The Romance of a Poor Young Man

Octave Feuillet
ENGLISH EDITION A Library of French Masterpieces EDITED BY EDMUND GOSSE
THE ROMANCE OF A POOR YOUNG MAN
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF
OCTAVE FEUILLET
WITH A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION BY HENRY HARLAND
ILLUSTRATED BY SIMONT GUILHEM
London: The London Book Co. MCMVII.
OCTAVE FEUILLET'S NOVELS
To be serious seriously is the way of mediocrity. To be serious gaily is not such an easy matter. To look on at the pantomime of things, and to see, neatly separated, tragedy here, comedy opposite—to miss the perpetual dissolution and resolution of the one into and out of the other—is inevitable when eyes are purblind. Diis aliter visum . Olympus laughs because it perceives so many capital reasons for pulling a long face; and half the time pulls a long face simply to keep from laughing. I imagine it is in some measure the Olympian manner of seeing which explains the gay seriousness of the work of Octave Feuillet.
Octave Feuillet possesses to an altogether remarkable degree the art of being serious not only gaily, but charmingly. This, to begin with, places him and his stories in a particular atmosphere; and, if we consider it, I think we shall recognise that atmosphere as something very like the old familiar atmosphere of the fairy-tale. At any rate, there is a delicate, a fanciful symbolism in Feuillet's work, which breathes a fragrance unmistakably reminiscent of the enchanted forest. For an instance, one may recall the chapter in Un Mariage dans le Monde which relates the escapade of Lionel and his betrothed on the day before their wedding. A conventional mother, busy with preparations for the ceremony, intrusts her daughter to the chaperonage of an old aunt, who is, we might suppose, exactly the person for the office. But old aunts are sometimes wonderfully made; sometimes they keep the most unlooked-for surprises up those capacious old-fashioned sleeves of theirs. This one was a fairy godmother in disguise, and, I suspect, a pupil of the grimly-benevolent Blackstick. With good-humoured cynicism, she remarks that the happiest period of even the happiest married life is the day before it begins, and she advises her young charges to make the most of it—chases them, indeed, from her presence. Be off with you, my children! Come, be off with you at once! They escape to the park, where they romp like a pair of truant school-children. That is all; but in Feuillet's hands it becomes a fairy idyl. It serves, besides, the symbolic purpose of striking at the outset the note of joyousness which he means to repeat at the end, though the book is one that threatens, almost to the last page, to end on a note of despair. For Un Mariage dans le Monde , if far from being the most successful of Feuillet's novels, exhibits, none the less, some of his cleverest craftsmanship. He hoodwinks us into the fear that he meditates disaster, only pleasantly, genially, at the right moment, to disappoint us with the denouement we could have wished.