on translating the thing. To make sure that my former
rejection was not unjustified, I have accordingly read it with care
since the greater part of this book was passed for press; and it shall
have a judgment here, if not in the text. I am unable to find any
redeeming point in it, except that some ingenuity is shown in bringing
about the _denouement_ by a rupture between the villain-hero and the
villainess-heroine, M. le Vicomte de Valmont and Mme. la Marquise de
Merteuil. Even this, though fairly craftsmanlike in treatment, is banal
enough in idea--that idea being merely that jealousy, in both sexes,
survives love, shame, and everything else, even community in
scoundrelism--in other words, that the green-eyed monster (like "Vernon"
and unlike "Ver") _semper viret_. But it is scarcely worth one's while
to read six hundred pages of very small print in order to learn this. Of
amusement, as apart from this very elementary instruction, I at least
can find nothing. The pair above mentioned, on whom practically hangs
the whole appeal, are merely disgusting. Their very voluptuousness is
accidental: the sum and substance, the property and business of their
lives and natures, are compact of mischief, malice, treachery, and the
desire of "getting the better of somebody." Nor has this diabolism
anything grand or impressive about it--anything that "intends greatly"
and glows, as has been said, with a black splendour, in Marlowesque or
Websterian fashion. Nor, again, is it a "Fleur du Mal" of the
Baudelairian kind, but only an ugly as well as noxious weed. It is
prosaic and suburban. There is neither tragedy nor comedy, neither
passion nor humour, nor even wit, except a little horse-play. Congreve
and Crebillon are as far off as Marlowe and Webster; in fact, the
descent from Crebillon's M. de Clerval to Laclos' M. de Valmont is
almost inexpressible. And, once more, there is nothing to console one
but the dull and obvious moral that to adopt love-making as an
"occupation" (_vide_ text, p. 367) is only too likely to result in the
[Greek: techne] becoming, in vulgar hands, very [Greek: banausos]
indeed.

The victims and _comparses_ of the story do nothing to atone for the
principals. The lacrimose stoop-to-folly-and-wring-his-bosom Mme. de
Tourvel is merely a bore; the _ingenue_ Cecile de Volanges is, as Mme.
de Merteuil says, a _petite imbecile_ throughout, and becomes no better
than she should be with the facility of a predestined st