[408] By some curious mistake, his birth used for a long time to be ante-dated ten years from 1822 to 1812. At the risk of annoying my readers by repeating such references, I should perhaps mention that there is an essay on Feuillet in the book already cited.
[409] I give Delilah (for whom Milton's excessive rudeness naturally inspires a sort of partisanship) the benefit of a notion that her action was, partly if not mainly, due to unbearable curiosity. How many women are there who could resist the double temptation of seeing whether the secret did lie in the hair, and if so, of possessing complete mistress-ship of their lovers? Some perhaps: but many?
[410] V. sup. Vol. I. pp. 420-1.
[411] It may be worth while to remind the reader that Maupassant included this in his selection of remarkable novels of all modern times and languages.
[412] How sad it is to think that a specific reference to that all-but-masterpiece, as a picture of earlier fin-de-siècle society, Miss Edgeworth's Belinda, may perhaps be necessary to escape the damning charge of unexplained allusion!
"Where'er I came
I brought calamity."
When I read the foolish things that foolish people still write about Tennyson, I like to repeat to myself that "lonely word" in its immediate context.
[414] If you can "take arms against a sea" you can, I suppose, make head against a sewer.
[415] His brother Ernest was a novelist of merit sufficient to make it not unnatural that he should—as, unless my memory plays me tricks, he did—resent being whelmed in the fraternal reputation. But he does not require much notice here.