106 LITEEAET VALUES 



Tis to the truth. Can we admire above them, or 

 even against them ? To cherish no writers but 

 those of our own stripe or iaental complexion is the 

 way of the half cultured. Can we rise to a disin- 

 terested view ? The danger of individualism in 

 letters is caprice, bias, partial views ; the danger of 

 intellectualism is the cold, the colorless, the formal. 

 The ideal critic will blend the two ; he will be 

 disinterested and yet sympathetic, individual and yet 

 escape caprice and bias, warm with interest and yet 

 cool with judgment ; surrendering himself to his 

 subject and yet not losing himself in it, upholding 

 tradition and yet welcoming new talent, giving the 

 personal equation free play without blurring the 

 light of the impersonal intelligence. From the point 

 of view of intellectualism, criticism seeks to elimi- 

 nate the personal equation, that which is private and 

 peculiar to us as individuals, and to base criticism 

 upon something like universal principles. What we 

 crave, what our minds literally feed upon, may blind 

 us to the truly excellent. Our wants are personal ; 

 what we should aim at is an excellence that is imper- 

 sonal. When we rise to the sphere of the disinter- 

 ested, we lose sight of our individual tastes and pre- 

 dilections. The question then is, not what we want, 

 not what we have a taste for, but what we are ca- 

 pable of appreciating. Can we appreciate the best ? 

 Can we share the universal mind to the extent of 

 delighting in the best that has been known and 

 thought in the world ? Emerson said he was always 

 glad to meet people who saw the superiority of Shake- 



