CRITICISM, INCOMPETENT
It is an interesting study of human nature to watch a mixt crowd as they pass through a gallery of pictures. Some simply express admiration at everything; sure that they must be good, or they would not be there, they feel safe in giving indiscriminate praise. Others spice their approbation with occasional criticism. Some utter impulsively their first impressions; others, more timid, look silently upon all. The few who, being true artists themselves, are best qualified to judge, are usually the most reticent. Indeed, they seem more occupied in studying than in judging, and more anxious to understand what they see than either to criticize or to flatter. Doubtless, however, the majority of these spectators are secretly conscious of their real incapacity to pronounce judgment, and the wisest of them will refrain from doing so, however willingly they may express whatever pleasure or preference they feel. They know they are there for their own gratification or improvement, not to pass sentence upon works which they can only dimly fathom. Yet as they pass out of the gallery into the world of living men and women how quickly is this respectful diffidence removed! He who would not presume to criticize a picture, of which he knows but little, will not hesitate to criticize a man or woman of whom he knows far less. Willing to admit his inability to estimate the work of the painter, he yet feels competent, without study or experience, to estimate the noblest and most complex work of infinite wisdom.—Philadelphia Ledger.
(627)
See [Christianity, Criticism of].
Criticism, Indifference to—See [Modesty].
Criticism of Christianity—See [Christianity, Criticism of].
CRITICISM, UNHELPFUL
One of the most brilliant of our younger poets was descanting on the Chinook vocabulary, in which a Chinook calls an Englishman a Chinhog to this day, in memory of King George. And this writer says that when they have a young chief whose warpaint is very perfect, whose blanket is thoroughly embroidered, whose leggings are tied up with exactly the right colors, and who has the right kind of star upon his forehead and cheeks, but who never took a scalp, never fired an arrow, and never smelled powder, but was always found at home in the lodges whenever there was anything that scented of war—he says the Chinooks called that man by the name of “Boston Cultus.” You have seen these people, as I have seen them, as everybody has seen them—people who sat in Parker’s and discust every movement of the campaign in the late war, and told us that it was all wrong, that we were going to the bad, but who never shouldered a musket. They are people who tell us that the immigration, that the pope of Rome, or the German element, or the Irish element, is going to play the dogs with our social system, and yet they never met an immigrant on the wharf or had a word of comfort to say to a foreigner.—Edward Everett Hale.
(628)
Cross Anticipated—See [Calvary, Anticipating].