in a manner which I hardly remember elsewhere, achieved the
blending of two kinds of "terror"--the ordinary kind which, as it is
trivially called, "frightens" one, and the other[91] terror which
accompanies the intenser pleasures of sight and sound and feeling, and
heightens them by force of contrast. The scene of Ines' actual
appearance would have been the easiest thing in the world to spoil, and
therefore was the most difficult thing in the world to do right. But it
is absolutely right. In particular, the way in which her conduct in at
once admitting Sergy's attentions, and finally inviting him to "follow,"
is guarded from the very slightest suggestion of the professional
"comingness" of a common courtesan, and made the spontaneous action of a
thing divine or diabolic, is really wonderful.

At the same time, the adverse criticism made here, with that on _La Fee
aux Miettes_ and a few other foregoing remarks, will probably prepare
the reader for the repeated and final judgment that Nodier was very
unlikely to produce a good long story. And, though I have not read
_quite_ all that he wrote, I certainly think that he never did.

[Sidenote: Nodier's special quality.]

In adding new and important masterpieces to the glittering chain of
short cameo-like narratives which form the peculiar glory of French
literature, he did greatly. And his performance and example were greater
still in respect of the _quality_ which he infused into those best
pieces of his work which have been examined here. It is hardly too much
to say that this quality had been almost dormant--a sleeping beauty
among the lively bevies of that literature's graces--ever since the
Middle Ages, with some touches of waking--hardly more than motions in a
dream--at the Renaissance. The comic Phantasy had been wakeful and
active enough; the graver and more serious tragic Imagination had been,
though with some limitations, busy at times. But this third sister--Our
Lady of Dreams, one might call her in imitation of a famous fancy--had
not shown herself much in French merriment or in French sadness: the
light of common day there had been too much for her. Yet in Charles
Nodier she found the magician who could wake her from sleep: and she
told him what she had thought while sleeping.[92]

FOOTNOTES:

[37] Vol. I. pp. 458, 472, _notes_.

[38] Vol. I. p. 161.

[39] When he published _Le Cocu_, it was set about that a pudibund lady
had asked her book-seller for "L