d lively force to
enliven a composite structure of character--she has here produced very
noteworthy studies. Corinne is a very fair embodiment of the beauty
which her author would so fain have had; of the youthful ardour which
she had once actually possessed; of the ideas and cults to which she was
sincerely enough devoted; of the instruction and talent which
unquestionably distinguished her. And it is not, I think, fanciful to
discover in this heroine, with all her "Empire" artifice and convention,
all her smack of the theatre and the _salon_, a certain live quiver and
throb, which, as has been already hinted, may be traced to the combined
working in Madame de Stael's mind and heart of the excitements of
foreign travel, the zest of new studies, new scenes, new company, with
the chill regret for lost or passing youth and love, and the chillier
anticipation of coming old age and death. It is a commonplace of
psychology that in shocks and contrasts of this kind the liveliest
workings of the imagination and the emotions are to be expected. If we
once establish the contact and complete the circle, and feel something
of the actual thrill that animated the author, we shall, I think, feel
disposed to forgive Corinne many things--from the dress and attitude
which recall that admirable frontispiece of Pickersgill's to Miss
Austen's _Emma_, where Harriet Smith poses in rapt attitude with
"schall" or scarf complete, to that more terrible portrait of Madame de
Stael herself which editors with remorseless ferocity will persist in
prefixing to her works, and especially to _Corinne_. We shall consent to
sweep away all the _fatras_ and paraphernalia of the work, and to see in
the heroine a real woman enough--loving, not unworthy of being loved,
unfortunate, and very undeserving of her ill fortune. We shall further
see that besides other excuses for the mere guide-book detail, the
enthusiasm for Italy which partly prompted it was genuine enough and
very interesting as a sign of the times--of the approach of a period of
what we may call popularised learning, culture, sentiment. In some
respects _Corinne_ is not merely a guide-book to Italy; it is a
guide-book by prophecy to the nineteenth century.

The minor characters are a very great deal less interesting than Corinne
herself, but they are not despicable, and they set off the heroine and
carry out what story there is well enough. Nelvil of course is a thing
shreddy and patchy enough. H