Critical Studies

ong to the class called les jeunes, often wrongly, since amongst these jeunes there are men of middle age. Les jeunes is a

n it than there is genuine originality of thought; there is too great an effort, too perpetual a strain in its productions; frequently, as in the case of Maurice Barrés, subtlety of language is employed to conceal absolute poverty of idea; or, as in the case of Georges

nsight, their deep feeling, and their artistic instincts raise them above this pedantry and enable them to produce certain passages which have few equals in any literature. L'Impérieuse Bonté is a very long book, but the reader would be dull indeed who did not wish it were longer, and who would not feel that the writers had been forced to renounce many scenes and many reflections and descriptions with which their minds were teeming. They convey to their reader their own attachment to their personages; willingly, we feel sure, the

ther times it loses this mannerism and becomes the clear, limpid, polished French so dear to us. It is never

t as they are the simplest of the whole. Was there ever any passage more pathetic and more real th

cious weight of the freshened air. Strength

e that this wou

oetic; limes, acacias, young elms, all kinds of shades of green, were lit by a descending sun. There were flocks of slender trunks; a dainty philosophy of verdure; high above, pale foliage seemed to drink in the light; then depths where the sun-rays seemed to flow and stream like the nebul? of comets, where they lay like vapour on which some fragile insect life floated like medus? on the sea. Already dead leaves were on the ground like the tanned flesh, or the brown fur, of forest creatures. Spiders' webs had th

nice here!"

spiders, remembered all the visions he had ever had

again!" murmu

is listened and enjoyed with a mute delight-mute because shut within himself-an

s before a high gate, through which was vi

ve sighs, of aspens. Then there was the charm of woodland life reflected in the water; of the landscape repeated below, symmetrical, and sombre in an abyss of oxidised silver. Then came grassy walks and gentle slopes of turf; further off were clearings in which beautiful trees were half seen, hal

ired carriage, they gazed in

is garden would be wealth

r-there," sa

eat one's gard

en, swift as a sped arrow, vanished in the shadows. One would wish for such an atom, taking so small a place in creation, the joys, the instincts, the intelli

istress, "even to come and s

ender heart of the boy. Soon this bitterness entered

to any metal is a strange and unfitting comparison. In this passage, which is serious and poetical, the intrusion of such words as 'blackened nickel' seems offensive, and mars all the impression of the phrase. But it is in this kind of offe

mplicity, until the last scene of all, when the three children with their mother are about to light the charcoal collected by the little Fran?ois

ner of them and of their sorrows is a fine writer. Jacques Fougeraye, the central figure of the romance, yields his place to them as its chief interest; and is also perhaps inferior in interest to his unhappy and generous patron Dargelle. One would desire to know through what circumstances a man of the talent and character of Fougeraye comes to be destitute in the streets of Paris; something also of the parentage, education, influences which have gone towards making him what he is. In the same way one would wish to know how Lamarque fell into poverty, how his children became so cultured and refined, how the whole family is aloof in every way from their co

jeunes. And when on rare occasions they do furnish personal descriptions, these are so wrapped up in anatomical and physiological language that we can conjure up from them little or no real likeness. The characteristic of this new school is an extreme vagueness, an intentional nebulosity. Their personages are never introduced to the reader, nor are they given any pedigree; even person

who has learned to look on death with professional indifference, is so virtuous and self-satisfied that one is indisposed to share the admiration which Fougeraye feels for her. He himself is so unpre

We feel also that in real life Fougeraye would probably have shared her passion, and the struggle it would have caused between his temptation, and his loyalty and gratitude to Dargelle, would have been of profound interest. The chapter following on her death, in which Dargelle is alone with her dead body, is very fine, and reflects exactly that strange mixture of emotions and sensations which sway the survivor who pas

the direct, the usual, the obvious, and seek an appearance of profundity in what is merely a confusion of sounds. These affectations, these efforts, spoil many of the pages, and weary the most attentive reader in many of the chapters; as does also the incessant tendency to find similes of the most bizarre and eccentric kind, such as the comparison of dead leaves to the fur of animals; of a simile 'frail as the downy blow-ball of dandelion-

s. Take, as an instance, this description of Dargelle's physiognomy; and be it remembered that we never know who or what Dargelle is, how he came by his vast fort

ild beast; a short beard which had never grown; flat hair, forming a little patch behind the brow and advancing laterally to the ears. The whole a Finnish face, very pale, with a disposition of the skin to become scaly. The nose long, broa

, tender, generous, and sensitive; suffering acutely from a sense of utter loneliness amidst the parasites, who trade on his kind feelings. A man of this tempe

re of the frightful occupant of a monsters' asylum is traced in fullest and most minute detail, with an ostentatio

ew favourite will only use him and cheat him, as all the other dispensers of his charities have done, to the last frank smile

ccupy but a secondary place in the narrative. The description of his physical malady is perhaps exaggerated; deafness would scarcely cause such violent moral and mental torture; but the pathos of his last appearance is unexaggerated, and goes to the heart of the reader. By his mere word so many people are made happy, and yet, to secure happiness,

The statement, put in the mouth of Dargelle, that suicide is much more general amongst the rich than the poor, is certainly not based on fact or on statistics. The rich man, moreover, has one great and most precious exemption: he is free from petty, carking bodily cares; he never knows the greatest agony possible, that of seeing those dear to him hungry and homeless; he can be always warm in cold weather, cool in hot weather; in illness he has every palliative and assistance; his home is his own if he care for it, intangible and immutable; the whole world is his if he possess perception enough to enjoy it; his sufferings may be considerable from dyspepsia and discontent, and, if he be of a high nature, from irritation at the ingratitude

hroughout the interest of romance. The mission of Fougeraye in the expenditure of Dargelle's money introduces, perforce, many phases of social misery. It was probably to do this that the book was written; but the harmony and interest of the action of the novel, as a novel, are not sacrificed to this intention. In these chapters

h a little rosewood secrétaire, and two Sèvres vases won at a lottery for charity, the gift to it of the Empress Eugénie-all disappeared, all were devoured by the

near and hidden human life in the closed houses from which came the subdued light of unseen chambers in vague suggestion of mysterious joys. But there was no living creature out of doors except in the openings of the ramparts; on the grass, a dog lo

mattress which had been sold; he

inguished. They go thus, saying to each other a few words, muffled and heavyhearted, which are the mere dull echoes of their souls. "We must turn down that street. How will it end?-wh

walk with his father, while the bonne pushed the little carriage of the baby Fran?ois. And here she was, his own mother, with a mattress for sale on her shoulder, on foot

ome, sold for twenty francs, the poor, pretty, familiar things which look so elegant, so slender, so aristocratic amongst the coarse, vulga

reams of future voyages in far lands, how many nights fearful with storm or mute with falling snow, had these objects seen! They had been always there, fixing themselves inalie

ing, more sincere, more e

ong to quote here, but its description is of a force incomparable, and of a truth as great. No one of his contemporaries could have wr

at sense of the author's spontaneous fertility and joy in creation which Pierre Loti, Fran?ois Coppée, Anatole France, fe

of complicated doubt, of an unselfish sorrow, and of a noble altruism. It is a work which must impress and elevate all readers who are capable of co