THE SERPENT IN LITERATURE 205 
picture, and the effect would have been more 
harmonious. This inability of the author to mix 
and shade his colours shows itself in the passages 
descriptive of Elsie herself; he insists a great deal 
too much on her ophidian, or crotaline, character- 
itics—her stillness and silence and sinuous motions; 
her bizarre taste in barred gowns; her drowsy 
condition in cold weather, with intensity of life 
and activity during the solstitial heats — even 
her dangerous impulse to strike with her teeth 
when angered. These traits require to be touched 
upon very lightly indeed; as it is, the pro- 
found pity and love, with a mixture of horror 
which was the effect sought, come too near 
to repulsion. While on this point it may be 
mentioned that the author frequently speaks of 
the slight sibilation in Elsie’s speech—a strange 
blunder for the man of science to fall into, since 
he does not make Elsie like any snake, or like 
snakes in general, but like the Crotalus durissus 
only, the New England rattlesnake, which does not 
hiss, like some other venomous serpents that are 
not provided with an instrument of sound in 
their tails. 
After all is said, the conception of Elsie Venner 
is one so unique and wonderful, and so greatly 
moves our admiration and pity with her strange 
beauty, her inarticulate passion, her unspeakably 
sad destiny, that in spite of many and most serious 
faults the book must ever remain a classic in our 
literature, among romances a gem that has not its 
