United States or Philippines ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And surely, the showy insolent charms of Sabine de Tallevaut, beautiful, intellectually gifted, supremely Amazonian, yet withal not drawn with M. Feuillet's usual fineness, scarcely hold out for the reader, any more than for Bernard himself, in the long run, against the vulgarising touch of her cold wickedness. They arrive escorted by Bernard himself.
In appearance, frivolous; with all the light charm of the world, yet with that impressibility to great things, according to the law which makes the best of M. Feuillet's characters so interesting; above all, with that capacity for pity which almost everything around him tended to suppress; in real life, if he exists there, and certainly in M. Feuillet's pages, it is a refreshment to meet him.
The virginal first period of their married life in their dainty house in Paris the pure and beautiful picture of the mother, the father, and at last the child, a little girl, Jeanne is presented with M. Feuillet's usual grace. Certain embarrassments succeed; the development of what was ill-matched in their union; but still with mutual loyalty.
Occasionally, it is true, our plays treat financial matters with some particularity; one may cite Mammon and A Bunch of Violets, both versions of Feuillet's drama Montjoie, and Mr Arthur Jones's clever piece A Rogue's Comedy, and Business is Business, the adaptation of Les Affaires sont les Affaires.
Recognising in himself, though as his one real fault, that he can take nothing seriously in heaven or earth, Bernard de Vaudricourt, like all M. Feuillet's favourite young men, so often erring or corrupt, is a man of scrupulous "honour." He has already shown disinterestedness in wishing his rich uncle to marry again.
The fervor of youth has a certain purifying power to redeem from offense matter, even though over-frankly treated, which becomes disagreeable in cold analysis, however sober the wording, and clear and admirable the moral pointed. Mademoiselle La Quintinie, which appeared in 1863, was suggested by M. Octave Feuillet's Sibille.
In one of Feuillet's novels there occurs a phrase which sums up in a few expressive words a very common spiritual misadventure: the hero says, "J'avais vu disparaître parmi les nuages la tête de ce bon vieillard qu'on appelle Dieu" "I had seen the head of that good old man called God disappear amongst the clouds."
The point of M. Feuillet's novel is, that Sibille, an ardent Catholic, stifles her love, and renounces her lover on account of his heterodox opinions. Madame Sand gives us the reverse a heroine who is reflectively rather than mystically inclined, and whose lover by degrees succeeds in effecting her conversion to his more liberal views.
I found that M. de Sybel, though in Paris, had not seen anything of Feuillet's collection, though he had publicly stated that he was going to Paris to clear up the whole story.
If you should hang your dresses up here, your maid would all the time be rummaging round, and that would derange my thoughts." Another of Feuillet's oddities is his hatred of railways. He has a country-place on the coast in Normandy, and every summer sends down his wife and children and servant by rail; after which, like a Russian grand seigneur, he goes down himself with post-horses.
Word Of The Day