hurch interview, _Je crains merveilleusement
monsieur votre mari_). But it makes not the slightest difference; nor
does the at last awakened wrath of an at last not merely threatened but
wideawake husband. Apparently she never has the chance of being actually
guilty, for her husband finally, and very properly, shuts her up in a
country house under strong duennaship. This finishes the first part, but
there are two more, which return to more ancient ways. The lover
Guenelic goes off to seek adventures, which he himself recounts, and
acquires considerable improvement in them. He comes back, endeavours to
free his mistress from her captivity, and does actually fly with her;
but they are pursued; and though the lover and a friend of his with the
rather Amadisian name of "Quezinstra" do their best, the heroine dies of
weariness and shock, to be followed by her lover.

This latter part is comparatively commonplace. M. Reynier thinks very
highly of the first. It is possible to go with him a certain part of the
way, but not, I think, the whole, except from a purely "naturalist" and
not at all "sentimental" point of view. Some bold bad men have, of
course, maintained that when the other sex is possessed by an _appetit
sensuel_ this overcomes everything else, and seems, if not actually to
exclude, at any rate by no means always or often to excite, that
accompanying transcendentalism which is not uncommon with men, and
which, comprised with the appetite, makes the love of the great lovers,
whether they are represented by Dante or by Donne, by Shakespeare or by
Shelley. Whether this be truth or libel _non nostrum est_. But it is
certain that Helisenne, as she represents herself, does not make the
smallest attempt to spiritualise (even in the lowest sense) or inspirit
the animality of her affection. She wants her lover as she might want a
pork chop instead of a mutton one; and if she is sometimes satisfied
with seeing him, it is as if she were looking at that pork chop through
a restaurateur's window and finding it better than not seeing it at all
and contenting herself with the mutton. Still this result is probably
the result at least as much of want of art as of original _mis_feeling;
and the book certainly does deserve notice here.

The original _Oeuvres_ of Helisenne form a rather appetising little
volume, fat, and close and small printed, as indeed is the case with
most, but not quite all, of the books now under notice. The
com