find them skilled in
regulating human speech, in extracting from it its quintessence and in
distilling its full delight.

IV. The Masters.

The art and processes of the masters.--Montesquieu.--
Voltaire.--Diderot.--Rousseau.--"The Marriage of Figaro."

In this respect four among them are superior, Montesquieu, Voltaire,
Diderot and Rousseau. It seems sufficient to mention their names. Modern
Europe has no greater writers. And yet their talent must be closely
examined to properly comprehend their power.--In tone and style
Montesquieu is the first. No writer is more master of himself, more
outwardly calm, more sure of his meaning. His voice is never boisterous;
he expresses the most powerful thoughts with moderation. There is no
gesticulation; exclamations, the abandonment of impulse, all that is
irreconcilable with decorum is repugnant to his tact, his reserve, his
dignity. He seems to be always addressing a select circle of people
with acute minds, and in such a way as to render them at every moment
conscious of their acuteness. No flattery could be more delicate; we
feel grateful to him for making us satisfied with our intelligence.
We must possess some intelligence to be able to read him, for he
deliberately curtails developments and omits transitions; we are
required to supply these and to comprehend his hidden meanings. He is
rigorously systematic but the system is concealed, his concise completed
sentences succeeding each other separately, like so many precious
coffers or caskets, now simple and plain in aspect, now superbly chased
and decorated, but always full. Open them and each contains a treasure;
here is placed in narrow compass a rich store of reflections, of
emotions, of discoveries, our enjoyment being the more intense because
we can easily retain all this for a moment in the palm of our hand.
"That which usually forms a grand conception," he himself says, "is
a thought so expressed as to reveal a number of other thoughts, and
suddenly disclosing what we could not anticipate without patient study."
This, indeed, is his manner; he thinks with summaries; he concentrates
the essence of despotism in a chapter of three lines. The summary itself
often bears the air of an enigma, of which the charm is twofold; we have
the pleasure of comprehension accompanying the satisfaction of divining.
In all subjects he maintains this supreme discretion, this art of
indicating without enforcing, these reti