use of language, and he, like Humboldt, had universal knowledge; yet he did not like Madame de Stael,—­not from envy:  he had too much self-consciousness to be envious of any man, still less a woman.  Envy does not exist between the sexes:  a musician may be jealous of a musician; a poet, of a poet; a theologian, of a theologian; and it is said, a physician has been known to be jealous of a physician.  I think it is probable that the gifted Frenchwoman overwhelmed the great German with her prodigality of wit, sarcasm, and sentiment, for he was inclined to coldness and taciturnity.

Madame de Stael speaks respectfully of the great men she met at Weimar; but I do not think she worshipped them, since she did not fully understand them,—­especially Fichte, whom she ridiculed, as well as other obscure though profound writers, who disdained style and art in writing, for which she was afterwards so distinguished.  I believe nine-tenths of German literature is wasted on Europeans for lack of clearness and directness of style; although the involved obscurities which are common to German philosophers and critics and historians alike do not seem to derogate from their literary fame at home, and have even found imitators in England, like Coleridge and Carlyle.  Nevertheless, obscurity and affectation are eternal blots on literary genius, since they are irreconcilable with art, which alone gives perpetuity to learning,—­as illustrated by the classic authors of antiquity, and such men as Pascal, Rousseau, and Macaulay in our times,—­although the pedants have always disdained those who write clearly and luminously, and lost reverence for genius the moment it is understood; since clear writing shows how little is truly original, and makes a disquisition on a bug, a comma, or a date seem trivial indeed.

Hitherto, Madame de Stael had reigned in salons, rather than on the throne of letters.  Until her visit to Germany, she had written but two books which had given her fame,—­one, “On Literature, considered in its Relations with Social Institutions,” and a novel entitled “Delphine,”—­neither of which is much read or prized in these times.  The leading idea of her book on literature was the perfectibility of human nature,—­not new, since it had been affirmed by Ferguson in England, by Kant in Germany, and by Turgot in France, and even by Roger Bacon in the Middle Ages.  But she claimed to be the first to apply perfectibility to literature.  If her idea simply means the ever-expanding progress of the human mind, with the aids that Providence has furnished, she is doubtless right.  If she means that the necessary condition of human nature, unaided, is towards perfection, she wars with Christianity, and agrees with Rousseau.  The idea was fashionable in its day, especially by the disciples of Rousseau, who maintained that the majority could not err.  But if Madame de Stael simply meant that society was destined to progressive advancement, as a matter of