It is with books, music, painting and all the arts as with children—only
those live that have drained much of their author’s own life into them.
The personality of the author is what interests us more than his work.
When we have once got well hold of the personality of the author we care
comparatively little about the history of the work or what it means or
even its technique; we enjoy the work without thinking of more than its
beauty, and of how much we like the workman. “Le style c’est
l’homme”—that style of which, if I may quote from memory, Buffon, again,
says that it is like happiness, and “vient de la douceur de l’âme”
{107}—and we care more about knowing what kind of person a man was than
about knowing of his achievements, no matter how considerable they may
have been. If he has made it clear that he was trying to do what we
like, and meant what we should like him to have meant, it is enough; but
if the work does not attract us to the workman, neither does it attract
us to itself.