And if a twentieth century Sainte-Beuve should begin to write for
general American readers, it is doubtful whether they would accept
his premises. Says the intellectual, why _should_ he write for the
general public? I answer that if he writes for coteries only, if he is
disdainful of the intelligent multitude, he will never understand
_them,_ and so will not comprehend the national literature which it is
his function to stimulate, interpret, and guide.
The spade work of criticism is research, investigation into the
facts of literature and into its social background. The scholar is
sometimes, but not often, a critic. He finds out what happened,
and often why it happened. He analyzes, but he does not usually
make a synthesis. He writes history, but he cannot prophesy, and
criticism is prophecy implied or direct. Few outside the
universities realize the magnitude of American research into
literature, even into American literature, which has been
relatively neglected. A thousand spades have been at work for a
generation. We are getting the facts, or we are learning how to
get them.
But before we may expect great criticism we must educate our
public, and ourselves, in that clear vision of what is and what is
not, which from Aristotle down has been the preliminary to
criticism.
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