He who
is still under the spell, and he who has never felt the spell, are
equally incompetent. We only know well what we have first believed, then
judged. To understand we must be free, yet not have been always free.
The same truth holds, whether it is a question of love, of art, of
religion, or of patriotism. Sympathy is a first condition of criticism;
reason and justice presuppose, at their origin, emotion.
* * * * *
What is an intelligent man? A man who enters with ease and completeness
into the spirit of things and the intention of persons, and who arrives
at an end by the shortest route. Lucidity and suppleness of thought,
critical delicacy and inventive resource, these are his attributes.
* * * * *
Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and
germinates no more.
* * * * *
January 3, 1879.--Letter from----. This kind friend of mine has no
pity.... I have been trying to quiet his over-delicate
susceptibilities.... It is difficult to write perfectly easy letters
when one finds them studied with a magnifying glass, and treated like
monumental inscriptions, in which each character has been deliberately
engraved with a view to an eternity of life.
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