seat,
You _mount_, you _waver_. . .

* * * * *

Across the room _in loops of flight_
I watch you wayward go;
* * * * *
Before the bust you flaunt and flit--
* * * * *
You _pause_, you _poise_, you _circle up_
Among my old Japan.'

And all the rest of it. The theme is but the vagaries of a wandering
insect; but how just and true is the literary instinct, how perfect the
literary _savoir-faire_! The words I have italicised are the only words
(it seems) in the language that are proper to the occasion; and yet how
quietly they are produced, with what apparent unconsciousness they are
set to do their work, how just and how sufficient is their effect! In
writing of this sort there is a certain artistic good-breeding whose like
is not common in these days. We have lost the secret of it: we are too
eager to make the most of our little souls in art and too ignorant to do
the best by them; too egoistic and 'individual,' too clever and skilful
and well informed, to be content with the completeness of simplicity.
Even the Laureate was once addicted to glitter for glitter's sake; and
with him to keep them in countenance there is a thousand minor poets
whose 'little life' is merely a giving way to the necessities of what is
after all a condition of intellectual impotence but poorly redeemed by a
habit of artistic swagger. The singer of Dorothy and Beau Brocade is of
another race. He is 'the co-mate and brother in exile' of Matthew Arnold
and the poet of _The Unknown Eros_. Alone among modern English bards
they stand upon that ancient way which is the best: attentive to the
pleadings of the Classic Muse, heedful always to give such thoughts as
they may breed no more than their due expression.

BERLIOZ

The Critic.

One of the very few great musicians who have been able to write their own
language with vigour and perspicuity, Berlioz was for many years among
the kings of the feuilleton, among the most accomplished journalists of
the best epoch of the Parisian press. He had an abundance of wit and
humour; his energy and spirit were inexhaustible; within certain limits
he was a master of expression and style; in criticism as in music he was
an artist to his finger-ends; and if he found writing hard work what he
wrote is still uncommonly easy reading. He is one of the few--the very
few--journalists the worth of whose achievement has been justified by
collection and republic