In criticism, Sainte-Beuve's third manner. On the
stage, the younger Dumas. In novels, the brothers Goncourt, and
Flaubert. In Art, a certain brutality in the choice of subject,
_Gerome and Regnault_. In politics, the accomplished fact (_le
fait accompli_), the Empire, the brutal pressure from above and
general levelling by universal suffrage from below. In lyric poetry, the
strictly technical artists of form of the _Parnasse_, Coppee, who
describes unvarnished reality, and the master workmen (_les maitres de
la facture_), Leconte Delisle, Gautier and his pupils, who write
better verse than Lamartine and Hugo, but have no new thoughts or
feelings--the poetic language materialists.
In conclusion, a great many indistinct beginnings, of which it is as yet
impossible to say whither they are tending.
This, my first attempt to formulate for myself a general survey of one
of the great literatures of the nineteenth century, contained much that
was true enough, but revealed very plainly the beginner's lack of
ability to estimate the importance of phenomena, an inclination to over-
estimate purely evanescent apparitions, and a tendency to include that
which was merely externally similar, under one heading. The
insignificant School of Common Sense could not by any means be regarded
as marking an epoch.
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