CRITICISM AND THE MAK 107 



speare to all other poets. If -we prefer Pope to Shake- 

 speare, as we are apt to at a certain age, we may know 

 by that that there is an excellence beyond our reach. 

 It is certain that the mass of readers will not appre- 

 ciate the best literature, but only the second or third 

 best. A man's aesthetic perceptions may be broadened 

 and educated as well as his intellectual. An unread 

 man feels little interest beyond his own neighbor- 

 hood, — the personal doings of the men and women he 

 sees and knows. Educate him a little, give him his 

 county paper, and the sphere of his interests is wid- 

 ened ; a little more, and he takes an interest in his 

 State ; more still, and he broadens out to his whole 

 country ; still more, and the whole world is within 

 his sympathy and ken. So in the aesthetic sphere ; 

 he gets beyond his personal tastes and wants into the 

 great world currents of literature and art. He can 

 appreciate works written in other ages and lands, and 

 that are quite foreign to his own temperament and 

 outlook. This is to be disinterested. To emanci- 

 pate the taste is as much as to emancipate the intel- 

 lect ; to rise above one's personal affinities is as much 

 as to rise above one's personal prejudices and supersti- 

 tions. The boy of a certain stamp has an afiinity for 

 the dime novel ; if we can lift him to an apprecia- 

 tion of Scott, or Thackeray, or Hawthorne, how have 

 we emancipated his taste ! So that Brunetiere was 

 right in saying that, in art and literature, the begin- 

 ning of wisdom is to distrust what we like. Distrust, 

 not repudiate. Tiet us examine first and see upon 

 what grounds we like it, — see if we ought to like 



