A
work of art will bear all kinds of interpretations; each in turn finds a
basis in it, while the work itself, because it represents an idea, and
therefore partakes of the richness and complexity which belong to ideas,
suffices for all and survives all. A portrait proves whatever one asks
of it. Even in its forms of style, in the disdainful generality of the
terms in which the story is told, in the terseness of the sentences, in
the sequence of the images and of the pictures, traced with classic
purity and marvelous vigor, "Rene" maintains its monumental character.
Carved, as it were, in material of the present century, with the tools
of classical art, "Rene" is the immortal cameo of Chateaubriand.
We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented
with ourselves. The consciousness of wrong-doing makes us irritable, and
our heart in its cunning quarrels with what is outside it, in order that
it may deafen the clamor within.
* * * * *
The faculty of intellectual metamorphosis is the first and indispensable
faculty of the critic; without it he is not apt at understanding other
minds, and ought, therefore, if he love truth, to hold his peace. The
conscientious critic must first criticise himself; what we do not
understand we have not the right to judge.
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