These were not to be published as
they stood, but to be used by the editor, M. Juste Olivier, as he should
think best: they are fragmentary, mere bits of raw material--if any
product of that accomplished brain can be so termed--to be worked up by
another hand. They were qualified by marginal observations, such as
"This is for you alone," "This is rather strong," and they were to be
absolutely anonymous, the author allowing himself the luxury of free
speech, of writing exactly as he thought and felt; in short, of trusting
his indiscretion to M. Olivier's discretion. The latter used his
judgment independently; Sainte-Beuve's views and comments often became
merely one ingredient in an article for which others supplied the rest;
and the editor kneaded the whole into shape to his own liking. But the
MSS. remained intact, and were confided by M. Olivier to M. Jules
Troubat, Sainte-Beuve's private secretary and editor, who has published
them in their integrity, he tells us, with the exception of "a few
indispensable suppressions." The other volume, as we have said, is
composed of his notebooks. These last were intended to take the place of
memoirs by Sainte-Beuve himself, who wrote a short preface, under the
name of M. Troubat, destined for a larger volume to appear after his
death. He published, however, the greater part of those which he had
already collected in vol. ii. of the _Causeries de Lundi_: the present
series contains the notes which accumulated subsequently. M. Troubat has
given them to the world as they stood. Both books abound in the
characteristics of the author's style--good sense, moderation,
perception, discrimination, delicacy, sparkle, unerring taste, as well
as judgment in matters of intelligence. A parcel of disconnected
passages cannot possess the flow and finish of a complete essay, but
each bit has the clearness, incisiveness and smooth polish of his native
wit. They give us Sainte-Beuve's first impression, thought, mental
impulse, about daily events regarding which he sometimes afterward
modified his opinion. Not often, however, for he had, if not precisely
the prophetic vision which belongs to genius or minds illuminated by
enthusiasm or sympathy, that keen far-sightedness which recognizes at a
distance rather than foresees the coming event or man. He tells a
quantity of anecdotes, and he had exactly the sort of humor and absence
of tenderness for human weakness which perceives the point that makes a