A FRENCH INTEBPREVER OF ANGLO-SAXON THOUGHT.*
MICILitro evidently agrees with Matthew Arnold in consider. ing criticism as "an impartial endeavour to see the thing as in itself it really is." Very rarely does he assume the functions of the judge or endeavour to evaluate the merits of the authors whom he expounds ; his aim is to interpret them without com- ment. In effect, he says to his readers : " These are Mr. Bernard Shaw's opinions on religion, love, war, and society ; here are the materials from which Mr. Upton Sinclair constructs his romances ; this is the special contribution of Henry James to the development of the psychological novel ; here and here we trace the influence of Montaigne upon Emerson." It is true that once or twice some offence against the canons of art moves M. Michaud to point an accusing forefinger at those barbariems which no critic of Latin race can contemplate unmoved. " lui manque," he observes very justly of Mr. Upton Sinclair, "la sobriete dans ''eloquence, la mesure dans la satire, la dis- cretion dans is lyrisme, cet éclat jets par ''artiste stir la realito et qui la transfigure sans la fausser." But in general be main- tains a Flaubertian impartiality, and it is only when his zeal in the congenial work of explanatory dissection languishes that we can infer that some writers interest him more profoundly than others.
To analyse an author's work in a manner completely detached and scientific, to describe exactly what he has written without discussing what he might have written or ought to have written, is a task sufficiently difficult for a fellow-countryman, and verging upon the impossible for a foreigner. We cannot say that M. Michaud has completely achieved it ; his estimate of " Mark Twain," for instance, seems to us to throw too much weight on the didactic impulse which, rightly enough, he detects beneath the mask of the humorist. Nonsense for the sake of nonsense- • IlIptiquet d Bland's Ando-Saxons d'Ernenon d Bernard Skew. Far IL ittnninfichaud. Paris: Llbralse Armand Cots. 13 ir. 00 c.I that prosaic and matter-of-fact treatment of the incredible and the ghastly which is characteristic of American humour— seems to us to be beyond the appreciative powers of M. Michaud's severely logical mind. The pre-eminence of the Americans in this method can be seen by any one who chooses to compare Mark Twain's The Invalid's Story with In a New Bottle (1 rom The Grim Smile of the Fire Towns), where so accomplished a craftsman as Mr. Arnold Bennett attempts, quite unsuccessfully, to retell the same incident ; if we allowed ourselves to dwell even for a moment on the repulsive idea which forms the basis of the humour, we should be too disgusted to continue ; but Mark Twain catches us up in such a whirlwind of detailed exaggeration that we can do nothing but laugh uproariously, and forget the grisly foundation of our enjoyment.
On the other hand, in the case of serious artists whose methods are not too national to be cryptic, M. Michaud displays an astonishing penetration. In " L'Art de Henry James " he has defined with the utmost exactness the point of view of a writer whom even his own countrymen often find enigmatic ; nothing could be more true than the description of James's favourite characters in their weakness and their strength :-
" Its existent uniquement pour se connattre. Lea phases de leur existence sont des 'Stapes vers Is lucidite, one lucidite qui, A force d'eltre poussie, deviant parfois perverse. Leur destine. suitable etre d'arriver k ao rcndre raison d'Eux- memes at de leur proohain a tout prix. Passionnia de self- control et non moles de self-introspectson, la vie tient pour eux dans l'exereice de 'Intelligence applique. a l'analyae dos senti- ments et h Is penetration des Mats d'ame. Se voir dans un jour franc et, aprds raffle efforts si compliques qu'ila soient, d'un coup d'ceil unique, voila leur but, auquel ils sacrifient des tresors d'esprit, de sentiment et d'art."
The pages devoted to the philosophic ancestry of Walter Pater are not unworthy of Taine ; and while M. Michaud is just as well as generous to Jack London, whose literary vices and virtues are almost equally antipathetic to the scholastic critic, he appreciates, as we might expect, the delicate psychology of Mrs. Wharton's novels at its full value. Above all, he is delightfully sane on Mr. Bernard Shaw. We commend heartily to the attention of the author of Caesar and Cleopatra M. Michaud's suggestion that he should add a study of Cromwell to his historical gallery.
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