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See how exquisitely it lies on the front ringlets, and how airily it is distributed over the entire peruke. Vraiment, I am proud of my invention." Hippolyte protested that it was worthy of the godlike intellect of his excellency, and was destined to make an era in the annals of hair-dressing.
"Mind you have a man from the farm to sleep in the house every night. It would be well for him to have the gun loaded, only take care the children don't get at it. My health is still tolerably good, sufficiently so for me to get easily through what I have to do." But the next news was far from being so satisfactory. "J'ai des nouvelles de West Lodge qui sont vraiment tristes.
There is something inexplicable about the intensity of national tastes and the violence of national differences. If, as in the good old days, I could boldly believe a Frenchman to be an inferior creature, while he, as simply, wrote me down a savage, there would be an easy end of the matter. But alas! nous avons changé tout cela. Now we are each of us obliged to recognise that the other has a full share of intelligence, ability, and taste; that the accident of our having been born on different sides of the Channel is no ground for supposing either that I am a brute or that he is a ninny. But, in that case, how does it happen that while on one side of that 'span of waters' Racine is despised and Shakespeare is worshipped, on the other, Shakespeare is tolerated and Racine is adored? The perplexing question was recently emphasised and illustrated in a singular way. Mr. John Bailey, in a volume of essays entitled 'The Claims of French Poetry, discussed the qualities of Racine at some length, placed him, not without contumely, among the second rank of writers, and drew the conclusion that, though indeed the merits of French poetry are many and great, it is not among the pages of Racine that they are to be found. Within a few months of the appearance of Mr. Bailey's book, the distinguished French writer and brilliant critic, M. Lemaître, published a series of lectures on Racine, in which the highest note of unqualified panegyric sounded uninterruptedly from beginning to end. The contrast is remarkable, and the conflicting criticisms seem to represent, on the whole, the views of the cultivated classes in the two countries. And it is worthy of note that neither of these critics pays any heed, either explicitly or by implication, to the opinions of the other. They are totally at variance, but they argue along lines so different and so remote that they never come into collision. Mr. Bailey, with the utmost sang-froid, sweeps on one side the whole of the literary tradition of France. It is as if a French critic were to assert that Shakespeare, the Elizabethans, and the romantic poets of the nineteenth century were all negligible, and that England's really valuable contribution to the poetry of the world was to be found among the writings of Dryden and Pope. M. Lemaître, on the other hand, seems sublimely unconscious that any such views as Mr. Bailey's could possibly exist. Nothing shows more clearly Racine's supreme dominion over his countrymen than the fact that M. Lemaître never questions it for a moment, and tacitly assumes on every page of his book that his only duty is to illustrate and amplify a greatness already recognised by all. Indeed, after reading M. Lemaître's book, one begins to understand more clearly why it is that English critics find it difficult to appreciate to the full the literature of France. It is no paradox to say that that country is as insular as our own. When we find so eminent a critic as M. Lemaître observing that Racine 'a vraiment "achevé" et porté
I should have presented him to you if you had not been so haughty." "I hate geniuses," said Toby briefly. He laughed at her. "Mais vraiment! How many have you known?" She considered for a moment, and finally decided that the question did not require an answer. Saltash took the wheel and spun the little car round with considerable dexterity. "Yes, a genius!" he said.
He made his monkeyish grimace, and suddenly dropped his eyes to the blue-veined wrist in his grasp. "Are you happy, mignonne?" he asked her, still obviously in jesting mood. Toby's eyes dropped also. She mutely nodded. "The truth, Nonette?" His look flashed over her; his tone was imperious. She nodded again. "I always tell you the truth." He began to laugh. "Mais vraiment!
Vous devriez voir mon eglise a la Dominique; j'ai la une Vierge qui est vraiment gentille. 'Ah, I cried, 'they told me you had said you would never build another church, and I wrote in my journal I could not believe it. 'Oui, j'aimerais bien en fairs une autre, he confessed, and smiled at the confession. An artist will understand how much I was attracted by this conversation.
"Pas convenable," she heard Mademoiselle say just behind her, "non, je connais ces gens-la, je vous promets... vraiment j'en ai peur...." Elsa responded with excited enquiries. They all trooped quietly in and the great doors closed behind them. "Vraiment j'ai peur," whispered Mademoiselle. Miriam saw a point of red light shining like a ruby far ahead in the gloom.
"Vraiment!" he exclaimed; "philosophers all belong to the devil. This Jean Jacques does not content himself with declining my offer, but he does it in an unheard-of manner. This is a work of art; I must read it again." The king read aloud in a most pathetic voice: "Votre majeste m'offre un asyle, et m'y prome la liberte; mais vous avez une epee, et vous etes roi.
Then at her cue, Laura, who was to play the role of the duchess, entered with the words: "I beg your pardon, but the door stood open. May I come in?" Monsieur Gerardy murmured: "Elle est vraiment superbe." Laura to the very life, to every little trick of carriage and manner was the high-born gentlewoman visiting the home of a dependent.
Indeed before the close of the day Rosaline privately informed her mistress, "qu'elle serait entetee surement de cet enfant dans trois jours;" and "que son regard vraiment lui serrait le coeur."
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