s been
said, waited for dramatisation to bring out its merits. The pearls or
pinks of the other are _Mlle. de Kerouare_ and _La Maison de Penarvan_,
the latter the general favourite, the former mine. Both have admirably
managed _peripeteias_, the shorter story (_Mlle. de Kerouare_) having,
in particular, a memorable setting of that inexorable irony of Fate
against which not only is there no armour, but not even the chance and
consolement of fighting armourless. When Marie de Kerouare accepts, at
her father's wish, a suitor suitable in every way, but somewhat
undemonstrative; when she falls in love (or thinks she does) with a
handsome young cousin; when the other aspirant loses or risks all his
fortune as a Royalist, and she will not accept what she might have, his
retirement, thereby eliciting from her father a _mot_ like the best of
Corneille's;[268] when, having written to a cousin excusing herself, she
gets a mocking letter telling her that _he_ is married already; when
the remorseless turn of Fortune's wheel loses her the real lover whom
she at last really does love--then it is not mere sentimental-Romantic
twaddle; it is a slice of life, soaked in the wine of Romantic
tragedy.[269]

[Sidenote: Bernard's]

In Charles de Bernard (or, if anybody is unable to read novels published
under a pseudonym with sufficient comfort, Charles Bernard du Grail de
la Villette[270]) one need not look for high passions and great actions
of this kind. He does try tragedy sometimes,[271] but, as has been
already admitted, it is not his trade. Occasionally, as in _Gerfaut_, he
takes the "triangle" rather seriously _a la_
George-Sand-and-the-rest-of-them. The satirists have said that, though
not invariably (our present author contains cautions on that point) yet
as a rule, if you take yourself with sufficient seriousness, mankind
will follow suit. It is certainly very risky to appear to take yourself
not seriously. _Gerfaut_, I believe, is generally held to be Bernard's
masterpiece. I remember that even my friend Mr. Andrew Lang, who seldom
differed with me on points of pure literature, almost gravely
remonstrated with me for not thinking enough of it. There are admirable
things in _Gerfaut_; but they are, as it seems to me, _separately_
admirable, and so are more like grouped short stories than like a whole
long novel. He wrote other books of substance, two of them, _Un
Beau-pere_ and _Le Gentilhomme Campagnard_, each extending to a br