of the sentimental genius is to complete by the elements which
it derives from itself an otherwise defective object. So the
aesthetic critic takes his natural need of beauty from the
object; the appreciative critic seeks a further beauty outside
of the object, in his own reflections and fancies about it.
But if we care greatly for the associations of literature, we
Are in danger of disregarding its quality. A vast deal of
pretty sentiment may hang about and all but transmute the most
prosaic object. A sedan chair, an old screen, a sundial,--to
quote only Austin Dobson,--need not be lovely in themselves to
serve as pegs to hang a poem on; and all the atmosphere of the
eighteenth century may be wafted from a jar of potpourri. Read
a lyric instead of a rose jar, and the rule holds as well. The
man of feeling cannot but find all Ranelagh and Vauxhall in
some icily regular effusion of the eighteenth century, and will
take a deeper retrospective thrill from an old playbill than
from the play itself. And since this is so,--since the interest
in the overtones, the added value given by time, the value for
us, is not necessarily related to the value as literature of the
fundamental note,--to make the study of the overtones an
essential part of criticism is to be guilty of the Pathetic
Fallacy; that is, the falsification of the object by the
intrusion of ourselves,--the typical sentimental crime.

It seems to me, indeed, that instead of courting a sense for
the aromatic in literature, the critic should rather guard
himself against its insidious approaches. Disporting himself
in such pleasures of the fancy, he finds it easy to believe,
and to make us believe, that a piece of literature gains in
intrinsic value from its power to stimulate his historical