on of sentimental fiction.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Benjamin Constant--_Adolphe_.]

Benjamin Constant's masterpiece, which (the sequel to it never having
appeared, though it was in existence in manuscript less than a century
ago) is also his only purely literary work, is a very small book, but it
calls here for something more than a very small mention. The books which
make an end are almost fewer in literature than those which make a
beginning, and this is one of them. Like most such books, it made a
beginning also, showing the way to Beyle, and through Beyle to all the
analytic school of the nineteenth century. Space would not here suffice
to discuss the singular character of its author, to whom Sainte-Beuve
certainly did some injustice, as the letters to Madame Recamier show,
but whose political and personal experiences as certainly call for a
large allowance of charity. The theory of _Adolphe's_ best editor, M. de
Lescure (which also was the accepted theory long before M. de Lescure's
time), that the heroine of the novel was Madame de Stael, will not, I
think, hold water. In every characteristic, personal and mental,
Ellenore and Madame de Stael are at opposite poles. Ellenore was
beautiful, Madame de Stael was very nearly hideous; Ellenore was
careless of her social position, Corinne was as great a slave to society
as any one who ever lived; Ellenore was somewhat uncultivated, had
little _esprit_, was indifferent to flattery, took not much upon herself
in any way except in exacting affection where no affection existed; the
good Corinne was one of the cleverest women of her time, and thought
herself one of the cleverest of all times, could not endure that any one
in company should be of a different opinion on this point, and insisted
on general admiration and homage.

However, this is a very minor matter, and anybody is at liberty to
regard the differences as deliberate attempts to disguise the truth.
What is important is that Madame de Stael was almost the last genuine
devotee of Sensibility, and that _Adolphe_ was certainly written by a
lover of Madame de Stael, who had, from his youth up, been a Man of
Feeling of a singularly unfeeling kind. When Constant wrote the book he
had run through the whole gamut of Sensibility. He had been instructed
as a youth[410] by ancient women of letters; he had married and got rid
of his wife _a la mode Germanorum_; he had frequently taken a hint fro