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The theme of M. Paul Bourget's 'André Cornélis' is that of 'Hamlet, but in all probability the French novelist was not aware that he was treading in the footsteps of the English dramatist until his own plot had taken shape in his mind.

Awhile ago I said that M. Bourget's method of truth-seeking hunting for it in out-of-the-way places was new; but that was an error. I remember that when Leverrier discovered the Milky Way, he and the other astronomers began to theorize about it in substantially the same fashion which M. Bourget employs in his seasonings about American social facts and their origin.

The noteworthy criticism which Mark Twain directed at Paul Bourget's 'Outre Mer', and the subsequent controversy incident thereto, forced into light the racial and temperamental dissimilarities between the Gallic and the American Ausschauung. Mr. Clemens once remarked to me that, of all continental peoples, the French were most alien to the spirit of his humour.

"Not," as he said, "because I can't take your word, but because I don't want anyone fooling in here." He returned in the evening, at seven o'clock, and found me as he had left me, reading a later novel of Paul Bourget's; for Osbart had slept all the afternoon, and was always complaining when on shore.

If this sprightly, fascinating, somewhat hard and calculating young woman be a true picture of the transatlantic maiden, we may sigh indeed for her lack of the Ewig Weibliche. I do not pretend to say where M. Bourget's appreciation is at fault, but that it is false unaccountably false in the general impression it leaves, I have no manner of doubt.

In this great battle for political and intellectual freedom the young Laurier played his part manfully. He boldly joined L'Institut Canadien, though it lay under the shadow of Bishop Bourget's minatory pastoral; and became an active member and officer. He was one of a committee which tried unavailingly to effect an understanding with Bishop Bourget.

It was followed by 'Cruelle Enigme ; Un Crime d'Amour ; Andre Cornelis and Mensonges ; Le Disciple ; La Terre promise; Cosmopolis , crowned by the Academy; Drames de Famille ; Monique ; his romances are 'Une Idylle tragique ; La Duchesse Bleue ; Le Fantome ; and L'Etape . 'Le Disciple' and 'Cosmopolis' are certainly notable books. The latter marks the cardinal point in Bourget's fiction.

Arden of Faversham inspired an Elizabethan tragedy attributed by some critics to Shakespeare. The Peltzer trial helped to inspire Paul Bourget's remarkable novel, "Andre Cornelis." Mrs. Manning was the original of the maid Hortense in "Bleak House." Jonathan Wild, Eugene Aram, Deacon Brodie, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright have all been made the heroes of books or plays of varying merit.

I was a little taken aback at first; but a moment's reflection convinced me that I had just experienced a most striking tribute to the honour of the American man and the social atmosphere of the United States. The psychological method of suggestive criticism has, perhaps, never been applied with more delicacy of intelligence than in M. Bourget's chapter on the American woman.

M. Paul Bourget's heroes might live without distinction in Newport or in Monte Carlo; they take root nowhere, but live in the large cities, in winter resorts and in drawing-rooms as transient visitors in temporary abiding-places.