rumpet; her
lover, Valmont's rival, and Mme. de Merteuil's plaything, M. le
Chevalier Danceny, is not so very much better than _he_ should be, and
nearly as much an imbecile in the masculine way as Cecile in the
feminine; her respectable mother and Valmont's respectable aunt are not
merely as blind as owls are, but as stupid as owls are not. Finally, the
book, which in many particular points, as well as in the general
letter-scheme, follows Richardson closely (adding clumsy notes to
explain the letters, apologise for their style, etc.), exhibits most of
the faults of its original with hardly any of that original's merits.
Valmont, for instance, is that intolerable creature, a pattern Bad
Man--a Grandison-Lovelace--a prig of vice. Indeed, I cannot see how any
interest can be taken in the book, except that derived from its
background of _tacenda_; and though no one, I think, who has read the
present volume will accuse me of squeamishness, _I_ can find in it no
interest at all. The final situations referred to above, if artistically
led up to and crisply told in a story of twenty to fifty pages, might
have some; but ditchwatered out as they are, I have no use for them. The
letter-form is particularly unfortunate, because, at least as used, it
excludes the ironic presentation which permits one almost to fall in
love with Becky Sharp, and quite to enjoy _Jonathan Wild_. Of course, if
anybody says (and apologists _do_ say that Laclos was, as a man, proper
in morals and mild in manners) that to hold up the wicked to mere
detestation is a worthy work, I am not disposed to argue the point.
Only, for myself, I prefer to take moral diatribes from the clergy and
aesthetic delectation from the artist. The avenging duel between
Lovelace and Colonel Morden is finely done; that between Valmont and
Danceny is an obvious copy of it, and not finely done at all. Some,
again, of the riskiest passages in subject are made simply dull by a
Richardsonian particularity which has no seasoning either of humour or
of excitement. Now, a Richardson _de mauvais lieu_ is more than a
bore--it is a nuisance, not pure and simple, but impure and complex.

I have in old days given to a few novels (though, of course, only when
they richly deserved it) what is called a "slating"--an
_ereintement_--as I once had the honour of translating that word in
conversation, at the request of a distinguished English novelist, for
the benefit of a distinguished French one