
 91 
 Histoire de Sibylle, Feuillet, 142 
 History of Criticism (Saintsbury), i, 130 
 Hoffmann, 78 
 Holbach, 15 
 
 Homer, 40, 45, 59, 66, 71, 14S 
 Horace, 42, 66, 137, 139, 145 
 Houssaye, Ars^ne, 123 
 Huet, 115, 117, 118 
 Hugo, 71, 75, 96, 98, 103, 145, 148, 149 
 
 James, William, 42 
 
 Janin, 115 
 
 Jasmin, 20, 23, 133 
 
 Jeannin, 20 
 
 Jeffrey, 123 
 
 Job, 42 
 
 Johnson, 75 
 
 Joinville, 149 
 
 Jordan, Camille, 115 
 
 Joseph Delorme (Sainte-Beuve), 64 
 
 Joubert, 81, 123, 124, 127, 128 
 
 Jouffroy, 146 
 
 Journal de la SantS du roi Louis XIV, 83 
 
 Jussieu, 34, 118 
 
 Keats, John, 48 
 
 La Biblioteque en vacances (Monselet), 41 
 
 La Bruydre, 41, 42, 116, 129 
 
 Lacaussade, 142 
 
 Lacordaire, 89, 117, 124, 126 
 
 Lafayette, C. de, 100, 141, 144, 145 
 
 LaFontaine, 18, 42, 66, 113, 123, 127, 
 ^33, 135, 136, 137, 146 
 
 La Harpe, 28, 78, 130 
 
 Lamartine, 71, 119, 120, 133, 139, 146, 
 147, 148, 149 
 
 Lammennais, 113, 132, 139 
 
 La Monnoye, 114 
 
 La nouvelle Helotse (Rousseau), 103 
 
 La petite comtesse (Feuillet), 142 
 
 Laprade, de, 54, 74 
 
 La Rochefoucauld, 42, 43, 91 
 
 Latouche, 88 
 
 Latour-Francqueville, Mme de, 131 
 
 La vie litteraire (Anatole France), 76 
 
 Le Brun-Pindar, 130, 141 
 
 Le Cid (Comeille), 104, 125 
 
 Leclerq, Th6odore, 117, 124, 126 
 
 Lecouvreur, Adrienne, 124, 131, 134 
 
 revolution de la critique (Brunetiere), 5 
 
 Lefaux Demitrius (Merim6e), 145 
 
 Lemaltre, 49 
 
 Le Misanthrope (Moli^re), 18 
 
 Le rouge et noir (Stendhal), 144 
 
 Leroux, 92 
 
 Les Girondins (Lamartine), no 
 
 Les memoires d'Outre-tombe (Chateau- 
 briand), 141 
 
 Les mois (Roucher) , 140 
 
 Les parents pauvres (Balzac), 143 
 
 Le Sage, 18, 100, 113, 140 
 
 Lespinasse, Mile de, 74, 131, 135 
 
 Lessing, 82 
 
 Les templiers (Raynouard), 140 
 
 Levallois, Jules, 3, 4, 5, 47 
 
 U Homer e (Mme Dacier), 30 
 
 Life of Caesar (Napoleon III), 84 
 
 Life of William Cowper (Thomas Wright), 
 122 
 
 Limitation de Jisus Christ (Thomas a 
 Kempis) , 45 
 
 Lisle, Leconte de, 134 
 
 Literary Criticism (Gayley and Scott), 24 
 
 Littre, 94, 117, 118 
 
 Livy, 10, 145 
 
i6o SAINTE-BEUVE'S CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 Lorraine, Due de, ii6 
 Lucretius, 145 
 Lysias, 100 
 
 Madame Bovary (Flaubert), 137, 139, 
 
 140, 147 
 Mademoiselle de Maupin (Th^ophile 
 
 Gautier, 147 
 Magnet, August, 123 
 Magnin, 125, 130 
 Maintenon, Mme de, 66 
 Malstre, Joseph de, 13, 40, 118, 122 
 Malebranche, 107 
 MaUierbe, 14, 127, 132, 138 
 Malouet, 146 
 
