o say that I
think the best of his and their work capital stuff, continuing worthily
one of the oldest and most characteristic strains of French literature;
displaying no contemptible artistry; and contributing very considerably
to that work of pleasure-giving which has been acknowledged as supplying
the main subject of this book.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Cherbuliez.]

[Sidenote: His general characteristics.]

Few more striking contrasts--though we have been able to supply a fair
number of such things--could be found than by passing from Gustave Droz
to Victor Cherbuliez. Scion of a Genevese family already distinguished
in letters, M. Cherbuliez became one of the _Deux-Mondains_, a
"publicist" as well as a novelist of great ability, and finally an
Academician; but his novels, clever as they are, were never quite
"frankly" liked in France--at least, by the critics. This may have been
partly due to the curious latent grudge with which French writers--to
the country as well as to the language and manners born--have always
regarded their Swiss comrades or competitors--the attitude as to a kind
of poacher or interloper.[436] But to leave the matter there would be
not only to miss thoroughness in the individual case, but also to
overlook a point of very considerable importance to the history of the
French novel generally. There is undoubtedly something in M.
Cherbuliez's numerous, vigorous, and excellently readable novels which
reminds one more of English than of French fiction. We have noticed a
certain resemblance in Feuillet to Trollope: it is stronger still in
Cherbuliez. Not, of course, that the Swiss novelist denies
himself--though he uses them more sparingly--the usual latitudes of the
French as contrasted with the English novelist during nine-tenths of the
nineteenth century. But he does use them more sparingly, and he is apt
to make his heroines out of unmarried girls, to an extent which might at
that time seem, to the conventional French eye, simply indecent. He is
much more prodigal of "interest"--that is to say, of incident, accident,
occurrence--than most French novelists who do not affect somewhat
melodramatic romance. On the other hand, his character-drawing, though
always efficient, is seldom if ever masterly; and that "schematisation,"
on which, as is pointed out in various places of this book, French
critics are apt to insist so much, is not always present. Of actual
passion