undergo unless they are preassured of an unusual reward.
With profound deference, I venture to doubt whether criticism is wisely restricted quite so exclusively to the field of pure knowledge and understanding. I doubt whether the art of criticism can, in the present state of our public, be most effectively practised within the strict limits of this field. His own resolution to admit no taste which he cannot "rationalize," to speak of no elation which he has not a rational "right" to feel, limits his power of communicating some of the undeniable effects which one receives from the immediate presence of unquestionably great personalities and great works of art. In his schedule of values he has, to be sure, made a place for sentiment, the throb of passion, the surge and beating of desire; but he appreciates ecstasy a shade languidly, and one cannot but associate his comparatively incidental treatment of poetry and something like indifference to the remarkable rhythmical qualities of his prose masters to the fact that there is little or nothing thoroughly "rational" to be said about what passion and poetry and rhythm do to "this quintessence of dust" which we are.
But I have said more than enough of the defects attributable to an extraordinarily predominant intelligence. In the main, I think the type of criticism produced by this intelligence is, at the present time, of especial and conspicuous service. In the present state of our letters, I agree with Mr. Brownell, in
