ressions--of political,
religious, moral, social and other satire. It is, on the other hand, a
most important thing to admit the undoubted presence--now and then, and
not unfrequently--of a deliberate dropping of the satiric and burlesque
mask. This supplies the presentation of the serious, kindly, and human
personality of the three princes (Grandgousier, Gargantua, and
Pantagruel); this the schemes of education (giving so large a proportion
of the small bulk of _not_-nonsense written on that matter). Above all,
this permits, to one taste at least, the exquisite last Book,
presentation of La Quinte and the fresh roses in her hand, the
originality of which, not only in the whole book in one sense, but in
the particular Book in the other, is, to that taste, and such
argumentative powers as accompany it, an almost absolute proof of that
Book's genuineness. For if it had been by another who, _un_like
Rabelais, had a special tendency towards such graceful imagination, he
could hardly have refrained from showing this elsewhere in this long
book.[90]

[Sidenote: Running survey of the whole.]

But however this may be, it is certain that a critical reader,
especially when he has reason to be startled by the external, if not
actually extrinsic, oddities of and excesses of the book, will be
justified in allowing--it may almost be said that he is likely to
allow--the extraordinary volume of concatenated fictitious interest in
the whole book or books. The usual and obvious "catenations" are indeed
almost ostentatiously wanting. The absence of any real plot has been
sufficiently commented on, with the temptations conferred by it to
substitute a fancied unity of purpose. The birth, and what we may call
the two educations, of Gargantua; the repetition, with sufficient
differences, of the same plan in the opening of _Pantagruel_; the
appearance of Panurge and the campaign against the Dipsodes; the great
marriage debate; and the voyage to the Oracle of the Bottle, are
connected merely in "chronicle" fashion. The character-links are hardly
stronger, for though Friar John does play a more or less important part
from almost the beginning to quite the end, Panurge, the most important
and remarkable single figure, does not appear for a considerable time,
and the rest are shadows. The scene is only in one or two chapters
nominally placed in Nowhere; but as a whole it is Nowhere Else, or
rather a bewildering mixture of topical assignments in