ment it is understood; since clear
writing shows how little is truly original, and makes a disquisition on
a bug, a comma, or a date seem trivial indeed.

Hitherto, Madame de Stael had reigned in _salons_, rather than on the
throne of letters. Until her visit to Germany, she had written but two
books which had given her fame,--one, "On Literature, considered in its
Relations with Social Institutions," and a novel entitled
"Delphine,"--neither of which is much read or prized in these times.
The leading idea of her book on literature was the perfectibility of
human nature,--not new, since it had been affirmed by Ferguson in
England, by Kant in Germany, and by Turgot in France, and even by Roger
Bacon in the Middle Ages. But she claimed to be the first to apply
perfectibility to literature. If her idea simply means the
ever-expanding progress of the human mind, with the aids that Providence
has furnished, she is doubtless right. If she means that the necessary
condition of human nature, unaided, is towards perfection, she wars with
Christianity, and agrees with Rousseau. The idea was fashionable in its
day, especially by the disciples of Rousseau, who maintained that the
majority could not err. But if Madame de Stael simply meant that society
was destined to progressive advancement, as a matter of fact her view
will be generally accepted, since God rules this world, and brings good
out of evil. Some maintain we have made no advance over ancient India in
either morals or literature or science, or over Greece in art, or Rome
in jurisprudence; and yet we believe the condition of humanity to-day is
superior to what it has been, on the whole, in any previous age of our
world. But let us give the credit of this advance to God, and not
to man.

Her other book, "Delphine," published in 1802, made a great sensation,
like a modern first-class novel, but was severely criticised. Sydney
Smith reviewed it in a slashing article. It was considered by many as
immoral in its tendency, since she was supposed to attack marriage.
Sainte-Beuve, the greatest critic of the age, defends her against this
charge; but the book was doubtless very emotional, into which she poured
all the warmth of her ardent and ungoverned soul in its restless
agitation and cravings for sympathy,--a record of herself, blasted in
her marriage hopes and aspirations. It is a sort of New Heloise, and,
though powerful, is not healthy. These two works, however, stamped her