• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 17188 0

not to be understood as supposing that the fancies, or psychal impressions, to which I allude, are confined to my individual self — are not, in a word, common to all mankind — for on this point it is quite impossible that I should form an opinion — but nothing can be more certain than that even a partial record of the impressions would startle the universal intellect of mankind, by the supremeness of the novelty of the material employed, and of its consequent suggestions. In a word — should I ever write a paper on this topic, the world will be compelled to acknowledge that, at last, I have done an original thing.

­ XVII.

In the way of original, striking, and well-sustained metaphor, we can call to mind few finer things than this — to be found in James Puckle’s “Gray Cap for a Green head:” “In speaking of the dead, so fold up your discourse that their virtues may be outwardly shown, while their vices are wrapped up in silence.”

­ XVIII.

Talking of inscriptions — how admirable was the one circulated at Paris, for the equestrian statue of Louis XV., done by Pigal and Bouchardon — “Statua Statutæ.”

­ XIX.

“This is right,” says Epicurus, “precisely because the people are displeased with it.”

“Il y a á parier,” says Chamfort — one of the Kambars of Mirabeau — “que route idée publique — toute convention reçue — est une sottise car elle a convenue au plus grand nombre.”

“Si proficere cupis,” says the great African bishop, “primo id verum puta quod sana mens omnium hominum attestatur.” Now,

Who shall decide where Doctors disagree?

To me it appears that, in all ages, the most preposterous falsities have been received as truths by at least the mens omnium hominum. As for the sana mens — how are we ever to determine what that is? ­

­ XX.

This book could never have been popular out of Germany. It is too simple — too direct — too obvious — too bold [[bald ]] — not sufficiently complex — to be relished by any people who have thoroughly passed the first (or impulsive) epoch of literary civilization. The Germans have not yet passed this first epoch. It must be remembered that during the whole of the middle ages they lived in utter ignorance of the art of writing. From so total a darkness, of so late a date, they could not, as a nation, have as yet fully emerged into the second or critical epoch. Individual Germans have been critical in the best sense — but the masses are unleavened. Literary Germany thus presents the singular spectacle of the impulsive spirit surrounded by the critical, and, of course, in some measure influenced thereby. England, for example, has advanced far, and France much farther, into the critical epoch; and their effect on the German mind is seen in the wildly anomalous condition of the German literature at large. That this latter will be improved by age, however, should never be maintained. As the impulsive spirit subsides, and the critical uprises, there will appear the polished insipidity of the later England, or that ultimate throe of taste which has found its best exemplification in Sue. At present the German literature resembles no other on the face of the earth — for it is the result of certain conditions which, before this individual instance of their fulfilment, have never been fulfilled. And this anomalous state to which I refer is the source of our anomalous criticism upon what that state produces — is the source of the grossly conflicting opinions about German letters. For my own part, I admit the German vigor, the German directness, boldness, imagination, and some other qualities of impulse, just as I am willing to admit and admire these qualities in the first (or impulsive) epochs of British and French letters. At the German criticism, however, I cannot refrain from laughing all the more heartily, all the more seriously I hear it praised. Not that, in detail, it affects me as an absurdity — but in the adaptation of its details. It abounds in brilliant bubbles of suggestion, but these rise and sink and jostle each other, until the whole vortex ­of thought in which they originate is one indistinguishable