e light as the logical proof of the existence
of Jupiter Ammon. "Les Pensees" could appear to me only as infinitely
childish; the form is no doubt superb, but tiresome and sterile to one of
such modern and exotic taste as myself. Still, I accept thankfully, in its
sense of two hundred years, the compliment paid to Balzac; but I would add
that personally he seems to me to have shown greater wings of mind than any
artist that ever lived. I am aware that this last statement will make many
cry "fool" and hiss "Shakespeare!" But I am not putting forward these
criticisms axiomatically, but only as the expressions of an individual
taste, and interesting so far as they reveal to the reader the different
developments and the progress of my mind. It might prove a little tiresome,
but it would no doubt "look well," in the sense that going to church "looks
well," if I were to write in here ten pages of praise of our national bard.
I must, however, resist the temptation to "look well;" a confession is
interesting in proportion to the amount of truth it contains, and I will,
therefore, state frankly I never derived any profit whatsoever, and very
little pleasure from the reading of the great plays. The beauty of the
verse! Yes; he who loved Shelley so well as I could not fail to hear the
melody of--

"Music to hear, why hearest thou music sadly
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy."

Is not such music as this enough? Of course but I am a sensualist in
literature. I may see perfectly well that this or that book is a work of
genius, but if it doesn't "fetch me," it doesn't concern me, and I forget
its very existence. What leaves me cold to-day will madden me to-morrow.
With me literature is a question of sense, intellectual sense if you will,
but sense all the same, and ruled by the same caprices--those of the flesh?
Now we enter on very subtle distinctions. No doubt that there is the
brain-judgment and the sense-judgment of a work of art. And it will be
noticed that these two forces of discrimination exist sometimes almost
independently of each other, in rare and radiant instances confounded and
blended in one immense and unique love. Who has not been, unless perhaps
some dusty old pedant, thrilled and driven to pleasure by the action of a
book that penetrates to and speaks to you of your most present and most
intimate emotions. This is of course pure sensualism; but to take a less
marked stage. Why should Marlowe e