All five groups are discontented with the present condition of American criticism.
Publishers of books complain that reviews do not help sales. Publishers of magazines lament that readers do not care for articles on literary subjects. Publishers of newspapers frankly doubt the interest of book-notices. The critic confesses that his occupation is ill-considered and ill-paid. The author wrathfully exclaims—but what he exclaims cannot be summarized, so various is it. Thus, the whole commercial interest is unsatisfied. The public, on the other hand, finds book-reviews of little service and reads them, if at all, with indifference, with distrust, or with exasperation. That part of the public which appreciates criticism as an art maintains an eloquent silence and reads French.
Obviously, what frets the commercial interest is the public indifference to book-reviews. What is the cause of that?
In critical writing, what is the base of interest, the indispensable foundation in comparison with which all else is superstructure? I mentioned the public which, appreciating criticism as an art, turns from America to France for what it craves. Our sympathies respond to the call of our own national life, and may not be satisfied by Frenchmen; if we turn to them, we do so for some attraction which compensates for the absence of intimate relation to our needs. What is it? Of course, French mastery of form accounts in part for our intellectual absenteeism; but it does not account for it wholly, not, I think, even in the main.
Consider the two schools of French criticism typified by Brunetière and by Anatole France. Men like Brunetière seem to believe that what they say is important, not merely to fellow dilettanti or to fellow scholars, but to the public and to the mass of the public; they seem to write, not to display their attainments, but to use their attainments to accomplish their end; they put their whole strength, intellectual and moral, into their argument; they seek to make converts, to crush enemies. They are in earnest; they feel responsible; they take their office with high seriousness. They seem to think that the soul and the character of the people are as important as its economic comfort. The problem of a contemporary, popular author—even if contemporary, even if popular—is to them an important question; the intellectual, moral, and æsthetic ideals which he is spreading through the country are to be tested rigorously, then applauded or fought. They seek to be clear because they wish to interest; they wish to interest because they wish to convince; they wish to convince because they have convictions which they believe should prevail.