And here the critic is confronted by one of his greatest difficulties--he knows the truth only about the living, but may speak it only of the dead. And there is no doubt that it makes a disagreeable impression when the death of an author entirely changes the tone of criticism, as Sainte-Beuve's criticism of Chateaubriand, for example, was altered by the latter's death. His earliest article on Chateaubriand was incense pure and simple. We are conscious of the social pressure under which it was written, of the awe and veneration, the personal sympathies and relations, the fear of angry glances from lovely eyes, the impossibility of hurting the feelings of so charming a lady as Madame Récamier by criticising her domestic idol, in short, of all the influences which combined to make the first sketch of Chateaubriand simply an adulatory narrative. The long work and the later articles are, on the contrary, inspired by a perfect rage for saying "No," for tearing off masks. But when he is at his best, Sainte-Beuve succeeds in finding the golden mean. He does not admire everything and attribute everything to noble motives, but neither does he search for base ones. He neither praises nor depreciates human nature. He understands it. And intercourse with men and women of every description, constant critical observation, French delicacy of perception, and a Parisian training, have given him an extraordinary power of discernment. At his best, the many-sidedness of his mind actually reminds us of Goethe. We are at times tempted to call him "wise"; and few indeed are the critics who tempt us to apply this adjective to them. He very seldom allows himself to be confused or influenced by the popular sentiment connected with a name, no matter whether it is lofty, or pathetic, or depreciatory. He inquires into the pedigree of his author, his constitution and health, his economic position; he snaps up some involuntary confession he has made, and shows that it is supported by other utterances, and that it throws light on, and explains the actions of the man. He describes him in his bright and noble moments; he surprises him in déshabille; with his marvellous capacity for "finding a needle in a haystack," he discovers what the dead man concealed in the inmost recesses of his heart. With the judicial calm of the scientific investigator, he enumerates his tendencies towards good and his tendencies towards evil, and weighs them in the balance. And by such means he produces a trustworthy portrait--or rather, a series of portraits, each one of which is trustworthy, though some of them contradict each other. For, notable critic as Sainte-Beuve is, he invariably shirks one of the greatest difficulties with which the critic has to contend. A conscientious critic has, as a rule, read the work which he undertakes to interpret and criticise, many times and at various stages of his development; each time he has been struck by something different; and in the end