In writing of the great Russian novelist it naturally suggests itself to say a word upon Madame Émile Durand, or "Henri Gréville," who has lately achieved so universal a reputation. One of her slightest efforts has just been crowned by the Academy, and one or more of her tales has been translated into all the tongues of Europe, including Dutch and Spanish. The Durands, who are childless, reside in a little pavillon, or house with garden behind the main structure which fronts the street, in the not very inviting region of Montmartre. Madame Gréville is a comfortable-looking lady of thirty-five with the air of forty, and is a most agreeable talker. In her varied experience she has seen a good deal of the up and downs of life, but has now settled down, as she told me, "to making her three novels a year." I hardly think she will ever again reach the level of the Expiation de Savéli. Her husband is the Paris correspondent of a St. Petersburg paper, and incidentally a painter.
No sketch of French literary society, however short, should omit mention of that most famous of all periodicals, the Revue des Deux Mondes. It is forty-eight years old, and during its long life it has seen perhaps a hundred rivals rise and fall, while it has itself gone on constantly increasing in importance, so that it is now become an institution, like the Academy or the Comédie Française. Its offices are located in a fine old hôtel not far from the noble faubourg, where M. Charles Buloz (son of the founder of the Revue) and his wife give during the winter fortnightly receptions to the contributors and their friends, as well as literary dinner-parties which form, I suppose, the most catholic reunions in Paris; and for the excellent reason that all opinions except blatant radicalism and the dogmatic idiocy of Bishop Dupanloup and his friends are represented by its contributors. By admitting him to its columns the Revue gives a French author a stamp of approval which suffices to make him known and respected (at least as regards talent) in all quarters of the globe. As was the late, so is the present, manager fully conscious of his power, and feels as independent with regard to his authors as does the director of the Théâtre Français toward his. A short time since the most famous of those literary Frenchmen who are not novelists, and a man who rarely writes for periodical publications, sent an important contribution to the Revue, but neither the name of the author nor the fact that the contribution was of a character to attract great attention among the public induced M. Buloz to print what seemed to him, from a literary point of view, unworthy of a place in the columns of this journal. The pecuniary rewards of writing for the latter are but slight: a writer receives nothing at all for his first article, and afterward the prices vary—not in proportion to the merit of the production, but in relation to the reputation of the author. Henri Gréville, for instance, obtained for her L'Expiation de Savéli—a novel which, I am inclined to think, will not only always remain her masterpiece, but will ever be considered a most perfect work of art—but one hundred and fifty dollars; and the ordinary price for articles upon historical or philosophical or art topics is but one dollar to two dollars per page. It is odd, too, considering the artistic eye and touch possessed by Frenchmen, and their sensitiveness in regard to such matters, that the Revue, in spite of its large circulation and high subscription-price, is the worst printed magazine in the world. To American readers, who have doubtless noticed with pleasure the attention paid of late years by the Revue to American literature, it will perhaps be interesting to learn that "Thomas Bentzon," who has discovered for the French public so many of our authors, is a Madame Blanc. She was described to me as a woman of great intelligence and the highest character, the daughter of an old but poor noble family, and early married to a wealthy banker. This person not proving to be a model husband, his wife sought a separation; and the fault being obviously on his side, he was ordered by the court to make Madame Blanc a handsome allowance. She, however, refused to take the money of a man whom she could not respect, and having consented to accept only the small annual sum necessary for their child's education, set bravely but quietly to work to earn her own living—a task in which she has slowly succeeded. Arthur Venner.
HIS GREAT DEED.
In all the old Norse legends we are sure to find the inevitable three brothers, to the youngest of whom, Grimmel, fall all the adventures, the dealings with the Devil, and the pot of yellow gold at the end.
Not many years ago there lived in a lonely hut on Mount Mitchell in North Carolina this identical Grimmel and his brothers. Their father, John Boyer, was a hunter. When he died the two elder sons, Richard and Hugh, remained with their mother, farmed a sterile tract on the Black Mountains and trapped bears and wolves through the great southern ranges of the Appalachian chain. Twice in the year they came down to the hamlet at Gray Eagle to exchange their peltry for such goods as they needed. They were, in short, Grimmel's elder brothers, who sat satisfied in the chimney-corner while giants, devils and trolls were carousing without. They wore the cloth which their mother had spun, woven and made up for them. They shot with their father's rifle, ate the same corn-dodgers, nodded over the same Bible every evening, and drank plenty of whiskey from the same secret still back in the gorge. It had never occurred to them to go down into the world, to learn a trade or profession or to make money. Why should they? Money was of very little use. They probably did not handle twenty dollars in the year, yet they had all they wanted.
They were big and slow-moving and serious as the tame bear which lay before the fire. At forty they always spoke of the house and farm as "my mother's, Mistress Boyer's," and meekly obeyed the old woman as she ordered them about with a sharp tongue. The instinct of kinship was as strong in them as in the old Jews. They would strike a bee-line for each other through the trackless wilderness when miles apart. This happened often.
"How do I know where to find Richard?" said Hugh. "I don't know how I know. Something in my bones tells me."
I think that when the youngest brother, Peter, left the mountains these older men suffered a kind of physical loss ever after, as if an arm or a leg had been taken from them. Peter was somewhere out in the world, living by his wits. God had given him precisely the same kind of wits as his brothers, but with a single added drop of uneasy leaven. He tumbled out of his cradle when he was a baby to see what lay beyond. He was thin, wizened, restless as a strange beast in a cage, though his brothers tirelessly puzzled their slow brains to soothe and satisfy him. When he was a boy he was wretched because he was not taken down into the valley or to far-off towns. His brothers were puzzled, dismayed.
"It is the bird in the bush he wants," said his shrewd old mother. "The bird in the bush: he will never get it in his hand."