ce.
It is in criticism, I think, though no doubt in criticism alone,
preferable to lose one's self in a maze of perplexity--distressing as
this is to the critic who appreciates the indispensability of
clairvoyance in criticism--rather than to reach swiftly and simply a
conclusion which candor would have foreseen as the inevitable and
unjudicial result of following one's own likes and whims, and one's
contentment with which must be alloyed with a haunting sense of
insecurity. In criticism it is perhaps better to keep balancing
counter-considerations than to determine brutally by excluding a whole
set of them because of the difficulty of assigning them their true
weight. In this way, at least, one preserves the attitude of poise, and
poise is perhaps the one essential element of criticism. In a word, that
catholicity of sensitiveness which may be called mere impressionism,
behind which there is no body of doctrine at all, is more truly critical
than intolerant depreciation or unreflecting enthusiasm. "The main thing
to do," says Mr. Arnold, in a significant passage, "is to get one's self
out of the way and let humanity judge."

It is temptingly simple to deny all importance to painters who are not
poetic painters. And the temptation is especially seductive when the
prosaic painters are paralleled by such a distinguished succession of
their truly poetic brethren as are the painters of the romantic epoch
who are possessed of the classic temperament. But real criticism
immediately suggests that prose has its place in painting as in
literature. In literature we do not insist even that the poets be
poetic. Poetic is not the epithet that would be applied, for instance,
to French classic verse or the English verse of the eighteenth century,
compared with the poetry, French or English, which we mean when we speak
of poetry. Yet no one would think of denying the value of Dryden or even
of Boileau. No one would even insist that, distinctly prosaic as are the
qualities of Boileau--and I should say his was a crucial instance--he
would have done better to abjure verse. And painting, in a wide sense,
is just as legitimately the expression of ideas in form and color as
literature is the expression of ideas in words. It is perfectly plain
that Meissonier was not especially enamoured of beauty, as Corot, as
Troyon, as Decamps was. But nothing could be less critical than to deny
Meissouier's importance and the legitimate interest he has fo