If there is excess anywhere, it lies perhaps in a
certain effeminacy of sentiment. Doudan can put up with nothing but what
is perfect--nothing but what is absolutely harmonious; all that is
rough, harsh, powerful, brutal, and unexpected, throws him into
convulsions. Audacity--boldness of all kinds--repels him. This Athenian
of the Roman time is a true disciple of Epicurus in all matters of
sight, hearing, and intelligence--a crumpled rose-leaf disturbs him.
"Une ombre, un souffle, un rien, tout lui donnait la fievre."
What all this softness wants is strength, creative and muscular force.
His range is not as wide as I thought it at first. The classical world
and the Renaissance--that is to say, the horizon of La Fontaine--is his
horizon. He is out of his element in the German or Slav literatures. He
knows nothing of Asia. Humanity for him is not much larger than France,
and he has never made a bible of Nature. In music and painting he is
more or less exclusive. In philosophy he stops at Kant. To sum up: he is
a man of exquisite and ingenious taste, but he is not a first-rate
critic, still less a poet, philosopher, or artist. He was an admirable
talker, a delightful letter writer, who might have become an author had
he chosen to concentrate himself. I must wait for the second volume in
order to review and correct this preliminary impression.
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