Sainte-Beuve's most careless reader cannot fail to observe his contentment with his subject, his restraint, and his good sense--all workmanlike qualities: but a more careful study of his writings fully warrants his title to the possession of other qualities it would be rash to rank higher, but which, here in England, we are accustomed to reward with more lavish praise--namely, insight, sympathy, and feeling.
To begin with, he was endlessly curious about people, without being in the least bit a gossip or a tattler. His interest never fails him, yet never leads him astray. His skill in collecting the salient facts and in emphasising the important ones is marvellous. How unerring was his instinct in these matters the English reader is best able to judge by his handling of English authors, so diverse and so difficult as Cowper, Gibbon, and Chesterfield. He never so much as stumbles. He understands Olney as well as Lausanne, Lady Austen and Mrs. Unwin as well as Madame Neckar or the Hampshire Militia. One feels sure that he could have written a better paper on John Bunyan than Macaulay did, a wiser on John Wesley than anybody has ever done.
Next to his curiosity must be ranked his sympathy, a sympathy all the more contagious because so quietly expressed, and never purporting to be based on intellectual accord. He handles mankind tenderly though firmly. His interest in them is not merely scientific--his methods are scientific, but his heart is human. Read his three papers on Cowper over again, and you will agree with me. How thoroughly he appreciates the charm of Cowper's happy hours--his pleasant humour--his scholar-like fancies--his witty verse! No clumsy jesting about old women and balls of worsted. It is the mixture of insight with sympathy that is so peculiarly delightful.
Sainte-Beuve's feeling is displayed doubtless in many ways, but to me it is always most apparent when he is upholding modesty and grace and wisdom against their loud-mouthed opposites. When he is doing this, his words seem to quiver with emotion--the critic almost becomes the preacher. I gladly take an example from one of the volumes already referred to. It occurs at the close of a paper on Camille Desmoulins, of whom Sainte-Beuve does his best to speak kindly, but the reaction comes--powerful, overwhelming, sweeping all before it: