ark the author, though there
may be something else to be said about it (or rather about its
illustration of his general characteristics) presently.

[Sidenote: _Le Don Juan de Vireloup_ and _Raymonde_.]

_Le Don Juan de Vireloup_, a story of about a hundred pages long, which
acts as makeweight to _Raymonde_, itself only about twice the length, is
a capital example of Theuriet at nearly his best--a pleasant mixture of
_berquinade_ and _gaillardise_ (there are at least two passages at
either of which Mrs. Grundy would require _sal volatile_, and would then
put the book in the fire). The reformation and salvation of Jean de
Santenoge--a poor (indeed penniless) gentleman, who lives in a little
old manor, or rather farm-house, buried in the woods, and whose sole
occupations are poaching and making love to peasant girls--are most
agreeably conducted by the agency of the daughter of a curmudgeonly
forest-inspector (who naturally regards Santenoge with special
abhorrence). She is helped by her grand-uncle, a doctor of the familiar
stamp, who has known Diderot's child, Madame de Vandeul (the scene, as
in so many of the author's books, is close to Langres), and worships
Denis himself. As for _Raymonde_, its heroine comes closer to
"Sauvageonne," though she is less of a savagess: and the worst that can
be said against her lucky winner is that he is a little of a prig. But,
to borrow, and very slightly alter, one of Sir Walter's pieces of divine
charity, "The man is mortal, and a scientific person." Perhaps fate and
M. Theuriet are a little too harsh to another (but not this time
beggarly) _gentillatre_, Osmin de Prefontaine, to whom, one regrets to
say, Raymonde positively, or almost positively, engages herself, before
she in the same way virtually accepts the physiological Antoine Verdier.
And the _denouement_, where everything comes right, is a little
stagy.[541] But the whole is thoroughly readable, competently
charactered, and illustrated by some of the best of the author's forest
descriptions.

[Sidenote: General characteristics.]

One has thus been able to give an account, very favourable in the main,
of these three or four stories--selected with no hidden design, and in
two cases previously unknown to the critic, who has, in addition, a fair
remembrance of several others. But it will be observed that there is in
them, with all their merits, some evidence of that "rut" or "mould"
character which has been specified as abs