of chapters in Telemaque and the categorical reports of a public office.  It had ideas, but refrained from expressing them, it was so scornful!  It was observant, but would not communicate its observations to any one, it was so miserly!  Nobody but Fouche ever mentioned what he had observed.  ‘At that time,’ to quote the words of one of the most imbecile critics in the Revue des Deux Mondes, ’literature was content with a clear sketch and the simple outline of all antique statues.  It did not dance over its periods.’—­I should think not!  It had no periods to dance over.  It had no words to play with.  You were plainly told that Lubin loved Toinette; that Toinette did not love Lubin; that Lubin killed Toinette and the police caught Lubin, who was put in prison, tried at the assizes, and guillotined.—­A strong sketch, a clear outline!  What a noble drama!  Well, in these days the barbarians make words sparkle.”

“Like a hair in a frost,” said Monsieur de Clagny.

“So those are the airs you affect?"[*] retorted Lousteau.

[*] The rendering given above is only intended to link the various
    speeches into coherence; it has no resemblance with the French.  In
    the original, “Font chatoyer les mots.”

    “Et quelquefois les morts,” dit Monsieur de Clagny.

    “Ah!  Lousteau! vous vous donnez de ces R-la (airs-la).”

    Literally:  “And sometimes the dead.”—­“Ah, are those the airs you
    assume?”—­the play on the insertion of the letter R (mots,
    morts) has no meaning in English.

“What can he mean?” asked Madame de Clagny, puzzled by this vile pun.

“I seem to be walking in the dark,” replied the Mayoress.

“The jest would be lost in an explanation,” remarked Gatien.

“Nowadays,” Lousteau went on, “a novelist draws characters, and instead of a ‘simple outline,’ he unveils the human heart and gives you some interest either in Lubin or in Toinette.”

“For my part, I am alarmed at the progress of public knowledge in the matter of literature,” said Bianchon.  “Like the Russians, beaten by Charles XII., who at least learned the art of war, the reader has learned the art of writing.  Formerly all that was expected of a romance was that it should be interesting.  As to style, no one cared for that, not even the author; as to ideas—­zero; as to local color —­non est.  By degrees the reader has demanded style, interest, pathos, and complete information; he insists on the five literary senses—­Invention, Style, Thought, Learning, and Feeling.  Then some criticism commenting on everything.  The critic, incapable of inventing anything but calumny, pronounces every work that proceeds from a not perfect brain to be deformed.  Some magicians, as Walter Scott, for instance, having appeared in the world, who combined all the five literary senses, such writers as had but one—­wit or learning, style or feeling —­these cripples, these acephalous, maimed or purblind creatures —­in a literary sense—­have taken to shrieking that all is lost, and have preached a crusade against men who were spoiling the business, or have denounced their works.”