expressed or the aspect of life envisaged in a given work?
One would have thought that as the painter turned critic in
Fromentin at least to a certain extent sought out and dealt
with the hidden workings of his art, so the romancer or the
poet-critic might also have told off for us "the very pulse
of the machine." The last word has not been said on the
mysteries of the writer's art. We know, it may be, how the
links of Shakespeare's magic chain of words are forged, but
the same cannot be said of any other poet. We have studied
Dante's philosophy and his ideal of love; but have we found
out the secrets of his "inventive handling of rhythmical
language"? If Flaubert is univerally acknowledged to have
created a masterpiece in "Madame Bovary," should there not
be an interest for criticism in following out, chapter by
chapter, paragraph by paragraph, word by word, the meaning
of what it is to be a masterpiece? But such seems not to
be the case. Taine reconstructs the English temperament out
of Fielding and Dickens; Matthew Arnold, although he deals
more than others in first principles, never carries his
analysis beyond the widest generalizations, like the
requirement for "profound truth" and "high seriousness,"
for great poetry. And as we run the gamut of contemporary
criticism, we find ever preoccupation with the personality
of the writers and the ideas of their books. I recall only
one example--the critical essays of Henry James--where the
craftsman has dropped some hints on the ideals of the
literary art; and even that, if I maybe allowed the bull,
in his novels rather than in his essays, for in critical
theory he is the most ardent of impressionists. Whatever
the cause, we cannot but allow the dearth of knowledge of,