here was Fogazzaro's "The Saint";
but the popularity of "The Saint" was not due to artistic causes.

* * * * *

I think I may say that I am thoroughly accustomed to the society of women
novelists. Peculiar circumstances in my obscure life have thrown me among
women writers of all sorts; and I can boast that I have helped to form
more than one woman novelist; so that the prospect of meeting a new one
does not agitate me in the slightest degree. I make friends with the new
one at once, and in about two minutes we are discussing prices with the
most touching familiarity. Nevertheless, I own that I was somewhat
disturbed in my Midland phlegm when the author of "Marie Claire" came to
see me. The book, read in the light of the circumstances of its
composition, had unusually impressed me and stirred my imagination. It was
not the woman novelist who was coming to see me, but Marie Claire herself,
shepherdess, farm-servant, and sempstress; it was a mysterious creature
who had known how to excite enthusiasm in a whole regiment of literary
young men.... And literary young men as a rule are extremely harsh, even
offensive, in their attitude towards women writers. I stood at the top of
the toy stairs of the _pavillon_ which I was then occupying in Paris, and
Madame Marguerite Audoux came up the stairs towards me, preceded by one of
her young sponsors, and followed by another. A rather short, plump little
lady, very simply dressed, and with the simplest possible manner--just
such a comfortable human being as in my part of the world is called a
"body"! She had, however, eyes of a softness and depth such as are not
seen in my part of the world. With that, a very quiet, timid, and sweet
voice. She was a sempstress; she looked like a sempstress; and she was
well content to look like a sempstress. Nobody would have guessed in ten
thousand guesses that here was the author of the European book of the
year. But when she talked the resemblance to the sempstress soon vanished.
Sempstresses--of whom I have also known many--do not talk as she talked.
Not that she said much! Not that she began to talk at once! Far from it.
When I had referred to the goodness of her visit, and she had referred to
the goodness of my invitation, and she was ensconced in an arm-chair near
the fire, she quite simply left the pioneer work of conversation to her
bodyguard. Her bodyguard was very proud, and very nervous, as befitted its
age