130 LITEEAEY VALUES 



because the purely intellectual interest in such a 

 work which criticism demands, is far less satisfying 

 than our sssthetic interest. The mood in which we 

 enjoy a poem is analogous to that in which it was 

 conceived. We have here the reason why the pro- 

 fessional reviewer is so apt to miss the characteristic 

 quality of the new book, and why the readers of 

 great publishing houses make so many mistakes. 

 They call into play a conscious mental force that is 

 inimical to the emotional mood in which the work 

 had its rise ; what was love in the poet becomes a 

 pale intellectual reflection in the critic. 



Love must come first, or there can be no true 

 criticism ; the intellectual process must follow and 

 be begotten by an emotional process. Indeed, criti- 

 cism is an afterthought ; it is such an account as we 

 can give of the experience we have had in private 

 communion with the subject of it. The conscious 

 analytical intellect takes up one by one, and exam- 

 ines the impression made upon our subconsciousness 

 by the new poem or novel. 



Where nothing has been sown, nothing can be 

 reaped. The work that has yielded us no enjoyment 

 will yield us no positive results in criticism. Dr. 

 Louis Waldstein, in his suggestive work on " The 

 Subconscious Self," discovers that the critical or 

 intellectual mood is foreign to art ; that it destroys 

 or decreases the spontaneity necessary to creation. 

 This is why the critical and the creative faculty so 

 rarely go together, or why one seems to work against 

 the other. Probably in all normal, well-balanced 



