CRITICISM AND THE MAN 99 



Kuskin or Carlyle or Arnold. The quality differs 

 according as the minds or spirits differ whence the 

 truth proceeds. Do we expect all the apples in 

 the orchard to be alike ? In general qualities, but 

 not in particular flavors ; and in literature it is the 

 particular flavor that is most precious. It is the 

 quality imparted to the truth by the conceiving 

 mind that we prize. 



It is a long while before we rise to the perception 

 that opposites are true, that contrary types equally 

 serve. " One supreme does not contradict another 

 supreme," says Whitman, " any more than one eye- 

 sight contravenes another eyesight, or one hearing 

 contravenes another hearing." Great men have 

 been radical and great men have been conservative ; 

 great men have been orthodox and they have been 

 heterodox ; they have been forces of expansion and 

 they have been forces of contraction. In literature, 

 it is good to be a realist, and it is good to be a 

 romanticist ; it is good to be a Dumas, and it is good 

 to be a Zola ; it is good to be a Carlyle, and it is 

 good to be a Mazzini, — always provided that one is 

 so from the inside and not from without, from origi- 

 nal conviction and not from hearsay or conformity. 



A man makes his way in the world amid opposing 

 forces ; he becomes something only by overcoming 

 something ; there is always a struggle for survival, 

 and always merit in that which survives. Let each 

 be perfect after its kind. We do not object to the 

 Gothic type of mind because it is not the classic, 

 nor to the Englishman because he is not the French- 



