Of the famous and much-discussed work of Henri François Amiel,[[1092]] we are fortunately concerned only with the literary criticism, the value of which Mr Arnold duly saw, though, in deference to other persons, perhaps, he did not pay so much attention thereto as to some other matters. This literary criticism is of great interest, and I may as well say at once that I think M. Scherer did not do it justice[[1093]] when he said of his friend that “en littérature, il reculait devant une œuvre.” He could not here mean, what is true, that Amiel’s timid and half-despairing nature recoiled before the completion of a work, for he makes it a parallel with his recoiling before avowal in love, and quotes his own words about his difficulty in “enjoying naïvely and simply.” Undoubtedly this “moral eunuchism” (for it is impossible not to think of the famous passage in Peter Bell the Third) is to be laid to Amiel’s charge too often; but I think conspicuously not in his presentments and judgments of literature. He is here far more healthy and far more natural than anywhere else. Indeed, he is sometimes so very little sicklied over with any pale cast that he frankly and naïvely records his changes of impression about the same book as he reads. These changes are, in tolerably active and sensitive natures, so rapid and curious that some practised reviewers have made it a principle, whenever they can, first to read the book they are reviewing through, with as little interruption as possible, lest the “plate” shift or change; and, secondly, never to review it on the same day on which they read it, that the impressions may have time to blend and harmonise. The most interesting, perhaps, of Amiel’s records of experience in this kind is the group of impressions of Eugénie de Guérin, which occur together in the Journal at vol. i. p. 197. He reads and re-reads her on successive September days in 1864, and reads her once more in the middle of October. The first impression (which maintains itself for the two days) is altogether one of enthusiasm, not merely in regard to the sentimental side, the impression nostalgique, &c., but with a delighted recognition of verve, élan, greatness of soul in this “Sévigné des Champs” [Notre Dame des Rochers will forgive!]. After the month’s interval he does not recant: but finds a rather less charming side as well. Eugénie’s existence is at once “too empty and too confined”: he wants “more air and space.” Now both these impressions are genuine and vivid: and, what is more, they are both frankly taken and expressed, without any gaucherie or “feeling faint,” any “touching the hem of the shift,” and daring no more.
Examples thereof.
And this character of at least relative vivacity—of ease and power in enjoyment—generally distinguishes, as it seems to me, the literary entries, which have far less of what some have called the ton amielleux about them than any others. The description of the style of Montesquieu[[1094]] is quite admirably true and fresh: and if that of Joubert[[1095]] is open to more exception, it is precisely because Amiel is mixing up Joubert’s utterances as a literary critic and his utterances as a philosopher, &c., too much; because he is not keeping his own saner organ of judgment mainly at work. The fastidious and morbid side does show itself in that on Rousseau, which follows immediately: but this we should expect. On Vinet,[[1096]] though too complimentary, as was for a dozen reasons almost inevitable, he shows extraordinary acuteness and finesse, as also on Sismondi.[[1097]] If he is less satisfactory on Chateaubriand, we can again explain it, and he does justice to René. The apology for Quinet[[1098]] is as judicious as it is sympathetic: and I know few more curious and interesting companion passages in criticism than those on Hugo and Lamartine earlier, on Corneille and Hugo later, which occur almost together in the book, though there was some time between the composition of them.[[1099]]
In the first of these, the juxtaposition of the citations from Les Châtiments and Jocelyn is a stroke of genius; in the latter batch, though it is quite clear that the judge does not completely like either the author of Polyeucte or the author of Les Misérables, the indication of characteristics is even greater in another way, because more elaborated and responsible. On M. Cherbuliez[[1100]] Amiel is again of the first interest, because the slight over-valuation of compatriotism on the small scale is balanced by a distinct antagonism of “nervous impression.” And we have even a more curious “place” in the notice of John Halifax,[[1101]] which is the last of our passages in the first volume. Here Amiel’s starting-point is a vain imagination—the usual misjudgment of things English, by a man who does not know England—but the use made of it is singularly good. The second volume gives us another invaluable pair on the most antecedently not to be paired of writers, About and Lotze—who nevertheless bring out between them the remarkable powers of Amiel’s mind-camera. The summer of 1869 supplies more documents on Lamennais, Heine (inadequate this latter, but again necessarily), and Renan, with admirable obituary remarks to follow on Sainte-Beuve. One side of Taine—the side up to the date almost solely in evidence—comes out two years afterwards,[[1102]] and the remaining references that I have are so numerous that I fear they, or rather some of them only, must be collected in a note.[[1103]]
The pity of it.
We must, however, in order to take an accurate and complete view of Amiel as a critic, and not merely of Amiel’s occasional criticisms, remember that these aperçus, brilliant as they are, are scattered over more than thirty years, and that they form, as it were, the lucid intervals in a lifelong night of moping, the islets far scattered and estranged from another, amid the nigras undas lethargi. That the man who wrote them was, at the time of writing, almost invariably a sane, mentally active, “moderately cheerful” being, is, I think, absolutely beyond question; that he might, if he had chosen to write more and to give himself more freely to that which comes before the writing, have freed himself to a great extent from his Melancholia, I have no doubt. Escape from that dread yet sweet enchantress—that serpent not of old Nile but of the older Ocean that flows round the world—no man can wholly who has been born of her servants; probably no such man would ever wish to do so. But there are two gates of partial and temporary emancipation—the Gate of Humour and the Gate of Study—which she usually permits to stand open, and through which men may pass, lest her sway become tyranny. That of Humour was apparently barred to Amiel: the other evidently was not. But he would very rarely use it. We know that he had many opportunities of contributing to critical journals, and that he would not take them, but fled back to Maya and the Great Wheel. Here the other, the more popular, the more irritating, side of him comes in.
But I can see no pose whatever in the literary entries. On the contrary, their freshness and spontaneity make a very remarkable contrast to almost all the rest of the book, except perhaps a few of the Nature-passages. Still, they are “intervals and islets” only—there is a singular want of connection between them. Amiel seems seldom or never to have troubled himself in the least about taking any connected views of literature: he seldom or never extends the remarkable comparative power which he shows in his various companion sketches. And, further, I am not certain that if he had attempted regular studies or causeries they would have been good—that he would not have maundered off into the vague instead of giving grasped views and judgments. This, however, no one can decide. What remains positive and proved is, first, that his intellect never shows to greater advantage than in his literary passages.
Sed hæc hactenus. I believe honestly, and not as a subterfuge to cover pusillanimity or laziness, that if I were to give here an examination of notable critics during the nineteenth century from every nation and country in Europe, I should not really advance the survey of criticism which we now possess in the very least. Until a time so recent that it falls out of our consideration, all these countries and nations have most certainly been following—until, perhaps, one which is not recent but still to come, they seem likely to follow, the same course which the Three First have pursued before them, and in most, if not in all cases, have followed their leaders in a more definite order of sequence still. All, about the second or third decade of the century, devoured Scott and Byron; all, a little (or more than a little) later, reinforced our influence by that of the French Romantic movement; most, earlier or later, devoted themselves to that German literature which had in a sense preceded ours, as it certainly had the French. In all, the Romantic leaven worked itself out, under the conditions of the literature and the individual, to spirit, or wine, or vinegar, as the case might be. In all, “Realism” and “Naturalism,” “Decadence” and “Preciousness,” showed themselves, as similar things have shown themselves many a time before, in the merry-go-round of history and of literature. Quite lately, in some—Russian, Norwegian, Belgian, que-sais-je?—signs of secondary fermentation have been shown, which have greatly impressed some observers. But it is as yet much too early to take serious critical account of them.