Who ever saw a medal without its reverse? a talent that had not some shadow with its brilliancy, some smoke with its flame?  Such a blemish can be only the inseparable consequence of such beauty.  This rough stroke of the brush, which offends my eye at close range, completes the effect and gives relief to the whole picture.  Efface one and you efface the other.  Originality is made up of such things.  Genius is necessarily uneven.  There are no high mountains without deep ravines.  Fill up the valley with the mountain and you will have nothing but a steppe, a plateau, the plain of Les Sablons instead of the Alps, swallows and not eagles.

We must also take into account the weather, the climate, the local influences.  The Bible, Homer, hurt us sometimes by their very sublimities.  Who would want to part with a word of either of them?  Our infirmity often takes fright at the inspired bold flights of genius, for lack of power to swoop down upon objects with such vast intelligence.  And then, once again, there are defects which take root only in masterpieces; it is given only to certain geniuses to have certain defects.  Shakespeare is blamed for his abuse of metaphysics, of wit, of redundant scenes, of obscenities, for his employment of the mythological nonsense in vogue in his time, for exaggeration, obscurity, bad taste, bombast, asperities of style.  The oak, that giant tree which we were comparing to Shakespeare just now, and which has more than one point of resemblance to him, the oak has an unusual shape, gnarled branches, dark leaves, and hard, rough bark; but it is the oak.

And it is because of these qualities that it is the oak.  If you would have a smooth trunk, straight branches, satiny leaves, apply to the pale birch, the hollow elder, the weeping willow; but leave the mighty oak in peace.  Do not stone that which gives you shade.

The author of this book knows as well as any one the numerous and gross faults of his works.  If it happens too seldom that he corrects them, it is because it is repugnant to him to return to a work that has grown cold.  Moreover, what has he ever done that is worth that trouble?  The labor that he would throw away in correcting the imperfections of his books, he prefers to use in purging his intellect of its defects.  It is his method to correct one work only in another work.

However, no matter what treatment may be accorded his book, he binds himself not to defend it, in whole or in part.  If his drama is worthless, what is the use of upholding it?  If it is good, why defend it?  Time will do the book justice or will wreak justice upon it.  Its success for the moment is the affair of the publisher alone.  If then the wrath of the critics is aroused by the publication of this essay, he will let them do their worst.  What reply should he make to them?  He is not one of those who speak, as the Castilian poet says, “through the mouths of their wounds.”