 Manon Lescaut (Abb6 Provost), 45, 100 
 Marie Antoinette, 79, 131, 134 
 Marivaux, 116, 132 
 Marmontel, 124 
 
 Masters of Modern French Criticism (Bab- 
 bitt), 7, 39, 59, 81, 8s, 130 
 Maucroix, 100 
 Ma)mard, 132 
 Mazarin, 124 
 Mazzoni, i 
 Menander, 42 
 Mennais, rAbb6 de la, 38 
 Merim^e, 138, 145 
 M6zeray, 120 
 
 Michaud, 130 
 
 Michaut, Gustave, 6 
 
 Michelet, 36, 91, 140 
 
 Milton, 137, 142, 14s 
 
 Mirabeau, 117, 118, 129, 146 
 
 Mitton, 136 
 
 MoUere, 18, 66, 86, 102, 103, 134, 136 
 
 Monald, 146 
 
 Moniteur, 84 
 
 Monselet, 141 
 
 Montaigne, 42, 66, 88, 133, 14S 
 
 Montalambert, 123, 126 
 
 Montesquieu, 21, 75, 89, 98, 135, 146 
 
 Montluc, 114, 134, 149 
 
 Moore, Thomas, 123, 136 
 
 Moreau, H6g6sippe, 125, 128, 130, 141 
 
 Motteville, Mme de, 117, 127, 131 
 
 Musset, Alfred de, 44, 59, io3, 123, 124, 
 132, 133 
 
 Nanteuil, C61estin, 123 
 Napoleon, 146 
 Napoleon III, 84 
 
 Nature of Poetry (Stedman), 55 
 Necker, Mme, 33, 115, 120 
 Nerval, Gerard de, 123 
 Nisard, 91 
 Nodier, 146 
 
 Ohermann (Senancour), 124 
 O'Donnell, Countess, 120 
 Olivier, Juste, 79 
 
 Paradol, 124 
 
 Pariset, 125 
 
 Pamy, 124, 125, 128, 141, 146 
 
 Pascal, 96, 99, 100, 126, 146 
 
 Pasquier, 116, 133 
 
 Patm, Guy, 39, i^S 
 
 Paty, Boulay, 142 
 
 Paul et Virginie (Samt-Pierre), 45 
 
 Pellissou, 146 
 
 PensSes (Pascal), 96 
 
 Perrault, 120 
 
 P6trarque, 135 
 
 Pindar, 60, 137 
 
 Piron, 117, 118, 120, 124, 13s 
 
 Planche, 80 
 
 Plato, 86 
 
 P16iade, 147 
 
 PoSme des champs (de Lafayette), 141 
 
 PoUtiques et moralistes (Faguet), 5 
 
 Pontmartin, 49, 79, 93, 95, ^33 
 
 Pope, 38, 42, 43, 66, 69, 71, 72, 79, 81, 82, 
 
 93, 135 
 Portrait de Fontendle (La BruySre). 97 
 Pragmatism (William James), 42 
 Provost, l'Abb6, 45, 60, 114, 124 
 Princesse de Cleves (Mme de LaFayette), 
 
 64 
 Provinciales (Pascal), 96 
 Prudhomme, Sully, 141 
 
 Quinault, 42 
 Quintilian, 66 
 
 Rabelais, 66, 113, 116, 136 
 
 Racan, 132 
 
 Racine, 18, 61, 66, 76, 102, 134, i45, U6 
 
 Racine, Louis, 61 
 
 Ramond, 113 
 
 Raynouard, 13, 114, 129, 134, 140, 146 
 
 R6camier, Mme, 124, 125, 131 
 
 Renan, 31, 61, 112, 113, 119, i35, 136 
 
 Resignation (St. Augustine), 88 
 
INDEX 
 
 i6i 
 
 Retz, 95, 128, 130, 146 
 
 Revue de deux monies, 2 
 
 Revue de Paris, 2 
 
 Rigault, 135 
 
 Rivarol, 86, 128, 138 
 
 Robert, Leopold, 117, 145 
 
 Robertson, J. M., 48 
 
 Roederer, 115, 128 
 
 Rogier, Camille, 123 
 
 RoUin, 30, 34, 123, 138 
 
 Roucher, 140 
 
 Rousseau, 65, 104, no, 115, 126, 127, 
 
 132, 135, 137 
 Rousseau, Jean Baptiste, 61 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, critique dramatique{F3igaet) , 
 
