Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/160

 146 intention of becoming a monkey." Nothing can be more dexterous than Mr. Bagehot's analysis of the cautious skepticism which replaced the brief religious fervor of youth. But when we turn back to Sainte-Beuve, we see this little sentence driven like an arrow-point straight to the heart of the mystery. "While he (Gibbon) prided himself on being wholly impartial and indifferent where creeds were concerned, he cherished, without avowing it, a secret and cold spite against religious thought, as if it were an adversary which had struck him one day when unarmed, and had wounded him." A secret and cold spite. Were ever five short words more luminously and dispassionately significant?

A sense of proportion intrudes itself so seldom into the popular criticism of to-day, that it is hardly worth while to censure the reviewer for not comprehending differences of degree. How should he, when the whole tone of modern sentiment is subversive of order and distinction; when the generally accepted opinion appears to be that we are doing everything better than it was ever done before, and have nothing to learn from