It is through this that he has become
immortal, through this that he will be for ever dear to us journalists
of every sort and condition. Let us bow down to him as our father, and
as the founder of this style of criticism.
Before Diderot's time, the French style of criticism had been, firstly,
as offered by Bayle, of a precise, inquiring, and subtle tone. Fenelon
represented criticism as an elegant and delicate art, while Rollin
exhibited its most useful and honest side. From a due sense of decency,
I refrain from mentioning the names of Freron and Des Fontaines. But
nowhere yet had criticism acquired anything like vividness, fertility,
and penetration; it had not yet found its soul. Diderot was the first to
find it. Naturally inclined to look over defects, and to admire good
qualities, "I am more affected," he remarked, "by the charms of virtue
than the deformity of vice; I quietly turn away from the wicked and _fly
forward to meet the good_. If there happens to be a beautiful spot in a
book, a character, a picture, or a statue, it is there that I let my
eyes rest; I can only see this beautiful spot, I can only remember it,
while the rest I nearly forget. What do I become when everything is
beautiful!" This inclination to welcome everything with enthusiasm--this
sort of universal admiration--undoubtedly had its danger.
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