ame point of view which made Madame de
Stael so call her greatest contemporary as a she-novelist--one, too, so
much greater than herself.[274] That is to say, they did deal with
strictly ordinary life, and neither attempted that close psychological
analysis and ambitious _schematism_ which (we have been told) is the
pride of the French novel, and which, certainly, some French critics
have supposed to be of its essence. These points of view I have left
undiscussed for the most part, but have consistently in practice
declined to take, in the first volume, while they are definitely opposed
and combated in more than one passage of this.[275] I admit that
Sandeau, save in the one situation where I think he comes near to the
first class--that of subdued resignation to calamity--is not passionate;
I admit that Bernard has a certain superficiality, and that, as has been
confessed already, his "form" sometimes leaves to desire. But they both
seem to me to have, in whatever measure and degree, what, with me, is
the article of standing or falling in novels--humanity. And they
seem--also to me, and speaking under correction--to _write_, if not
consummately, far more than moderately well, and to _tell_ in a fashion
for which consummate is not too strong a word. While for pure gaiety,
unsmirched by coarseness and unspoilt by ill-nature, you will not find
much better pastime anywhere than in the work of the author of
_L'Ecueil_ and _Le Paratonnerre_.

Indeed these two--though the _berquinade_ tendency, considerably
_masculated_, prevails in one, and the _esprit gaulois_, decorously
draped, in the other--seem to me to run together better than any two
other novelists of our company. They do not attempt elaborate analysis;
they do not grapple with thorny or grimy problems; they are not
purveyors of the indecent, or dealers in the supernatural and fantastic,
or poignant satirists of society at large or individuals in particular.
But they can both, in their different ways, tell a plain tale uncommonly
well, and season it with wit or pathos when either is suitable. Their
men and women are real men and women, and the stages on which they move
are not _mere_ stages, but pieces of real earth.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Sue, Soulie, and the novel of melodrama--_Le Juif Errant_,
etc.]

As regards one formerly almost famous and still well-known novelist,
Eugene Sue, I am afraid I shall be an unprofitable servant to