701 



viewing scenes like these in the light not of romance but of history, 

 and thinking of all the movement and animation of the present in its 

 relation to the past, venture to say that Moliere and La Fontaine 

 would have found nothing worthy of imitation in the France of this 

 century ? Would they not have been able to show us in an ideal form, 

 though it were but in comedy, how much of the historic character 

 of their country has survived the conflict of thirty generations; how 

 many of the primaeval springs of national life combine to preserve the 

 unity of French society; to what extent the ancient religion is still a 

 moving power in the hearts of the people ? Let it be granted that it 

 is no longer the drama or the poem, but the novel, which is the 

 vehicle of imaginative expression. Yet the novel also can be made the 

 mirror of the ideal imitation of Nature, and the novelist who is able 

 to give a reflection of the true morals and manners of France in the 

 classic language inherited from Pascal and Mme. de Sevigne', will 

 command an European audience as wide and appreciative as in the 

 davp of Louis Quatorze. 



