Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/282

 268 HUNGARIAN LITERATURE li fe," asked his friends, " if one who has aU his life laboured for his own education and perfection, like an artist engaged upon some master-work, finds it so easy to throw it away ?" Eugene Péterfy lived the most virtuous and most intellectual life. He had a healthy body but an ill­ disciplined will. He was one of those problematical natures of whom Goethe said that in spite of their great talents they are not able to meet the varying demands life makes u pon them. To bim Pascal's well­ known saying was applicable : " L'homme est un roseau pensant." Péterfy was the best of Hungarian essayists. His great susceptibility to impressions, which throughout his life bro ught bim much suffering, was the cause of his excellence as a writer. The qualities which essay writing demands were just the qualities wh ich he pre-eminently possessed. He was above ali an impressionist, and his essays may be defined as glimpses of great poets seen through Péterfy's temperament. The world's great autbors thrilled his sensitíve soul, and his essays were interpretations into language as refined as his own soul, of _the feelings which they awakened. But of course this sensitiveness to each momentary impression was united with vast knowledge and sound logi c or his work would not have value. His essays are sometimes on Hungarian and some­ times on foreign authors. Th e best among them referring to Hungarian writers are those dealing with te novelists. It would hardly be possihle for any · essayist to understand an author better than Péterfy u nders lood Kemény, in whom, with his great love for the tragic element, he found a kindred spirit. The super-