o think that she would like to be of the train of Dian (one
shudders at imagining the scowl and the shrug and the twist of the skirt
of the goddess!). But the kiss of Aphrodite has been on her, and has
mastered her whole nature. How the thing could be done, out of poetry,
has always been a marvel to me; but I have explained it by the
supposition that the absolute impossibility of writing poetry at this
time in French necessitated the break-out in prose. Rousseau's wonderful
style--so impossible to analyse, but so irresistible--does much; the
animating sense of his native scenery something. But, after all, what
gives the thing its irresistibleness is the strange command he had of
Passion and of Sorrow--two words, the first of which is actually, in the
original sense, a synonym of the second, though it has been expanded to
cover the very opposite.

[Sidenote: And the better side of the book generally.]

But it would be unfair to Rousseau, especially in such a place as this,
to confine the praise of _Julie_ as a novel to its exhibition of
passion, or even to the charm of Julie herself. Within its proper
limits--which are, let it be repeated, almost if not quite exactly those
of the First Part--many other gifts of the particular class of artist
are shown. The dangerous letter-scheme, which lends itself so easily,
and in the other parts surrenders itself so helplessly and hopelessly,
to mere "piffle" about this and that, is kept well in hand. Much as
Rousseau owes to Richardson, he has steered entirely clear of that
system of word-for-word and incident-for-incident reporting which makes
the Englishman's work so sickening to some. You have enough of each and
no more, this happy mean affecting both dialogue and description. The
plot (or rather the action) is constantly present, probably managed,
always enlivened by the imminence of disastrous discovery. As has been
already pointed out, one may dislike--or feel little interest in--some
of the few characters; but it is impossible to say that they are out of
drawing or keeping. Saint-Preux, objectionable and almost loathsome as
he may be sometimes, is a thoroughly human creature, and is undoubtedly
what Rousseau meant him to be, for the very simple reason that he is
(like the Byronic hero who followed) what Rousseau wished to be, if not
exactly what he was, himself. Bomston is more of a lay figure; but then
the _Anglais philosophe de qualite_ of the French imagination in the
eig