Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Short studies of American authors

[53] but how prolix it is, what repetitions, what a want of condensation and method! The same is true; in a degree, of his papers on George Sand and Turgenieff, while other chapters in his “French Poets and Novelists” are scarcely more than sketches: the paper on the Theatre Francais hardly mentions Sarah Bernhardt; and, indeed, that on Turgenieff says nothing of his masterpiece, “Terres Vierges.” Through all these essays he shows delicacy, epigram, quickness of touch, penetration; but he lacks symmetry of structure, and steadiness of hand.

We can trace in the same book, also, some of the author's limitations as an imaginative artist, since in criticising others a man shows what is wanting in himself. When he says, for instance, that a monarchical society is “more available for the novelist than any other,” he shows that he does not quite appreciate the strong point of republicanism, in that it develops real individuality in proportion as it diminishes conventional distinctions. The truth is, that the modern novel has risen with the advance of democratic society, on the ruins of feudalism. Another defect is seen from time to time, when, in criticising some well-known book, he misses its special points of excellence. Take, for instance, his remarks on that masterly and