But of tragedy positive, in the _bourgeois_ kind, he had no small command, and in the middle business--in affairs neither definitely comic nor definitely tragic--he was wonderfully prolific and facile.

His immense and heart-breaking lengthiness is not _mere_ verbosity: it comes partly from the artist's natural delight in a true and newly found method, partly from a still more respectably artistic desire not to do the work negligently.

As for the unhealthiness of atmosphere which has been generally and not unjustly charged upon him, it is, in part, no doubt the result of imperfect temperament and breeding: but it is also as closely connected with his very method as are the merits thereof.

You cannot "consider so curiously" without considering too curiously.

The drawbacks of his work are obvious, and they were likely to be, and were, exaggerated.