Select essays of Sainte-Beuve

Abstract

A GOOD many years ago the present translator ventured to speak a little disrespectfully of a remark of Sainte-Beuve's. When, therefore, in pursuance of a suggestion m.ade by a well-known authority on English literature, who is also great in the councils of U niversity Extension, he was asked to undertake the task of producing a translation of such of the eminent French critic's essays as might, it was thought, be of interest to many students of English literature, it seemed that the hand of Nemesis was at work. Nay, it was manifest in the very matter of the penalty. The remark referred to was part of a sentence in which it was said that to read Dante attentively almost inevitably meant wanting to translate him. Now, to read Sainte-Beuve attentively means inevitably wanting not to translate him. It may be true, as Bonstetten said, that in French you have to reject ten thoughts before coming to one which you can clothe properly; but when that one is clothed, how well its clothes fit ! 'To read good French,' wrote a master of English once to the present writer, 'almost makes one despairthought fit in a recently-published work to assail SainteBeuve rather bitterly. The only inference we can safely draw from his language is that Sainte-Beuve is dead; but on better evidence we have reason to fear that, as often happens, the man deserves less esteem than the work. So far, however, as concerns the work by which he is best known, the two great series, that is, of the Causeries du. L1tndi and the Nouveaux Lwzdis, we can safely subscribe to the opinions expressed by Mr. Matthew Arnold and 11r. Saintsbury. The method is not less instructive than the manner is attractive. The critic tries to put himself at the author's point of view; he allows for the influence of surroundings or, in modern slang, ' environment'; he honestly practises his own maxim that a critic's business is to discover talent. Of course he is not infallible. Even in the few essays which the present volume contains some instances of weak criticism may be found. \Ve may question, for instance, the accuracy of his view that the highest degree of sensitiveness to poetic emotion is only possible to those who are themselves poetsif by poets is meant, as the context would imply, persons endowed with the faculty of writing poetry. Undoubtedly little or no inference can be drawn from the power of expression to the capacity for feeling, but if there be any relation it is just as likely to be in the other direction. \Vhen the two are combined in a high measure we have a great poet. As a critic, Sainte-Beuve seems to claim our gratitude especially on two grounds. One is his insistence on the value of form. If it was true in the years when he was writing about Pope and Gibbon, 1Iilton and Cowper, that form and workmanship, orderliness and restraint were no longer reckoned at their true value, surely, in these days of ' naturalism,' , impressionism' and what not, the caution is no less needed. \Vhen promising young men of letters can satisfy themselves (and editors) by hurling at the public the contents of their notebooks, in which they appear, like the King in \Vonderland, to have been trying whether 'Unimportant or important sounds best in the sentence, and rising poets admit into their more serious stanzas such hideous coinages as belletrist and scie1zUst, or the happily ephemeral slang of "Arry,' we do feel that the 'bad time for Pope and Horace,' which the French critic foresaw, has.arrived, and that literature, which they and their like tempered and polished, is for the moment once more seething in the melting-pot, with a good deal of scum on the surface of some of the best metal. The other point for which we have to thank him is his testimony to the great truth that all criticism of art as distinct from craft must be subjective. Seldom do we find him saying, 'this is right;' 'this is wrong.' He lets us see, his own preferences, and gives his reasons for them; but he knows that there are no ' invariable principles of poetry,' more than of any other art, and that of all arguments 'ad hominem,' one of the feeblest is, 'You receive pleasure from A, therefore you cannot receive pleasure from B '; or, as it is more often worded, , A is good, therefore B must be bad.' Let us by all means call upon all people to accept the definitions of the CPPOVtJLO" but always with the understanding that by the ¢pov/,JLor;, in matters of resthetic criticism we mean the man who agrees with us. In spite of the. etymology of his name, what makes the successful critic is, as Pope saw, not so much the judicial faculty, as the power of expression; not so much ' original thought, as the gift of reading the current thought of his moderately- educated contemporaries. Let him use this power and this gift with urbanity and good temper, and though his work will not last like the great creative works, he will do service to his generation and make an honest living. The essays that have been included in the present volume are mainly those dealing with English literature. Sainte-Beuve had English blood in his veins, which perhaps accounts for his appreciation of certain points in English poetry which do not as a rule appeal to Frenchmen; and also for his power of estimating in some measure its literary form. ,The fragment on Bonstetten and Gray is extracted from a long essay on the rather remarkable career of the former. It should be said that Sainte-Beuve's habit of giving quotations (translated into French) without references, has made the task of identifying them somewhat laborious. It is hoped, however, that with one or two trifling exceptions all appear as the authors wrote them. In addition to the essays on authors, two, 'Qu'est ce qu'un classique ' and ' D'une tradition litteraire,' are given as generally applicable to all literature. They deal with the same subject, but from slightly different points of view. Notes in square brackets (and perhaps one or two where the brackets have been forgotten) have been inserted by the translator. of ever expressing one's self properly.' Still worse is