perhaps he was in a hurry
T of the second number of the _Causeries_ was the _Confidences_ of M. de Lamartine, and the article opens with these words: “And why, then, should I not speak of it? I know the difficulty of speaking of it with propriety; the time of illusions and of complaisances has passed; it is absolutely necessary to speak truths; and this may seem cruel, so well chosen is the moment. Yet when such a man as M. de Lamartine has deemed it becoming not to close the year 1848 without giving to the public the confessions of his youth and crowning his political career with idyls, shall criticism hesitate to follow him and to say what it thinks of his book? shall it exhibit a discretion and a shamefacedness for which no one, the author least of all, would care?” And what follows? An outpouring of ridicule, of severity, such as the same book received from so many quarters? Nothing of the sort; nothing more than a thoroughly candid and discriminating judgment, never over-stepping the bounds of courtesy, never exaggerating a defect or concealing a beauty. A talk might be raised about the inconsistency with a former tone; but if the fact was made apparent that the later effusions of a tender and melodious, but shallow Muse, were but dilutions, ever more watery and insipid, of the first sweet and abundant flow, was the critic or the poet at fault? And so it has been in all the subsequent articles of M. Sainte-Beu
1 year ago • Notes