fter
which, like a Russian grand seigneur, he goes down himself with
post-horses. I am inclined to think Feuillet has greater genius than any
other living writer of French fiction, with one exception. His _Monsieur
de Camors_, for instance, is a masterpiece, though one of the most
painful and unhealthy books ever written. But his talent is essentially
dramatic talent, and when he writes a novel his inner consciousness, in
spite of himself, is centred upon the stage effect. Thus, in his last
story, _Les Amours de Philippe_, there is no unity whatever, the book
consisting of three distinct and independent episodes, precisely
corresponding to the three acts of a play. The first of these parts is
one of the most agreeable pieces of writing in French literature, a
really charming little idyl--a Parisian idyl, to be sure, and not
precisely the most suitable reading for young girls. Nothing is more
peculiar than a Frenchman's ideas of morality in literature; for,
strange as it may appear, several of Feuillet's books are considered
highly edifying, and the secretary of the Academy, upon his entrance
into that august body, was able to greet him with the, in France, by no
means negative praise that it was not his fault if there still existed
_mauvaises menages_. Feuillet, rather by sentiment than by conviction,
it would appear, is an ardent Catholic, and, like Dumas, owes no small
portion of his worldly success to the appreciation of this fact in high
quarters. Another of his peculiarities is, that almost alone among the
writers of the day he cherishes a lingering regret for the pleasant days
of the Empire, when for a long period he was not only a favorite at the
Tuileries and Compiegne, but almost the only man of talent who found it
possible to write.

Another writer whom I used to meet in Paris, at About's and at his own
house, was Andre Theuriet, favorably known in America by his lovely
little story of _Gerard's Marriage_. I had read that and other almost
equally charming tales of its author, and felt a strong desire to see
him. Of some literary men one creates in his mind's eye a picture of
which the colors are the impressions produced by their books, and I had
imagined Theuriet either a youngish man with a pretty wife or a
gray-haired paterfamilias with two or three grown-up sons and daughters.
Theuriet's hair is partially gray, to be sure, but he is unmarried, and
by no means _bon enfant_ as regards personal appearance. He