Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/55

WHAT IS CRITICISM? to do with his decisions. An unfair critic is worse than an unrighteous or ignorant judge, for he deals with creative workmen, the class most sensitive of all to injustice and stupidity. He will be quick to declare what is fine in their work, and will point out errors with the bearing that makes for reform rather than discouragement. On the other hand, he will show no lenience to promoters of flagrant heresy and those whose work is "outlawed of art." Certain of the accused are either highly meritorious or guilty of crime in the first degree. But the maxim de minimis also is to be regarded: what is hopelessly dull or insignificant may be left to the gracious law of natural decay.

With respect to fairness and unbiassed judgment, I have observed that sometimes the mere function of critical writing seems, for the time being, to change its exerciser from what he is in his personal life; to make him forget his own tastes, friendships, antipathies; just as in law we have even seen men of unsavory conduct and character, who, when on the bench, are wise and impartial judges. Into the rationale of this I need not go at present. When the best-intentioned person, not fitted by nature and equipment for a judicial calling, usurps it, the exact reverse of this process is apt to be observed.

Criticism itself, after the methods of its eminent professors, often is a constructive art—the promoter of higher standards and creations on the part of those to whom it is addressed. Each of the great critics [41]