there is no (or very little) _gros sel_[146] in the _Astree_.

[Sidenote: Narrative skill frequent.]

Yet again there is very considerable narrative power. Abstracts may be
found, not merely in older books mentioned or to be mentioned, but in
the recent publications of Koerting and the Abbe Reure, and there is
neither room nor need for a fresh one here. As some one (or more than
one) has said, the book is really a sort of half-allegorical tableau of
honourable Love worked out in a crowd of couples (some I believe, have
counted as many as sixty), from Celadon and Astree themselves downwards.
The course of these loves is necessarily "accidented," and the accidents
are well enough managed from the first, and naturally enough best known,
where Celadon flings himself into the river and is rescued, insensible
but alive, by nymphs, who all admire him very much, though none of them
can affect his passion for Astree. But one cares--at least I have found
myself caring--less for the story than for the way in which it is
told--a state of things exactly contrary, as will be seen, to that
produced with or in me by the _Grand Cyrus_. There we have a really
well, if too intricately, engineered plot, in the telling of which it is
difficult to take much interest. Here it is just the reverse. And one of
the consequences is that you can dip in the _Astree_ much more
refreshingly than in its famous follower, where, if you do so, you
constantly "don't know where you are."

[Sidenote: The Fountain of the Truth of Love.]

One of the most famous things in the book, and one of the most important
to its conduct, is the "Fountain of the Truth of Love," a few words on
which will illustrate the general handling very fairly. This Fountain
(presided over by a Druid, a very important personage otherwise, who is
a sort of high priest thereof) has nothing in common with the more usual
waters which are philtres or anti-philtres, etc. Its function is to be
gazed in rather than to be drunk, and if you look into it, loving
somebody, you see your mistress. If she loves you, you see yourself as
well, beside her, and (which is not so nice) if she loves some one else
you see _him_; while if she is fancy-free you see her only. Clidaman,
one of the numerous lovers above mentioned, tries the water; and his
love, Silvie, presents herself again and again as he looks, "almost
setting on fire with her lovely eyes the wave which seemed to laugh
around her." But she i