Of this sympathy M. Sainte-Beuve,
throughout his many volumes, gives overflowing evidence, in addition
to that primary proof of having himself written good poems. Besides
the love, he has the instinct, of literature, and this instinct draws
him to what is its bloom and fullest manifestation, and his love is
the more warm and constant for being discriminative and refined.
Through variety of knowledge, with intellectual keenness, he enjoys
excellence in the diversified forms that literature assumes. His pages
abound in illustrations of his versatility, which is nowhere more
strikingly exhibited than in the contrast between two successive
papers (both equally admirable) in the very first volume of the
"Causeries du Lundi," the one on Madame Recamier, the other on
Napoleon. Read especially the series of paragraphs beginning, "Some
natures are born pure, and have received _quand meme_ the gift
of innocence," to see how gracefully, subtly, delicately, with what a
feminine tenderness, he draws the portrait of this most fascinating of
women, this beautiful creature, for whom grace and sweetness did even
still more than beauty, this fairy-queen of France, this refined
coquette, who drew to her hundreds of hearts, this kindly magician,
who turned all her lovers into friends.
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