to
hear any more of Marianne in any position, because we have had enough
shown us to know generally what she would do, say, and think, in all
positions.

[335] It has been observed that there is actually a Meredithian quality
in Aristides of Smyrna, though he wrote no novel. A tale in Greek, to
illustrate the parallel, would be an admirable subject for a University
Prize.

[336] Two descriptions of "Marivaudage" (which, by the way, was partly
anticipated by Fontenelle)--both, if I do not mistake, by Crebillon
_fils_--are famous: "Putting down not only everything you said and
thought, but also everything you would like to have thought and said,
but did not," and, "Introducing to each other words which never had
thought of being acquainted." Both of these perhaps hit the modern forms
of the phenomenon even harder than they hit their original butt.

[337] It is only fair to the poor Prioress to say that there is hardly a
heroine in fiction who is more deeply in love with her own pretty little
self than Marianne.

[338] One does not know whether it was prudence, or that materialism
which, though he was no _philosophe_, he shared with most of his
contemporaries, which prevented Marivaux from completing this sharp
though mildly worded criticism. The above-mentioned profane have hinted
that both the placidity and the indifference of the persons concerned,
whether Catholic or Calvinist, arise from their certainty of their own
safety in another world, and their looking down on less "guaranteed"
creatures in this. It may be just permissible to add that a comparison
of Chaucer's and Marivaux's prioresses will suggest itself to many
persons, and should be found delectable by all fit ones.

[339] His books on Margaret of Anjou and William the Conqueror are odd
crosses between actual historical essays and the still unborn historical
novel.

[340] Mlle. de Launay, better known as Mme. de Staal-Delaunay, saw, as
most would have seen, a resemblance in this to the famous Mlle. Aisse's.
But the latter was bought as a little child by her provident
"protector," M. de Ferreol. Mlle. Aisse herself had earlier read the
_Memoires d'un Homme de Qualite_ and did not think much of them. But
this was the earlier part. It would be odd if she had not appreciated
Manon had she read it: but she died in the year of its appearance.

[341] The excellent but rather stupid editor of the [Dutch] _Oeuvres
Choisies_ above noticed has given abstracts o