But the very
completeness of it has seemed to some writers a fetter, and when they
revolt against and break through it, their extravagance passes beyond
all ordinary bounds. French represents the two extremes, unheard-of
goodness, unequalled perfection, or indescribable badness and
unrestraint. Unfortunately the unrestraint is making its way, and as
with ourselves in England, the magazine literature in France grows more
and more undesirable.
Yet there is unlimited room for reading, and for Catholics a great
choice of what is excellent. The modern manner of writing the lives of
the Saints has been very successfully cultivated of late years in
France, making them living human beings "interesting as fiction," to use
an accepted standard of measurement, more appealingly credible and more
imitable than those older works in which they walked remote from the
life of to-day, angelic rather than human. There are studies in
criticism, too, and essays in practical psychology and social science,
which bring within the scope of ordinary readers a great deal which with
us can only be reached over rough roads and by-ways. No doubt each
method has its advantages; the laboriously acquired knowledge becomes
more completely a part of ourselves, but along the metalled way it is
obvious that we cover more ground.
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