speaking of a herb, a wine, a gem; for the property each has of
affecting one with a special, a unique, impression of pleasure.
Our education becomes complete in proportion as our
susceptibility to these impressions increases in depth and variety.
And the function of the aesthetic critic is to distinguish, to
analyse, and separate from its adjuncts, the virtue by which a
picture, a landscape, a fair personality in life or in a book,
produces this special impression of beauty or pleasure, to indicate
what the source of that impression is, and under what conditions
it is experienced. His end is reached when he has disengaged that
[x] virtue, and noted it, as a chemist notes some natural element,
for himself and others; and the rule for those who would reach
this end is stated with great exactness in the words of a recent
critic of Sainte-Beuve:--De se borner a connaitre de pres les
belles choses, et a s'en nourrir en exquis amateurs, en
humanistes accomplis.

What is important, then, is not that the critic should possess a
correct abstract definition of beauty for the intellect, but a certain
kind of temperament, the power of being deeply moved by the
presence of beautiful objects. He will remember always that
beauty exists in many forms. To him all periods, types, schools
of taste, are in themselves equal. In all ages there have been
some excellent workmen, and some excellent work done. The
question he asks is always:--In whom did the stir, the genius, the
sentiment of the period find itself? where was the receptacle of
its refinement, its elevation, its taste? "The ages are all equal,"
says William Blake, "but genius is always above its age."

Often it will require great nicety to disengage this virtue from the