blue eyes of Anne Genevieve and the
bristling mustachios and "swashing outside" and mighty rapier of
Georges; and the thing becomes alive with the life of a not ungracious
past, the ills of which were, after all, more or less common to all
times, and its charms (like the charms of all things and persons
charming) its own.

[Sidenote: The "Address to the Reader."]

But the Address to the Reader, though it discards those "temptations of
young ladies" (Madame de Longueville can never have been old) which Dr.
Johnson recognised, and also the companion attractions of Cape and
Sword, is of perhaps directly greater importance for our special and
legitimate purpose. Here the brother and sister (probably the sister
chiefly) develop some of the principles of their bold adventure, and
they are of no small interest. It is allowed that the varying accounts
of Cyrus (in which, as almost every one with the slightest tincture of
education[155] must be aware, doctors differ remarkably), at least those
of Herodotus and Xenophon (they do not, or she does not, seem to have
known Ctesias), are confounded, and selected _ad libitum_ and _secundum
artem_ only. Further "lights" are given by the selection of the
"Immortal Heliodorus" and "the great Urfe" as patterns and patrons of
the work. In fact, to any expert in the reading and criticism of novels
it is clear that a great principle has been--imperfectly but
somehow--laid hold of.

[Sidenote: The opening of the "business."]

Perhaps, however, "laid hold of" is too strong; we should do better by
borrowing from Dante and saying that the author or authors have
"glimpsed the Panther,"--have seen that a novel ought not to be a mere
chronicle, unselected and miscellaneous, but a work which, whether it
has actual unity of plot or not, has unity of interest, and will deal
with its facts so as to secure that interest. At first, indeed, they
plunge us into the middle of matters quite excitingly, though perhaps
not without more definite suggestion, both to them and to us, of the
"immortal" Heliodorus. The hero, who still bears his false name of
Artamene,[156] appears at the head of a small army, the troops of
Cyaxares of Media; and, at the mouth of a twisting valley, suddenly sees
before him the town of Sinope in flames, the shipping in the harbour
blazing likewise, all but one bark, which seems to be flying from more
than the conflagration. A fine comic-opera situation follows; for while
Artamene