The century illustrated monthly magazine . rowth of such asoil. The prophet, or seer, shines by the lightof his own soul. He deals with problems andemotions that lie deep in the pulsing heart ofhumanity, but he does not best interpret hisgeneration. It is the man living upon thelevel of his time, and finding his inspirationin the world of events, who reflects its life,marks its currents, and registers its Arnold has aptly said that thequalities of genius are less transferable thanthe qualities of intelligence, less can be imme-diately learned and appropriated from theirproduct;
The century illustrated monthly magazine . rowth of such asoil. The prophet, or seer, shines by the lightof his own soul. He deals with problems andemotions that lie deep in the pulsing heart ofhumanity, but he does not best interpret hisgeneration. It is the man living upon thelevel of his time, and finding his inspirationin the world of events, who reflects its life,marks its currents, and registers its Arnold has aptly said that thequalities of genius are less transferable thanthe qualities of intelligence, less can be imme-diately learned and appropriated from theirproduct; they are less direct and stringent in-tellectual agencies, though they may be morebeautiful and divine. It was this quality ofintelligence that eminently characterized theliterature of the seventeenth century. It wasa mirror of social conditions, or their naturaloutcome. The spirit of its social life pene-trated its thought, colored its language, andmolded its forms. We trace it in the lettersand vers de societe which were the pastime of. MARIE DE RABUTIN-CHANTAL— MARQUISE DE SEVIGNE. (FROM THE OILPORTRAIT BY HENRI BEAUBRUN.) the Hotel de Rambouillet and the Samedis ofMile, de Scudery, as well as in the romanceswhich reflected their sentiments and picturedtheir manners. We trace it in the literary por-traits which were the diversion of the coterieof Mademoiselle at the Luxembourg, and inthe voluminous memoirs and chronicles whichgrew out of it. We trace it also in the Max-ims and thoughts which were polished andperfected in the convent salon of Mme. deSable, and were the direct fruits of a wide ex-perience and observation of the great would be unfair to say that anything socomplex as the growth of a new literature waswholly due to any single influence, but the in-tellectual drift of the time seems to have foundits impulse in the salons. They were the alem-bics in which thought was fused and crys-tallized. They were the schools in which theFrench mind cultivated its
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectamerica, bookyear1882
