The walls
had changed, and roads which were once shady and dreamy I found now
waste and treeless. But at the first trills of the nightingale a flood
of tender feeling filled my heart. I felt myself soothed, grateful,
melted; a mood of serenity and contemplation took possession of me. A
certain little path, a very kingdom of green, with fountain, thickets,
gentle ups and downs, and an abundance of singing-birds, delighted me,
and did me inexpressible good. Its peaceful remoteness brought back the
bloom of feeling. I had need of it.
May 19, 1878.--Criticism is above all a gift, an intuition, a matter of
tact and _flair_; it cannot be taught or demonstrated--it is an art.
Critical genius means an aptitude for discerning truth under appearances
or in disguises which conceal it; for discovering it in spite of the
errors of testimony, the frauds of tradition, the dust of time, the loss
or alteration of texts. It is the sagacity of the hunter whom nothing
deceives for long, and whom no ruse can throw off the trail. It is the
talent of the _Juge d'Instruction_, who knows how to interrogate
circumstances, and to extract an unknown secret from a thousand
falsehoods. The true critic can understand everything, but he will be
the dupe of nothing, and to no convention will he sacrifice his duty,
which is to find out and proclaim truth.
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