question; and the artificer of "Émaux et Camées" was presumably of opinion that it is idle at all times to point a moral. But if there are sermons in stones, there are profitable reflections to be made even on Theophile Gautier; notably this one—that a man's supreme use in the world is to master his intellectual instrument and play it in perfection.
There is, perhaps, scant apparent logic in treating a closed career more tenderly than an open one; but we suspect it belongs to the finer essence of good criticism to do so, and, at any rate, we find our judgment of the author of the "Voyage en Espagne" and the "Capitaine Fracasse" turning altogether to unprotesting kindness. We had a vague consciousness of lurking objections; but on calling them to appear they gave no answer. Gautier's death, indeed, in the nature of things could not but be touching and dispose one to large allowances. The world he left was the sum of the universe for him, and upon any other his writings throw but the dimmest light—project, indeed, that contrasted darkness which surrounds the edges of a luminous surface. The beauty and variety of our present earth and the insatiability of our earthly temperament were his theme, and we doubt whether these things have ever been placed in a more flattering light. He brought to his task a sort of pagan bonhomie which makes most of the descriptive and pictorial poets
