that of Miss Yonge's _Young Stepmother_: but
M. Rod makes it more tragic by Annie's death, partly in consequence of a
love-marriage failing, through the lover's father's objection to the
state of her family. The other subject is the gradual hankering of
Michel after a return to political life, and his (consequentially
inevitable) ratting from Right to Left. M. Rod brought into the matter
direct reminiscences of the Parnell and Dilke cases, and possibly owed
the conception of the whole book to them; but he has, as is sometimes
his wont, rather "sicklied it over" with political and other discussion.

[551] A pleasant study, in poetic use of imagery and phrase, is the
gradation from the bare and grand Lucretian simplicity of _silentia
noctis_, through the "favour and prettiness" (slightly tautological
though) of the Virgilian _tacitae per amica silentia lunae_, to the
recovery and intensifying of magnificence in _dove il sol tace_. By the
way, _silentia_ (for the singular undergoes Quintilian's apology for the
Latin _-um_) is one of the few instances in which a Latin word beats the
Greek. [Greek: sige] is really inferior.

[552] What annoys him most of all is that he should have an
uncomfortable feeling about the woman "_comme_ si je l'avais _aimee_!"
He had only, you see, done something else.

[553] They should not have done this, and I do not think they did; it
was the couples that jostled them. And even this ought not to have
happened. The fastest waltzing (I am speaking of the old _deux-temps_,
which this must have been) conveyed an almost uncanny extra power of
vision, and at the same time of avoidance, to the right persons. Indeed,
the first three lines of this extract have been objected to as base and
inconsistent. I think not; the common out of which you rise to the
uncommon is worth indication.

[554] It may be added that the contrast of an earlier mazurka--in the
slowness of which the pair had time to look at each other, feel each
other, and otherwise remain in Paradise, but outside of the double
Nirvana--is highly creditable. But I hope they _waltzed_ to the mazurka.
It is rather annoying to other people who are doing the orthodox step;
but it is the perfection of the slow movement, which affords, as above,
opportunities that do not exist in the faster and more delirious
gyration.

[555] This (which may be called M. Rod's novel-headquarters) occurs also
not merely in _L'Eau Courante_ but in _Les Roches Blan