is his large and free vitality, played upon by the sun and breeze, so wholesome is his invigorating saltness, that we may dash fearlessly across the breakers, and quit his sands and shallows for a gleeful adventure in the deep.

We are often instructed to enter on the study of a great writer in a spirit of reverence, and this is well Isaid when it means that we should be neither impertinent nor impatient; but it is ill said if it tend to foster in us the spirit of hero-worship. Approach a great writer rather in the spirit of cheerful and trustful fraternity; this is better than hero-worship; and do homage only to the eternal laws of Nature or of God. The great master is better pleased to find a brother than a worshipper or a serf; and only to a brother, no matter though he be a younger brother, will he lay bare his heart. Surely the master has no particular affection for the idolatrous coterie that reprints his worst verses, with a monograph on the number of occasions on which he turned the loops of his y's and g's to left or right. This is neither literature nor life, but pedantry and puerility. It was not because Carlyle was a hero-worshipper that he wrote so admirably of Burns and Johnson; it was because he found in each a brotherman, and took the hand of each in the close grasp of fraternity. If any author or artist lead us to a dim shrine, and bid us bow before the idol of himself, he secludes and shuts us in from what is larger and better than himself; but indeed what a great writer desires and will do for us, if we permit him, is to bring us forth into the sun and air, and give us strength and courage

to enjoy them, and wisdom to go our way, cheerful wanderers over a wide earth under an open heaven.

Approaching a great writer in this spirit of courageous and affectionate fraternity, we need all our forces and all our craft for the friendly encounter. If we love ease and lethargy, let us turn in good time and fly. The interpretation of literature, like the interpretation of Nature, is no mere record of facts; it is no catalogue of the items which make up a book-such catalogues and analyses of contents encumber our histories of literature with some of their dreariest pages. The interpretation of literature exhibits no series of dead items, but rather the life and power of one mind at play upon another mind duly qualified to receive and manifest these. Hence, one who would interpret the work of a master must summon up all his powers, and must be alive at as many points as possible. He who approaching his author as a whole, bearing upon life as a whole, is himself alive at the greatest possible number of points, will be the best and truest interpreter. For he will grasp what is central, and at the same time will be sensitive to the value of all details, which details he will perceive not isolated, but in connection with one another and with the central life to which they belong and from which they proceed.

In the first stage of approach, however, the critic, while all the time full of athletic force, must cunningly assume a passive aspect, and to do so he must put restraint upon his own vivacity and play of mind. His aim is now to obtain a faithful impression of the object. His second movement of mind will be one of recoil and

resilience, whereby having received a pure impression of
the object, he tries to surprise and lay hold of the power
which has produced that impression. And these are the
two chief processes of the critical spirit in literature. To
make a pure observation or receive a faithful impression
calls for a strenuous patience and a disinterestedness
that are rare. ""
'Receptiveness," George Eliot has said,

"We are

"is a rare and massive power like fortitude."
so ready," says Goethe, "to mix up our own imaginations,
opinions, judgments, with what comes under our notice,
that we do not long retain the quiet position of observers."
The peculiar difficulty in the study of literature and art
of observing the object purely arises from the fact that
in making the observation it is not merely the intellect
which is employed, but also the emotions. We must
not only see accurately, but feel vividly and truly. Of
what value, for example, were any observation of a lyric
of Shelley's, unless we recognise the peculiar delight
which it excites? And in order to do this, we must feel
that delight vividly and aright. But the moment our
emotions are called into play we cease to be guided by
the dry light of intellect; a personal factor enters to
disturb our calculations. If only we could be an instru-
ment of rich tone and ample compass, perfectly in tune,
on which the poet might play, capable of rendering back
with faultless vibration the meaning of his every touch.
This some of us can never be, or anything resembling
this. In matters of art and literature there is an
election of grace. The poet, it is said, is born, not
made; he is in fact both born and made. The lover of
literature is also born-born with a finer sensitiveness

than other men, and Pope was in the right when he said of poet and critic:

"Both must alike from heav'n derive their light,

These born to judge, as well as those to write." But happily the gift of a capacity to enjoy what is beautiful is widely distributed, and where it exists in any degree much can be done to develop the capacity. In a very rare and high degree, however, the gift of natural sensitiveness is not common; and where it is intense in quality it is sometimes limited in range. To feel widely and at the same time to feel exquisitely is an exceptional gift. From those who lie open to only a few impressions, and who respond to those few impressions with peculiar intensity, arise the sects and heresies of literature and art—unless indeed they acknowledge their own limited range, and put their gift to wisest use. But as the sects and heresies in religion have often been witnesses at a particular time for a neglected truth, so also have been the sects and heresies in art and literature. What constitutes their doctrine a heresy is not the portion of truth which it possesses, but the falsehood which substitutes the lesser truth for the greater, or a part for the whole. They gather around some master— never one of universal power, but a master of narrow range and exquisite gift-and they call themselves after his name, and make his special qualities their standard of judgment. They are fastidious, and fastidiousness always means the presence of a narrow, intense, sensibility, lacking the larger and more generous passions which arise from rich sensitiveness to the chief sources of emotion in human life. And even of exquisiteness

and subtlety, the very highest kind is attained only through that larger and richer sensibility. The Venus of Melos is not only freer and nobler than the most adored ingenuity of the Grosvenor Gallery, but her beauty is finer, subtler, and more exquisite.

Those who feel sanely and nobly in matters of literature and art keep themselves in vital relation with the great facts and laws of life and nature, and refuse to immure themselves in any monastery of art, or of so-called culture. And the great facts and laws of life and nature they find made visible and vocal in the highest works of the universal masters of all ages and lands. In keeping close to Homer, Sophocles, Shakspere, Dante, Molière, Cervantes, Goethe, we keep close not to literature merely but to life. With them we are in the great highway of life; with them we rock in no sequestered bay, but cross Atlantic and Pacific Seas. If therefore we would exclude, as far as possible, a personal disturbing element in our recognition and judgment of literature and art, and also exclude the prejudices and partialities of the sects and schools, we shall do well to keep constantly in the company of some one of the universal writers, which means keeping in relation to the great facts and laws of life as rendered most truly and nobly into literature. Thus we shall be members of the One Catholic Church of literature, and shall run small risk of being seduced by the allurement of any sect or heresy, for indeed we shall be able to recognise and appropriate for a catholic purpose whatever neglected truth the sect or heresy may proclaim. If we are faithful children of this Catholic Church of literature and art, it will not

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