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 "Democracy," add to it the incidental discussion of the subject in the essay on "Emerson," and then compare the stimulus to thought that he receives from it with the stimulus that he finds in Lowell's "Democracy" or in Arnold's "Democracy," and he will feel for himself, I believe, the decisive superiority of Mr. Brownell's treatment. How little "academic" this chapter is, or indeed for that matter, how little "academic" is the spirit of the entire book—how steadily and with a central sweep of its wisdom it drives at practice, I can best suggest, perhaps, by a final quotation:

Mr. Brownell's second book, French Art, 1892, may be regarded, like French Traits, as establishing a new and difficult standard for the American critic. Its significance for us may perhaps be in-