—Can you not see it? Para–dou, Para–iso — there is obvious plagiarism in those two syllables!

I pray that this remark may not appear as coming from a rebel spirit in irreverence against criticism. No one has more respect for criticism than those whose work is of observation and reality.

The romantics (as Sainte-Beuve confesses it) hated the critic, and with reason, for the same motive for which public opinion was detested by absolute monarchs. For the romantics, all poetry or prose derived straight from inspiration, as the right of the kings came straight down from God. The critic, a mere raisonneur, had no right to find faults or even to closely examine whatever came down from inspiration, or the Muse, to a Musset or a George Sand. Poetry was a divine gift. The uninitiated critic might never appraise by the trivial rules of common sense, whatever a man who lived in permanent communication with the Ideal sang or declaimed. The poets, the artist, the novelist, were thus exceptional beings, unconcerned by human law or rule; they had been Chosen to form a legion of beings between Man and Angel! Their very life did not partake of human condition:

Aimer, prier, chanter, voilà toute ma vie…
[Love, pray, sing, here is all my life]

Says Lamartine! One may understand their irritation when some Cuvillier-Fleury, some Pontmartin, some Planche, attempted to try them under the reasonable laws that applied to other men.

"We are Christs!" exclaimed Novalis. —Of course Christs do not take kindly to hostile reviews.

We bourgeois however, whose life is not in permanent communication with the ideal, whose lips are never kissed by the Muse, who never hear any ethereal form telling us:

Poète, prends ton luth et me donne un baiser...
[Poet, take your lute and bestow on me a kiss]

We men accept to be judged by men. Studying reality in mankind and in society, we accept as a favour advice, a practice, any admonition from those who, living in mankind and in society, have their own experience of such realities.

And this does not refer only to the critics, the princes of criticism, its bigwigs, the dictators of opinion, the specialists, I mean we have the same respect for everyone, and we may readily accept valuable indications from even the most obscure, even from such as have never written a single line.

On matters of eloquence or rhetoric, as a matter of course we can only accept criticism from those who are acquainted with the illustrious arts. But when we write on passions or vices, anyone who has felt them, even if he does not know how to express them, may be our judge and point out our mistake. You have to be a poet to appreciate Graziella, a work of lyrical eloquence, but a simple carpenter may discuss l'Assommoir, a work of social reality.