CRITICISM AND THE MAN 81 



the form of description and analysis — like the re- 

 poit of a naturalist upon a new species, which Mr. 

 Howells thinks is the main function of criticism ; 

 or it may aim chiefly at interpretation, which a recent 

 essayist emphasizes as the latest and highest phase 

 of criticism ; or it may aim at a judicial estimate, an 

 authoritative verdict from the rules and standards, 

 which is the more classic and academic phase of crit- 

 icism. 



Each phase is legitimate and leads to valuable re- 

 sults. 



Of any considerable artistic work we want a de- 

 scription and an analysis, we want an interpretation 

 and an exposition, and we want an appraisement ac- 

 cording to the standard of the best that has been 

 thought and done in the world, — not a comparison 

 with the externals of the accepted models, but with 

 the originality, the spontaneity, the sanity, the in- 

 ner necessity and consistency of them — the truth 

 to nature and to the laws of the human mind. Is 

 it liberating, vitalizing, cheering ? Is it ethically 

 sound ? Does it favor large and manly ideals ? Does 

 it go along with evolution and progress ? 



What, for instance, will criticism do with the 

 work of such a man as Whitman, or Ibsen, or Tol- 

 stoi ? It will describe it and analyze it, and name 

 it as lyric, epic, dramatic, etc. ; it will interpret it, or 

 draw out and expound the ideas that lie back of it 

 and out of which it sprang ; it will seek to under- 

 stand it and to get at the writer's point of view ; 

 then it will judge it, try it by its own standards, and 



