204 EPILOGUE 



and unpopular conferences are held on the 'problem' of peace, one 

 cannot but wonder whether the force of ideas and ideals is still 

 as weak today, before those of guns and propaganda, as it was in 

 the days of Taine. How many fine books — not to mention the 

 more important lives — imbued with the spirit of international 

 understanding, may be stifled by the next explosion of that dread 

 hydrogen bomb? And who will be left, and what will be left, to 

 warrant the writing of a sombre Origins of Europe's Ruins ^ analysing 

 the causes of our world's madness? 



These are other and more difficult questions: life itself is more 

 important and more complex than art. But how well we can 

 understand Taine's mood in 1870, 'desolated' by the march of 

 events! His characteristic comments to his mother bespeak his 

 civilized humanity: 



T know from experience what a man is worth and what trouble 



it is for his mother to raise him, and in this regard, as in many 



others, a German is worth as much as a Frenchman. I am trying 



to write my notes on England, which will make up a volume; but 



in this heat and with these preoccupations I can't do much 

 work.' 34 



The record of a profound sensitivity and an uncompromising 

 integrity are not the least part of our heritage from Taine. 



NOTES 



1 Paul Bourget, The Disciple, p. v, 'Introduction'. 



2 See Critiques and Essays in Criticism, 1 920-1 948, Representing the Achievement 

 of Modern British and American Critics, Selected by Robert Wooster Stallman, 

 with a Foreword by Cleanth Brooks. This provides an excellent bird's-eye view 

 and 'Selected Bibliography' of the 'new criticism', that general trend (if not 

 quite a neatly defined 'school') which 'neglects the creative process', 'pre- 

 occupies itself almost wholly with the means and ends of poetry rather than 

 with its sources, with the nature of the poem in relation to the reader rather 

 than with the relation of the poem to the poet or maker', and 'has limited its 

 centre of interest to the genres of poetry, drama, and criticism itself' (p. vi). 

 Taine's method is discussed in this volume by Martin Turnell {passim, especially 

 pp. 424-429) and by Edmund Wilson (pp. 451-452). 



3 Gf. our Chapter I, 'Biographical and Historical Explanations'. 



4 Cf. our Chapter IV, p. 56. 



