“Il est si difficile de produire une chose même médiocre; il est si
facile de sentir la médiocrité.”
I have lately seen this quoted as having been said by Diderot. It is
easy to say we feel the mediocrity when we have heard a good many people
say that the work is mediocre, but, unless in matters about which he has
been long conversant, no man can easily form an independent judgment as
to whether or not a work is mediocre. I know that in the matter of
books, painting and music I constantly find myself unable to form a
settled opinion till I have heard what many men of varied tastes have to
say, and have also made myself acquainted with details about a man’s
antecedents and ways of life which are generally held to be irrelevant.
Often, of course, this is unnecessary; a man’s character, if he has left
much work behind him, or if he is not coming before us for the first
time, is generally easily discovered without extraneous aid. We want no
one to give us any clues to the nature of such men as Giovanni Bellini,
or De Hooghe. Hogarth’s character is written upon his work so plainly
that he who runs may read it, so is Handel’s upon his, so is Purcell’s,
so is Corelli’s, so, indeed, are the characters of most men; but often
where only little work has been left, or where a work is by a new hand,
it is exceedingly difficult “sentir la médiocrité” and, it might be
added, “ou même sentir du tout.”
How many years, I wonder, was it before I learned to dislike Thackeray
and Tennyson as cordially as I now do? For how many years did I not
almost worship them?