Not
only can he not discern the good there is in a man or a work, he can
as little discover and expose the bad; for, deficiencies implying
failures to reach a certain fullness, implying a falling short of the
complete, to say where and what are deficiencies, involves the having
in the mind an idea of the full and complete. The man so meagrely
furnished as to hold no such idea is but a carper, not a critic. To
know the bad denotes knowledge of the good; in criticism as in morals,
a righteous indignation can only flash from a shock to pure feelings.
In a notice of M. Thiers' chapter on St. Helena, M. Sainte-Beuve,
after expressing his admiration of the commentaries of Napoleon on the
campaigns of Turenne, Frederic, and Caesar, adds: "A man of letters
smiles at first involuntarily to see Napoleon apply to each of these
famous campaigns a methodical criticism, just as we would proceed with
a work of the mind, with an epic or tragic poem. But is not a
campaign of a great captain equally a work of genius? Napoleon is here
the high sovereign critic, the Goethe in this department, as the
Feuquieres, the Jominis, the St. Cyrs are the La Harpes or the
Fontanes, the Lessings or the Schlegels, all good and expert critics;
but he is the first of all, nor, if you reflect on it, could it have
been otherwise.
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