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ABSENCE OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE.

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the coat and through the skin it covers if one would know the man. Where feeling is to be propitiated, few may boast the subtlety of the serpent, for few carry the heart so near the head. He who attempts to portray character should guard as much against the hallucinations of his own mind, the delusions of his own vision, as against falsity in fact, form, or coloring. From a balloon, the earth's surface next the observer appears not convex but concave. Inferences from the clearest data may be illogical and untrue. Democritus laughed at everything; Heraclitus wept at everything. To one, the world and all it contained seemed unreal and ridiculous, objects of mirth to a wise man, while to the other there was nothing but what called for tears. Man, he cries, is only to be pitied; the world is one of wickedness, fit only for destruction. Evil reigns; pleasure is not pleasure; knowledge is ignorance; life is but a winter's day.

Were it possible even to know self; to dive into the depths of our own consciousness, and drawing aside the veil, scan the strange conglomeration of opposing forces, and mark off the ego and the non-ego; could we step within the shrine, and examine the machinery of our wondrous life, note the ticking of obsolete formulas and the unfolding of divine intuitions; could we place free-will and necessity under analysis, fathom the duality of our nature, decompose the falsity of seeming reality and the reality of falsity, and ascertain whence the ascendency of these vagaries and the subordination of those we might then understand what is due to intrinsic self and what to intractable circumstances. Could we play the critic after this fashion, we might tell why feeling has so much more power over us than reason; why we feed our passions only to give them strength to devour us; why, with scarcely a consciousness of our inconsistency, we persist in deceiving ourselves and accepting as true what we know to be false; why we daily tempt death, struggling for we know not what, yet intensify hope

to prolong life; why we commit a wrong in order to accomplish a right; why we conceal our nobler part, turn our baser qualities like porcupine quills to the world, then roll ourselves in the dust to hide them. When once we know all this, we have then but to turn our eyes within and there behold, as in a mirror, that alter ego, our neighbor.

Momus blamed Jupiter because in creating man he put no window in his breast through which the heart might be seen. Momus was a sleepy god, and we mortals are likewise troubled with a lack of insight into human character. No doubt Jupiter could have done better. Man is far from a perfect creation. But as the gods saw fit to do no more for us, may we not now do something for ourselves? Were not the eyes of Momus somewhat at fault as well as the fingers of Jupiter? If we lay aside the narrowing prejudices of birth and education, under the influences of which it is impossible to balance nicely the actions of men, may we not discover here and there openings into the soul?

CHAPTER VI.

CRITICISM.

Ich bin ein Feind von Explicationen; man betrügt sich oder den Andern, und meist beide. -Goethe.

Il n'appartient qu'aux grands hommes d'avoir de grands défauts.
-La Rochefoucauld.

Los hombres famosos por sus ingenios, los grandes poëtas, los ilustres historiadores siempre, ó las mas vezes, son embidiados de aquellos que tienen por gusto, y por particular entretenimiento, juzgar los escritos agenos, sin aver dado algunos proprios à la luz del mundo.

-Cervantes.

PROTAGORAS begins his treatise On the Gods, in these words: "Respecting the gods, I am unable to know whether they exist or do not exist." A writer opens a chapter On the Snakes in Ireland, by saying, "There are no snakes in Ireland." We can hardly affirm that there is no such thing as criticism, but if any exist, it is of doubtful interpretation. There are tricks in all trades, but there are few trades that are all tricks. There are some honest men who are critics; there is even such a thing as fair criticism. There are many who try to be just; there are yet more who are amiable; a great many in this world are politic; hundreds of thousands are obliged to live.

The office is one of honor, and honorably filled is of benefit to the community. Books are the great civilizers of the race, the store-houses of knowledge, the granaries of intellectual food. Therefore to designate in all candor which books of those that are made are, indeed, public pabulum, and which are straw; carefully and conscientiously to examine and explain, one man for the million, the publications which are conducive or detrimental, in whole or in

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part, to learning and progress, is one of the most important and noblest works in which man can be engaged, while to prostitute the powers requisite for such a position is one of the basest.

So with regard to newspaper strictures on men. The journalist who as a sacred duty strives to cleanse the community of its pollutions, who searches out and exposes wickedness in high and low places, who holds up to public scorn evil purposes and practices, dereliction of duty in public officials, subversion of the law, prostitution of politics, injustice, bribery, iniquitous monopoly, and all immorality, employs divine functions for the highest benefit of man. On the other hand, he who, through fear or favor, or for money, or popularity, or to increase the circulation of his journal, or through prejudice, or fanaticism, or jealousy, turns from the path of rectitude, and vilifies the good while allowing the bad to escape, is a curse to the commu ́nity. And worst of all, most vile and most detestable, is the hypocrite who strikes in the dark, who, while pretending to pure integrity, sells himself and his influence for personal benefit, panders to depraved public taste, advocates iniquitous measures, or vilifies from personal spite good men whose ways are honest and whose lives have been devoted to praiseworthy efforts. Such a man, or a newspaper proprietor who will allow such creatures to crawl about him and insert slanders in his journal, is a villain of the deepest dye, more deserving of the hangman's rope than many who suffer thereat.

More than ever before, during these days of extensive book-making, the scholar immersed in his investigations, the teacher, the general reader, need the opinion of qualified persons on the respective merits of books as they appear, need the conscientious opinion of discriminating critics. It is impossible otherwise for a specialist, even, to keep under control the so rapidly multiplying literature relative to his department. Indeed, opinions and controversies have become

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so numerous that we shall soon require reviews of reviewers; for on the works of some authors, more has been written than by the authors themselves.

Many have essayed criticism; some have achieved it. Although critical talent is ranked a little lower than creative talent, on the ground that in free creative power man finds exercise for his highest capabilities, yet in all the field of letters nothing is more difficult of attainment than pure criticism,-not that conventional article so freely flaunted in our faces by aspiring youths or censorious old men, of which Destouches says, "La critique est aisée et l'art est difficile," but the intelligent expression of truthful opinion resulting from unbiassed inquiry. With comparative ease, from the delicate filament of his inspiration the poet may spin stanzas, but omniscience, justice, goodness, and truth, all the attributes of the deity, scarcely suffice for the qualifications of the perfect critic.

In no department of literature is there more skilled humbug employed than in criticism.

Writers of every other class sail under colors which enable the reader to form some idea of their craft, and whither it is driving. He may be knave or fanatic, philosopher or fool, who deals in history or romance, science or religion; he may be conscientious and exact, or mendacious, ignorant, and superstitious; but whatever he is, the intelligent reader can approximately place him, and attach a tolerably correct value to his work. But the critic finds himself in a peculiar position. He must be wiser than all men, abler than all, and of more experience than any; for if he is not, then is he no critic.

The fault is not his; he is generally a very good fellow; but too often he is placed at the treadle of the machine and instructed to do certain work in a certain way, and he must obey. Fifty thousand reviewers in Europe and America are employed to tell what five thousand authors have done or are doing, nominally to read, analyze, prove, and truthfully value their

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