"
Of M. Sainte-Beuve's delight in what is the most excellent product of
literature, poetry, testimony is borne by many papers, ranging over
the whole field of French poetry, from its birth to its latest page.
"Poetry," says he, "is the essence of things, and we should be careful
not to spread the drop of essence through a mass of water or floods of
color. The task of poetry is not to say everything, but to make us
dream everything." And he cites a similar judgment of Fenelon: "The
poet should take only the flower of each object, and never touch but
what can be beautified." In a critique of Alfred de Musset he speaks
of the youthful poems of Milton: "'Il Penseroso' is the masterpiece of
meditative and contemplative poetry; it is like a magnificent oratorio
in which prayer ascends slowly toward the Eternal. I make no
comparison; let us never take august names from their sphere. All that
is beautiful in Milton stands by itself; one feels the tranquil habit
of the upper regions, and continuity in power." In a paper on
the letters of Ducis, he proves that he apprehends the proportions of
Shakespeare. He asks: "Have we then got him at last? Is our stomach up
to him? Are we strong enough to digest this marrow of lion (_cette
moelle de lion_)?" And again, in an article on the men of the
eighteenth century, he writes: "One may be born a sailor, but there is
nothing for it like seeing a storm, nor for a soldier like seeing a
battle.
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