The critical muse

'The critic, in his conception, was not the narrow lawgiver or the rigid censor that he is often assumed to be; he was the student, the inquirer, the interpreter, the taker of notes, the active, restless commentator...' James's words on Sainte-Beuve could very easily be applied to himself. The pleasures of his own criticism - wit and urbanity, metaphorical artistry, his way of stalking and teasing out his subject - always lift his essays from the merely instructive to the delightful.