CHAPTER II.
What then? No criticising? No.—No blame? No.—You explain everything? Yes.—Genius is an entity like Nature, and requires, like Nature, to be accepted purely and simply. A mountain must be accepted as such or left alone. There are men who would make a criticism on the Himalayas, pebble by pebble. Mount Etna blazes and slavers, throws out its glare, its wrath, its lava, and its ashes; these men take scales and weigh those ashes, pinch by pinch. Quot libras in monte summo? Meanwhile genius continues its eruption. Everything in it has its reason for existing. It is because it is. Its shadow is the inverse of its light. Its smoke comes from its flame. Its depth is the result of its height. We love this more and that less; but we remain silent wherever we feel God. We are in the forest; the tortuosity of the tree is its secret. The sap knows what it is doing. The root knows its own business. We take things as they are; we are indulgent for that which is excellent, tender, or magnificent; we acquiesce in chefs-d'œuvre; we do not make use of one to find fault with the other; we do not insist upon Phidias sculpturing cathedrals, or upon Pinaigrier glazing temples (the temple is the harmony, the cathedral is the mystery; they are two different forms of the sublime); we do not claim for the Münster the perfection of the Parthenon, or for the Parthenon the grandeur of the Münster. We are so far whimsical as to be satisfied with both being beautiful. We do not reproach for its sting the insect that gives us honey. We renounce our right to criticise the feet of the peacock, the cry of the swan, the plumage of the nightingale, the butterfly for having been caterpillar, the thorn of the rose, the smell of the lion, the skin of the elephant, the prattle of the cascade, the pips of the orange, the immobility of the Milky Way, the saltness of the ocean, the spots on the sun, the nakedness of Noah.
The quandoque bonus dormitat is permitted to Horace. We raise no objection. What is certain is, that Homer would not say it of Horace,—he would not take the trouble. Himself the eagle, Homer would indeed find Horace, the chattering humming-bird, charming. I grant it is pleasant to a man to feel himself superior, and say, "Homer is puerile; Dante is childish." It is indulging in a pretty smile. To crush these poor geniuses a little, why not? To be the Abbé Trublet, and say, "Milton is a schoolboy," it is pleasing. How witty is the man who finds that Shakespeare has no wit! That man is La Harpe, Delandine, Auger; he is, was, or shall be, an Academician. "All these great men are made up of extravagance, bad taste, and childishness." What a fine decree to issue! These fashions tickle voluptuously those who have them; and in reality, when they have said, "This giant is small," they can fancy that they are great. Every man has his own way. As for myself, the writer of these lines, I admire everything like a fool.
That is why I have written this book.
To admire, to be an enthusiast,—it has struck me that it was right to give in our century this example of folly.
CHAPTER III.
Do not look, then, for any criticism. I admire Æschylus, I admire Juvenal, I admire Dante, in the mass, in a lump, all. I do not cavil at those great benefactors. What you characterize as a fault, I call accent. I accept and give thanks. I do not inherit the marvels of human wit conditionally. Pegasus being given to me, I do not look the gift-horse in the mouth. A masterpiece offers its hospitality: I approach it with my hat off, and think the visage of mine host handsome. Gilles Shakespeare, it may be: I admire Shakespeare and I admire Gilles. Falstaff is proposed to me: I accept him, and I admire the "Empty the jorden." I admire the senseless cry, "A rat!" I admire the jests of Hamlet; I admire the wholesale murders of Macbeth; I admire the witches, "that ridiculous spectacle;" I admire "the buttock of the night;" I admire the eye plucked from Gloster. I am simple enough to admire all.
Having recently had the honour to be called "silly" by several distinguished writers and critics, and even by my illustrious friend M. de Lamartine,[1] I am determined to justify the epithet.