ol of mutual instruction, where the
children learn to hate and envy each other and to read and write, which
was all they needed to become detestable creatures." These words "please
the soul well."

[87] The description is worth comparing with that of Gautier's _Chateau
de la Misere_--the difference between all but complete ruin and mere,
though extreme, disrepair being admirably, and by the later master in
all probability designedly, worked out.

[88] _Et fugit ad salices et se cupit ante videri._

[89] Note, too, a hint at a never filled in romance of the captain's
own.

[90] I must ask for special emphasis on "beauty." Nothing can be _finer_
or _fitter_ than the style of Steenie's ghostly experiences. And the
famous Claverhouse passage _is_ beautiful.

[91] As Rossetti saw it in "Sibylla Palmifera":

"Under the arch of Life, where Love and Death,
_Terror_ and Mystery guard her shrine,
I saw Beauty enthroned."

[92] Perhaps there are few writers mentioned in this book to whose
lovers exactly the same kind of apology is desirable as it is in the
case of Nodier. "Where," I hear reproaching voices crying, "is _Jean
Sbogar_? Where is _Laure Ruthwen ou les Vampires_ in novel-plural or _Le
Vampire_ in melodrama-singular? Where are a score or a hundred other
books, pieces, pages, paragraphs, passages from five to fifty words
long?" They are not here, and I could not find room for them here. "But
you found more room for Paul de Kock?" Yes: and I have tried to show
why.

CHAPTER III

VICTOR HUGO

[Sidenote: Limitations.]

At the present day, and perhaps in all days hitherto, the greatest
writer of the nineteenth century in France for length of practice,
diversity of administration of genius, height of intention, and (for a
long time at least) magnitude and altitude of fame, enjoys, and has
enjoyed, more popular repute in England for his work in prose fiction
than for any other part of it. With the comparative side of this
estimate the present writer can indeed nowise agree; and the reasons of
his disagreement should be made good in the present chapter. But this is
the first opportunity he has had of considering, with fair room and
verge, the justice of the latter part of Tennyson's compliment "Victor
_in Romance_"; and it will pretty certainly be the last. As for a
general judgment of the positive and relative value and qualities of the
wonderful procession of work--certainly deserving tha