but a very large experience
of first novels of dates before, the same as, and after its own may
warrant allotment to it of possibilities of future good gifts. The
history, such as it is, runs currently; there are no hitches and stops
and stagnations, the plentiful improbabilities are managed in such
fashion that one does not trouble about them, and there is an
atmosphere, sometimes of horseplay but almost always of good humour.

[Sidenote: _Petits Tableaux de Moeurs._]

The matter which, by accident or design, goes with this in mid-century
reprints of Paul, is of much later date, but it shows that, for some
time, its author had been exercising himself in a way valuable to the
novelist at any time but by no means as yet frequently practised.
_Petits Tableaux de Moeurs_ consists of about sixty short sketches of
a very few pages each (usually two or three) and of almost exactly the
same kind as those with which Leigh Hunt, a little earlier in England,
transformed the old _Spectator_ essay into the kind of thing taken up
soon afterwards by "Boz" and never disused since. They are sketches of
types of men, of Parisian cafes, gardens, and restaurants; fresh
handlings of old subjects, such as the person who insists on taking you
home to a very bad "pot-luck" dinner, and the like. Once more, there is
no great brilliance in these. But they are lightly and pleasantly done;
it must be obvious to every one that they are simply invaluable training
for a novelist who is to leave the beaten track of picaresque adventure
and tackle real ordinary life. To which it may be added, as at least
possible, that Thackeray himself may have had the creation of Woolsey
and Eglantine in _The Ravenswing_ partly suggested by a conversation
between a tailor and a hairdresser in Paul's "Le Banc de Pierre des
Tuileries." As this is very short it may be worth giving:

To finish our observations, my friend and I went and sat
behind two young men dressed in the extreme of the fashion,
who, with their feet placed on chairs as far as possible
from those in which they were sitting, gracefully rocked
themselves, and evidently hoped to attract general
attention.

In a minute we heard the following conversation:

"Do you think my coat a success?" "Superb! delicious! an
admirable cut!" "And the pantaloons?" "Ravishing! Your get
up is really stunning." "The governor told me to spend three
hours in the Gra