virtue and decorum and even against the grammar and idiom of English speech.
Impudence is one mode of familiarity, and its vogue is increasing. But there are other ways to make literature affable and engaging which may be recommended to those whose talent for impudence is imperfectly developed. On my desk lies a tattered volume of selections, six hundred pages of the Causeries du Lundi, which is like a circle of charming people conversing. It is intimate: many of the writers introduced in these delightful pages were contemporaries and personal friends of the author. Frequently Sainte-Beuve presents no formal treatment of their works. He does something for you which quickens your literary sensibilities as no formal analysis does: he admits you to the inner circle. He makes his writer live for you by dissolving his books and ideas back into the character and personality which they imperfectly expressed, and by then presenting you a speaking portrait, executed with the appreciativeness, the gentle firmness, the candor, the affectionate malice of a friend who, from looking into your eyes year after year, has come to love the crow's feet that time and thought have etched around them.
Mr. More, our American Sainte-Beuve, has painted an abundance of such portraits of celebrities who are dead. But, like the students in the Royal Academy of Art in Sir Joshua's day, he has given little attention to drawing from the life. He
