OUR HERITAGE FROM TAINE 197 



note: 'Taine could be arresting and impressive: he never was 

 lovable, for there was no love in him. My mother, when she caught 

 me echoing the harsh doctrinaire tones of the Master, hummed a 

 French hunting tune: Je rtaime pas ton ton^je n^aime pas ton Taine ^ 

 Tontaine, tonton. . . .'^ 



Zola wrote of 'the strange fruit' of Taine's style, and reactions 

 have been mixed to its curious blending of analysis and eloquence: 



'Taine precludes indifference: if you have anything to say, you 

 must be convinced it deeply matters. His seriousness is never pas- 

 sive, like that of the Dryasdusts. He feels intensely: not a page of 

 his, even on the most abstruse subject, is without a tremor of 

 intellectual excitement. But he scorns irresponsible passion: senti- 

 ment is no argument. He expresses himself in logical form. Every 

 paragraph develops a single idea, stated in the opening sentence, 

 redefined and enriched in the last. The paragraphs are linked with 

 the same inevitability as the triple rhymes in Dante. But Taine is 

 not satisfied with the abstract frigidity of Euclid or Spinoza. His 

 logic is constantly supported by vivid, realistic instances. The 

 blend of restrained passion, cool, masterly argument and telling, 

 picturesque illustrations is extremely impressive. '^ 



This duality of judgment on Taine is reflected also by Edmund 

 Wilson, who has wavered between dubious compliment'^ and 

 sincere praise^; and Eugene Delacroix considered him 'a first class 

 pedant'. 9 On the whole, Taine's prose, like his personality, was 

 an impressive instrument, beautifully disciplined and with a wide 

 range of eflfects, but characterized more by force than by grace. 



Since, in many respects, Taine illustrates his own deterministic 

 formula, many of the criticisms levelled at him should also be 

 directed against the dominant trends of his Environment and 

 Time. This applies to his nationalistic and racial ideas, which 

 have since seen so much abuse; yet, as we have seen, he was any- 

 thing but a chauvinist or 'racist', in the Nazi sense. ^^ Neverthe- 

 less, it remains true that he shared the limitations of his age in 

 biology, in psychology, and in his rather oversimplified concep- 

 tion of scientific method generally. 



Politically, Taine was an intelligently stubborn conservative; 

 more often than not, 'his most virulent prejudices seemed to him 

 the objective truth', n which he then proceeded to 'demonstrate' 

 scientifically; and for all his travels in Italy, England, and else- 

 where, he never really ceased to think and write like a Frenchman. 



