about 1820, she is twenty
years younger than her husband, whom, in 1845, she accompanied in his
excursion to Spitzbergen; an excursion which opened with, by way of
prologue, a rapid tour through Belgium, Holland, Sweden, and Norway. Of
the tour and the excursion she has published a brilliant narrative,
which it is impossible to read without pleasure, so polished is the
style, and so sharply defined are the descriptions. Her literary skill
gives her an advantage over the great majority of female travellers,
whose diaries and journals, from want of it, are often bald, colourless,
and diffuse. On the other hand, she is deficient in sympathy; she judges
rather with the intellect than with the heart, which is at least as
necessary to the formation of a fair and intelligent opinion. Her mind,
however, is so keen and so incisive, so prompt to seize the most curious
facts, so apt in discovering characteristic details, that even when she
speaks of places and peoples with whom we are all familiar, she compels
us to listen, and irresistibly holds our attention. It has been said
that in some respects her manner is that of the elder Dumas, but while
she is more honest and less given to exaggeration she does not rise to
the same literary standard. The famous author of "Anthony" is still
first master in the art, more difficult than the world in general
believes it to be, of recording the experiences of travel; he is a
master in it, because he does not make the attempt, which must always be
unsuccessful, of minutely recording every particular that comes under a
traveller's notice, and because he is gifted beyond ordinary measure
with the art and _verve_ of the _raconteur_. Persons and situations he
knows how to group in the most effective manner; incidents assume their
most dramatic form; scenes are worked up so as to produce a definite
impression on the reader's mind.

Madame d'Aunet, as a popular novelist, knows when writing that she can
count upon her thousands of readers. But this is a fact which we wish
she could have forgotten or ignored. For, keeping it always before her,
she is led to weigh with critical timidity every word, every phrase, and
to elaborate each sentence until, in the old Greek phrase, we "smell the
oil." Those passages of glowing description which at first marched on so
freely and fully, come to an abrupt pause. The language, formerly so
vigorous and incisive, becomes vague, colourless, hesitating; or, very
freq