ical articles on
the English language and grammar.]

* * * * *

=_Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1823-._= (Manual, p. 531).

From "Atlantic Essays."

=_241._= ELEGANCE OF FRENCH STYLE.

In France alone among living nations is literature habitually pursued
as an art; and in consequence of this, despite the seeds of decay which
imperialism sowed, French prose-writing has no rival in contemporary
literature. We cannot fully recognize this fact through translations,
because only the most sensational French books appear to be translated.
But as French painters and actors now habitually surpass all others even
in what are claimed as the English qualities,--simplicity and truth,--so
do French prose-writers excel. To be set against the brutality of
Carlyle and the shrill screams of Ruskin, there is to be seen across
the Channel the extraordinary fact of an actual organization of good
writers, the French Academy, whose influence all nations feel. Under
their authority we see introduced into literary work an habitual
grace and perfection, a clearness and directness, a light and pliable
strength, and a fine shading of expression, such as no other tongue can
even define. We see the same high standard in their criticism, in their
works of research, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and in short throughout
literature. What is there in any other language, for instance, to be
compared with the voluminous writings of Sainte-Beuve, ranging over all
history and literature, and carrying into all, that incomparable style,
so delicate, so brilliant, so equable, so strong,--touching all themes,
not with the blacksmith's hand of iron, but with the surgeon's hand of
steel.

In the average type of French novels, one feels the superiority to
the English in quiet power, in the absence of the sensational and
exaggerated, and in keeping close to the level of real human life. They
rely for success upon perfection of style, and the most subtle analysis
of human character; and therefore they are often painful,--just as
Thackeray is painful,--because they look at artificial society, and
paint what they see. Thus they dwell often on unhappy marriages, because
such things grow naturally from the false social system in France. On
the other hand, in France there is very little house-breaking, and
bigamy is almost impossible, so that we hear delightfully little about
them: whereas, if you subtract these from the current Engli