86 STYLE AND THE MAN 



and experiences are changed and heightened in the 

 same way. Sainte-Beuve, speaking of certain parts 

 of Rousseau's " Confessions," says, " Such pages 

 were, in French literature, the discovery of a new 

 world, a world of sunshine and of freshness, which 

 men had near them without having perceived it." 

 They had not perceived it because they had not had 

 Rousseau's mind to mirror it for them. The sunshine 

 and the freshness were a gift of his spirit. The new 

 world was the old world in a new light. What 

 charmed them was a quality personal to Rousseau. 

 Nature they had always had, but not the Rousseau 

 sensibility to nature. The same may be said of more 

 recent writers upon outdoor themes. Readers fancy 

 that in the works of Thoreau or of Jeff eries some new 

 charm or quality of nature is disclosed, that some- 

 thing hidden in field or wood is brought to light. 

 They do not see that what they are in love with is 

 the mind or spirit of the writer himself. Thoreau 

 does not interpret nature, but nature interprets him. 

 The new thing disclosed in bird and flower is simply 

 a new sensibility to these objects in the beholder. 

 In morals and ethics the same thing is true. Let 

 an essayist like Dr. Johnson or Arthur Helps state a 

 principle or an idea and it has a certain value; let 

 an essayist like Ruskin or Emerson or Carlyle state 

 the same principle and it has an entirely different 

 value, makes an entirely different impression, — the 

 qualities of mind and character of these writers are 



