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. Still,
through all, what we feel is that we have to do with one who
criticises in this fearlessly equitable manner only because he is
convinced that his subject is of a real literary importance. A
powerful, intellectual analysis of some well-marked subject, in such
form as makes literature enduring, is indeed what the world might
have looked for from him: those institutes of aesthetics, for
instance, which might exist, after Lessing and Hegel, but which
certainly do not exist yet. "Construction," he says--artistic or
literary construction--"rests upon feeling, instinct, and," alas!
also, "upon will." The instinct, at all events, was certainly his.
And over and above that he had possessed himself of the art of
expressing, in quite natural language, very difficult thoughts; those
abstract and metaphysical conceptions especially, in which German
mind has been rich, which are bad masters, but very useful ministers
towards the understanding, towards an analytical survey, of all that
the intellect has produced.

But something held him back: not so much [31] a reluctancy of
temperament, or of physical constitution (common enough cause why men