lly
obvious: whereas Niafer is plainly a variant of Nephthys, Lady of the
House, whose personality Dr. Budge sums up as 'the goddess of the death
which is not eternal,' or Nerthus, the Subterranean Earth, which the
warm rainstorm quickens to life and fertility."

All this seems dull enough to be plausible. Yet no less an authority
than Charles Garnier has replied, in rather indignant rebuttal: "Qu'ont
ete en realite Manuel et Siegfried, Achille et Rustem? Par quels
exploits ont-ils merite l'eternelle admiration que leur ont vouee les
hommes de leur race? Nul ne repondra jamais a ces questions.... Mais
Poictesme croit a la realite de cette figure que ses romans ont faite si
belle, car le pays n'a pas d'autre histoire. Cette figure du Comte
Manuel est reelle d'ailleurs, car elle est l'image purifiee de la race
qui l'a produite, et, si on peut s'exprimer ainsi, l'incarnation de son
genie."

--Which is quite just, and, when you come to think it over, proves Dom
Manuel to be nowadays, for practical purposes, at least as real as Dr.
Paul Vanderhoffen.

III

Between the two main epic cycles of Poictesme, as embodied in _Les
Gestes de Manuel_ and _La Haulte Histoire de Jurgen_, more or less
comparison is inevitable. And Codman, I believe, has put the gist of the
matter succinctly enough.

Says Codman: "The Gestes are mundane stories, the History is a cosmic
affair, in that, where Manuel faces the world, Jurgen considers the
universe.... Dom Manuel is the Achilles of Poictesme, as Jurgen is its
Ulysses."

And, roughly, the distinction serves. Yet minute consideration
discovers, I think, in these two sets of legends a more profound, if
subtler, difference, in the handling of the protagonist: with Jurgen all
of the physical and mental man is rendered as a matter of course;
whereas in dealing with Manuel there is, always, I believe, a certain
perceptible and strange, if not inexplicable, aloofness. Manuel did thus
and thus, Manuel said so and so, these legends recount: yes, but never
anywhere have I detected any firm assertion as to Manuel's thoughts and
emotions, nor any peep into the workings of this hero's mind. He is
"done" from the outside, always at arm's length. It is not merely that
Manuel's nature is tinctured with the cool unhumanness of his father the
water-demon: rather, these old poets of Poictesme would seem, whether of
intention or no, to have dealt with their national hero as a person,
howsoever admirab