Sainte-Beuve had a genuine flair for literature. He justified La Bruyère’s dictum: “the test of a man’s critical power is his judgment of contemporaries.” Les Lundis, his greatest contribution to critical literature, shows rare discernment in picking literary winners. He was one of the first to express doubts regarding the permanency of Chateaubriand’s works, and this despite the affection he had for him, and his prominent place in the literature of the day. Mr. Mott’s account of Sainte-Beuve’s position in the salon of Madame Récamier, the guardian angel of the great men of her time, shows the biographer at his best. His description of the “salon” and of the charm of Madame Récamier are a fine bit of writing. Sainte-Beuve did not remain long under her influence. About the time he forsook social intercourse with her, he abandoned poetry and turned to criticism. The poet in him was perpetually in conflict with the critic, sentimentality trying to overcome reason. His heart was continually haunted by visions of romantic situations—but prose was a medium in which he was particularly happy, and to prose he remained faithful—prose and interpretation.
Occasionally, Mr. Mott rewards his readers for attention to arid pages of bibliography by giving them a piece of characterisation which is all the more welcome because of its rarity. Some critics, even Sainte-Beuve himself, have given the impression that he was devoid of merriment and of gaiety, but Mr. Mott has found traces of joyousness. “This gaiety is a note, unobtrusive though it be, that should not be omitted if we are to appreciate the full harmony of Sainte-Beuve’s character. In spite of Volupté and certain poems, he was a normal human being, with plenty of faults and weaknesses, it is true, but sincere with himself and others, remarkably endowed, universally interested and indefatigably laborious.” This is as near as Mr. Mott ever comes to letting us see behind the mask of the intellectual into the make-up of the man. But the biographer makes up for his lack of allurement with his profound and clear knowledge and understanding of Port-Royal, and some of his pages on it are not only the best in the book, but of the quality that makes literature.
Sainte-Beuve’s Port-Royal is his most permanent contribution to literature, Les Lundis excepted. The summary Mr. Mott makes of the book might apply to his own Sainte-Beuve:
“We would not convey the impression that the book is especially entertaining ... to sit down and labour consecutively through the present volumes is somewhat of a task. We appreciate and we admire, but we not infrequently look ahead to discover how many more pages the chapter contains. An unregenerate appetite might be satisfied with a smaller quantity of this very plain spiritual nutriment.”
We appreciate Mr. Mott’s remarkable labour also; and we admire his mastery of the subject, but appreciation and admiration are not synonymous with entertainment.
Mr. Mott creates a relationship between Sainte-Beuve and La Rochefoucauld, and in the examples he has chosen to illustrate this similarity of their views, he has been successful. The former had a gift for imitation and he often took on the mentality of those he admired, so that many of their thoughts can be paralleled in their work. The same comparison might be made between Mr. Mott and his subject. He, like Sainte-Beuve, supplies his books copiously with summaries and with indications of location.
“Not infrequently, a chapter may open or close with a paragraph, much in the manner of Macaulay, telling us what the author is about to do, but rarely does Sainte-Beuve persist, like Macaulay, in a consecutive fulfilment of his prospectus. The side paths are too alluring for his truant disposition.”
It is not a truant disposition that prompts Mr. Mott to follow the side paths, it is a laudable desire of going to the heart of his subject and presenting it as a whole, but the result is the same. Indeed, it may be said that the summary of the chapters in Sainte-Beuve is one of its greatest attractions, for it states in a few words the main points which the chapter never fails to develop.
Sainte-Beuve made enemies, but he did not fear them. His attacks on Balzac especially brought a suit for damages to the magazine in which he published his wrath, but the suit was mocked in an article which he undoubtedly wrote and which concluded: “He (Balzac) will find that we never in the least dreamed of contesting the intrepidity of his bad taste.” Had Sainte-Beuve lived in this age, he would have the same grounds for indignation; for “systems of inward degeneration—emulation, self-esteem, charlatanism, log-rolling, intimidation, avidity for popularity and gold” still exist.
Artistic preoccupation was one of Sainte-Beuve’s distinguishing characteristics. He joined art to literary criticism, giving his portraits creative value, and he does not renounce art when he speaks the truth. He believed in Chateaubriand and Lamennais, yet he told the truth about them, for believing with him was merely a way of understanding. And he insisted that literary criticism should never become static and dogmatic, but like art must remain dynamic and plastic. All this, Mr. Mott has explained clearly. And by so doing, he has written a book which will serve as a vade mecum to all students of Sainte-Beuve. It may not interest the general public for it lacks the divine spark which changes bread into manna, coal into diamonds. The picture he paints of Sainte-Beuve does not make those unacquainted with his writings want to read them; those who know and love Sainte-Beuve, know him and love him for the qualities which Mr. Mott’s book has revealed.