CRITICISM AND THE MAN 97 



in his page as in that of his author. The truths of 

 science are static ; the truths of art are dynamic. 

 If a mediocre mind 'writes about Shakespeare, the 

 result is mediocre, no matter how much bare truth 

 he tells us. 



What, then, do we mean by a great critic ? We 

 mean a great mind that finds complete self-expres- 

 sion in and through the works of other men. Ar- 

 nold found more complete self-expression through 

 literary criticism than through any other channel : 

 hence he is greatest here ; his theological and reli- 

 gious criticism shows him to less advantage. Sainte- 

 Beuve tried poetry and fiction, but did not find a 

 complete outlet for his talent till he tried criti- 

 cism. Not a profound or original mind, but a won- 

 derfully flexible, tolerant, sympathetic, engaging one ; 

 a climbing plant, one might say, that needed some 

 support to display itself to the best advantage. We 

 say of the Prench mind generally that it is more 

 truly a critical mind than the English ; it finds in 

 criticism a better field for the display of its special 

 gifts — taste, clearness, brevity, flexibility, judgment 

 — than does the more original and profoundly emo- 

 tional English. French criticism is rarely profound, 

 but it is always light, apt, graceful, delicate, lucid, 

 felicitous, — clear sense and good taste marvelously 

 blended. 



Criticism in its scientific aspects or as a purely 

 intellectual effort — a search for the exact truth, a 

 sifting of evidence, weighing and comparing data, dis- 

 entangling testimony, separating the false from the 



