thing good which is absent--I hardly know anything wrong in
Flaubert. He is to my mind almost[406] incomparably the greatest
novelist of France specially belonging to the second half of the
nineteenth century, and I do not think that Europe at large has ever had
a greater since the death of Thackeray.

FOOTNOTES:

[389] He _might_ have said--to make a Thackerayan translation of what
was actually said later of an offering of roses rashly made to some
French men of letters at their hotel in London: "Who the devil is this?
Let them flank him his vegetables to the gate!" But what he did say, I
believe, though he did not know or mention my name, was that "a blonde
son of Albion" had ventured something _gigantesque_ on him. And
_gigantesque_ had, if I do not again fondly err, sometimes if not always
its "milder shade" of meaning in Flaubert's energetic mouth.

[390] As in those cases, and perhaps even more than in most, I have
taken pains to make the new criticism as little of a replica of the old
as possible.

[391] Possibly this is exactly what M. de Goncourt meant.

[392] There is some scandal and infinite gossip about Flaubert, with all
of which I was once obliged to be acquainted, but which I have done the
best that a rather strong memory will allow me to forget. I shall only
say that his early friend and quasi-biographer, Maxime du Camp, seems to
me to have had nearly as hard measure dealt out to him as Mr. Froude in
the matter of Mr. Carlyle. Both were indiscreet; I do not think either
was malevolent or treacherous.

[393] For in novels, to a greater degree than in poems, greatness _does_
depend on the subject.

[394] Somebody has, I believe, suggested that if Emma had married
Homais, all would have been well. If this means that he would have
promptly and comfortably poisoned her, for which he had professional
facilities, there might be something in it. Otherwise, hardly.

[395] His forte is in single utterances, such as the unmatched "J'ai un
amant!" to which Emma gives vent after her first lapse (and which
"speaks" her and her fate, and the book in ten letters, two spaces, and
an apostrophe), or as the "par ce qu'elle avait touche au manteau de
Tanit" of _Salammbo_; and the "Ainsi tout leur a craque dans la main" of
the unfinished summary of _Bouvard et Pecuchet_.

[396] It is known that Flaubert, perhaps out of rather boyish pique
(there was much boyishness in him), had originally made its offence
ranker