 103 
 Sainte-Beuve (Harper), 47, 79, 86 
 Sainte-Beuve (L6on S6ch6), 148 
 Saint-Evremond, 136 
 Saint- Just, 147 
 Saint Lambert, 115 
 Saint-Martin, 130 
 
 Saint-Pierre, Bemardine de, 45, 100, 127 
 Saint-R6al, l'Abb6 de, 84 
 Saint-Simon, 18, 23, 118, 126, 128 
 Saintsbury, i, 6, 130 
 Salammbd (Flaubert), 17, 19, 63, 93, 137, 
 
 140 
 Salomon, 42 
 
 Sales, St. Franfois de, 115, 126 
 Sand, George, S8, 138, 143, 145 
 Sautelet, 124 
 Scar pin (MoliSre), 18 
 Scherer, Edward, 4, 19, 47, 79, 141 
 Schlegel, 82 
 Scud^ry, Georg de, 120 
 Scud^ry, Mile de, 113, 120, 126 
 S6ch6, L6on, 47, 148 
 Seiy^s, 145 
 
 Sevign^, Mme de, 61, 66, 120 
 Shakespeare, 40, 45, 58, 59, 66, 86, 137 
 Sismondi, 34 
 Solon, 42 
 Sophocles, 59, 86 
 
 Stael, Mme de, 20, 31, 66, 81, 82, 120 
 Stapfer, Albert, 124 
 Stedman, 55 
 Stendhal, 130, 133, 144 
 Stolberg, 123 
 Sue, Eugene, 138 
 
 Sully, 39 _ 
 Surville, Mme de, 119 
 Swetchine, Mme de, 19, 20, 131 
 
 Tableau de la litteraiure frangaise au 
 
 i6me siecle (Sa-mte-Beiive), 147 
 Tacitus, 10 
 Taine, 11, 32, 35, 38, 40, 42, 69, 74, 93, 
 
 112, 115, 122, 123, 124, 12$ 
 
 Talleyrand, 109, 129, 130, 146 
 
 TiUmaque, 70 
 
 Terence, 42 
 
 Terrasson, I'Abb^, 124 
 
 Thiers, 100, 139 
 
 Theocritus, 145 
 
 Theognis, 42 
 
 Thirese Racquin (Zola), 56, 67, 146 
 
 Tibullus, 42 
 
 Tocqueville, 13 
 
 Touareg du Nord (Henri Duveyrier), 83 
 
 Tra Libri e Carti (Mazzoni), i 
 
 Treville, 136 
 
 Vallidre, Mile de la, 86, 131 
 
 Valmiki, 42 
 
 Vauvenargues, 128, 146 
 
 Verdelin, Mme de, 131 
 
 Verlaine, 142 
 
 Vemet, Horace, 43, 117, 119, 134 
 
 Veuillot, Louis, 143 
 
 Vigny, Alfred de, 98, 125, 139, 142, 144 
 
 Villars, Le Mar^chal de, 109 
 
 Villemain, 13, 31, 75, 139 
 
 Villon, 113 
 
 Violin de Faience (Champfleury), 56 
 
 Virgil, 3s, 43, 59, 66, 14S 
 
 Volney, 118, 127 
 
 Voltaire, 22, 42, 43, 66, 81, 82, 100, 113, 
 
 135, 136 
 Volupt6 (Sainte-Beuve), 64 
 Voss, 123 
 Vyasa, 42 
 
 Walckenaer, 55, 98 
 
 Walpole, 146 
 
 Weiss, 124 
 
 Windsor Forest (Pope), 145 
 
 Wordsworth, 48 
 Wright, Thomas, 122 
 
 Xenophon, 100, 145 
 
 Zola, 56, 6s, 67, 137, 143, 146 
 
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