Literary criticism can be no more than a reasoned account of the feeling produced upon the critic by the book he is criticizing. C...riticism can never be a science: it is, in the first place, much too personal, and in the second, it is concerned with values that science ignores. The touchstone is emotion, not reason. We judge a work of art by its effect on our sincere and vital emotion, and nothing else. All the critical twiddle-twaddle about style and form, all this pseudoscientific classifying and analysing of books in an imitation-botanical fashion, is mere impertinence and mostly dull jargon.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What these perplexities of my uncle Toby were,--'tis impossible for you to guess;Mif you could,--I should blush ... as an author; ...inasmuch as I set no small store by myself upon this very account, that my reader has never yet been able to guess at any thing. And ... if I thought you was able to form the least ... conjecture to yourself, of what was to come in the next page,--I would tear it out of my book.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The nineteenth century is a turning point in history, simply on account of the work of two men, Darwin and Renan, the one the crit...ic of the Book of Nature, the other the critic of the books of God. Not to recognise this is to miss the meaning of one of the most important eras in the progress of the world.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Writing a book I have found to be like building a house. A man forms a plan, and collects materials. He thinks he has enough to ra...ise a large and stately edifice; but after he has arranged, compacted and polished, his work turns out to be a very small performance. The authour however like the builder, knows how much labour his work has cost him; and therefore estimates it at a higher rate than other people think it deserves,LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And for the citation of so many authors, 'tis the easiest thing in nature. Find out one of these books with an alphabetical index,... and without any farther ceremony, remove it verbatim into your own ... there are fools enough to be thus drawn into an opinion of the work; at least, such a flourishing train of attendants will give your book a fashionable air, and recommend it for sale.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am told that Duclos' book is not in vogue in Paris, and that it is being violently criticized, apparently because readers unders...tand it; and being intelligible is no longer the fashion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is a Book By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,... On which the eyes of God not rarely look,
A chronicle of actions just and bright-- There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine; And since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »