Nevertheless, it demands genius to fix in literature so perfectly
as France did a type of consciousness which we can all recognize and appreciate. His genius was Et genius of attitude more than of spirit. He saw himself as a detached and ironic observer of life, never carried away by the current ; in a word, he was certain of his individuality and in love with it—he never swam beyond his depth even in scepticism. Perhaps this attitude may be caught best in his remarks on criticism, philosophy, and history : all of them he held to be " a sort of romance designed for those who have sagacious and inquiring minds " ; and it was always individual, never authori- tarian, judgments that he valued. There is no one now to equal him in his own gentle, universal irony and bubble-pricking ; and the purity and beauty of his style should keep him in remembrance long after the weak- nesses of his thought have become apparent.
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