ule, too dull
to be fair tests) the ineradicable defects of the species.
Even when the purpose does not entirely preclude the
possibility of enjoyment, it always gets in the way thereof;
and when the enjoyable matter does not absorb attention to
the disregard of the purpose altogether, it seldom--perhaps
never--really helps that purpose to get itself fulfilled.

FOOTNOTES:

[247] It is perhaps not quite superfluous to point out that the
principle of separation in these chapters is quite different from that
(between "idealist" and "realist") pursued by Koerting and others, and
reprobated, partially or wholly, by MM. Le Breton and Brunetiere.

[248] _L'Autre Monde: ou Histoire Comique des Etats et Empires de la
Lune_, etc.

[249] It must be remembered that even Gerard Hamilton made many more
speeches, but only one good one, while the novelists discussed here
wrote in most cases many other books. But their goodness shows itself in
hardly more than a single work in each case. Anthony Hamilton's is in
all his.

[250] It has been noted, I think, by all who have written about the
_Berger_, that Sorel is a sort of Balak and Balaam in one. He calls on
himself to curse the _Astree_, but he, sometimes at least, blesses it.

[251] The _Berger_ fills two volumes of some nine hundred pages;
_Polyandre_, two of six hundred each! But it must be admitted that the
print is very large and widely spaced.

[252] One remembers the story of the greater Corneille calling to the
lesser down a trap between their two houses, "Sans-Souci!--une rime!"

[253] I have known this word more than once objected to as pedantic. But
pedantry in this kind consists in using out-of-the-way terms when common
ones are ready to hand. There is no single word in English to express
the lower kind of "Dutch-painting" as this Greek word does. And Greek is
a recognised and standing source of words for English. If geography, why
not rhyparography?--or, if any one prefers it, "rhypography," which,
however, is not, I think, so good a form.

[254] There is, no doubt, significance in the fact that they are
definitely called _nouvelles_.

[255] _V. sup._ p. 204. The habit of these continues in all the books.
_L'Illustre Bassa_ opens with a most elaborate, but still not very much
"alive," procession and sham fight.

[256] Of course Cervantes is not shadowy.

[257] As far as mere chronology goes, Cyrano, _v. inf._, should come
betw