over"
now, of that Naturalism which it helped to bring about; and the once
world-popular composer who founded almost, if not quite, his most
popular opera on it, has become for many years an abomination and a
hissing to the very same kind of person who, sixty years since, would
have gone out of his way to extol _La Traviata_, and have found in _Il
Trovatore_ something worth not merely all Rossini[353] and Bellini and
Donizetti put together, but _Don Giovanni_, the _Zauberfloete_, and
_Fidelio_ thrown in; while if (as he might) he had known _Tannhaeuser_
and _Lohengrin_ he would have lifted up his hoof against them. It is the
nature of the fool of all times to overblame what the fools of other
times have overpraised. But the fact that these changes have happened,
and that other accidents of time have edulcorated that general ferocity
which made even men of worth in England refuse to lament the death of
the Prince Imperial in our service, should on the whole be rather
favourable to a quiet consideration of this remarkable book. Indeed, I
daresay some, if not many, of the "warm young men" to whom the very word
"tune" is anathema might read the words, "Veux-tu que nous quittions
Paris?" without having their pure and tender minds and ears sullied and
lacerated by the remembrance of "Parigi, O cara, noi lasceremo"--simply
because they never heard it.

A very remarkable book it is. Camellias have gone out of fashion, which
is a great pity, for a more beautiful flower in itself does not exist:
and those who have seen, in the Channel Islands, a camellia tree, as big
as a good-sized summer-house, clothed with snow, and the red blossoms
and green leaf-pairs unconcernedly slashing the white garment, have seen
one of the prettiest sights in the world. But I should not dream of
transferring the epithets "beautiful" or even "pretty" from the flower
to the book. It _is_ remarkable, and it is clever in no derogatory
sense. For it has pathos without mere sentiment, and truth, throwing a
light on humanity, which is not wholly or even mainly like that of

The blackguard boy
That runs his link full in your face.

The story of it is, briefly, as follows. Marguerite Gautier, its
heroine, is one of the most beautiful and popular _demi-mondaines_ of
Paris, also a _poitrinaire_,[354] and as this, if not as the other, the
pet and protegee, in a _quasi_-honourable fashion, of an old duke, whose
daughter, closely resemblin