" Such indications
there certainly are in them. He was [29] meant--we see it in the
variety, the high level both of matter and style, the animation, the
gravity, of one after another of these thoughts--on religion, on
poetry, on politics in the highest sense; on their most abstract
principles, and on the authors who have given them a personal colour;
on the genius of those authors, as well as on their concrete works;
on outlying isolated subjects, such as music, and special musical
composers--he was meant, if people ever are meant for special lines
of activity, for the best sort of criticism, the imaginative
criticism; that criticism which is itself a kind of construction, or
creation, as it penetrates, through the given literary or artistic
product, into the mental and inner constitution of the producer,
shaping his work. Of such critical skill, cultivated with all the
resources of Geneva in the nineteenth century, he has given in this
Journal abundant proofs. Corneille, Cherbuliez; Rousseau, Sismondi;
Victor Hugo, and Joubert; Mozart and Wagner--all who are interested
in these men will find a value in what Amiel has to say of them.
Often, as for instance in his excellent criticism of Quinet, he has
to make large exceptions [30]; limitations, skilfully effected by
the way, in the course of a really appreciative estimate.
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