登陆注册
5167800000037

第37章 ON SOME FRENCH FASHIONABLE NOVELS(2)

He has, we say, seen an immense number of wax candles, cups of tea, glasses of orgeat, and French people, in best clothes, enjoying the same; but intimacy there is none; we see but the outsides of the people.Year by year we live in France, and grow gray, and see no more.We play ecarte with Monsieur de Trefle every night; but what know we of the heart of the man--of the inward ways, thoughts, and customs of Trefle? If we have good legs, and love the amusement, we dance with Countess Flicflac, Tuesday's and Thursdays, ever since the Peace; and how far are we advanced in acquaintance with her since we first twirled her round a room? We know her velvet gown, and her diamonds (about three-fourths of them are sham, by the way); we know her smiles, and her simpers, and her rouge--but no more: she may turn into a kitchen wench at twelve on Thursday night, for aught we know; her voiture, a pumpkin; and her gens, so many rats: but the real, rougeless, intime Flicflac, we know not.

This privilege is granted to no Englishman: we may understand the French language as well as Monsieur de Levizac, but never can penetrate into Flicflac's confidence: our ways are not her ways;our manners of thinking, not hers: when we say a good thing, in the course of the night, we are wondrous lucky and pleased; Flicflac will trill you off fifty in ten minutes, and wonder at the betise of the Briton, who has never a word to say.We are married, and have fourteen children, and would just as soon make love to the Pope of Rome as to any one but our own wife.If you do not make love to Flicflac, from the day after her marriage to the day she reaches sixty, she thinks you a fool.We won't play at ecarte with Trefle on Sunday nights; and are seen walking, about one o'clock (accompanied by fourteen red-haired children, with fourteen gleaming prayer-books), away from the church."Grand Dieu!" cries Trefle, "is that man mad? He won't play at cards on a Sunday; he goes to church on a Sunday: he has fourteen children!"Was ever Frenchman known to do likewise? Pass we on to our argument, which is, that with our English notions and moral and physical constitution, it is quite impossible that we should become intimate with our brisk neighbors; and when such authors as Lady Morgan and Mrs.Trollope, having frequented a certain number of tea-parties in the French capital, begin to prattle about French manners and men,--with all respect for the talents of those ladies, we do believe their information not to be worth a sixpence; they speak to us not of men but of tea-parties.Tea-parties are the same all the world over; with the exception that, with the French, there are more lights and prettier dresses; and with us, a mighty deal more tea in the pot.

There is, however, a cheap and delightful way of travelling, that a man may perform in his easy-chair, without expense of passports or post-boys.On the wings of a novel, from the next circulating library, he sends his imagination a-gadding, and gains acquaintance with people and manners whom he could not hope otherwise to know.

Twopence a volume bears us whithersoever we will;--back to Ivanhoe and Coeur de Lion, or to Waverley and the Young Pretender, along with Walter Scott; up the heights of fashion with the charming enchanters of the silver-fork school; or, better still, to the snug inn-parlor, or the jovial tap-room, with Mr.Pickwick and his faithful Sancho Weller.I am sure that a man who, a hundred years hence should sit down to write the history of our time, would do wrong to put that great contemporary history of "Pickwick" aside as a frivolous work.It contains true character under false names;and, like "Roderick Random," an inferior work, and "Tom Jones" (one that is immeasurably superior), gives us a better idea of the state and ways of the people than one could gather from any more pompous or authentic histories.

We have, therefore, introduced into these volumes one or two short reviews of French fiction writers, of particular classes, whose Paris sketches may give the reader some notion of manners in that capital.If not original, at least the drawings are accurate; for, as a Frenchman might have lived a thousand years in England, and never could have written "Pickwick," an Englishman cannot hope to give a good description of the inward thoughts and ways of his neighbors.

To a person inclined to study these, in that light and amusing fashion in which the novelist treats them, let us recommend the works of a new writer, Monsieur de Bernard, who has painted actual manners, without those monstrous and terrible exaggerations in which late French writers have indulged; and who, if he occasionally wounds the English sense of propriety (as what French man or woman alive will not?) does so more by slighting than by outraging it, as, with their labored descriptions of all sorts of imaginable wickedness, some of his brethren of the press have done.

M.de Bernard's characters are men and women of genteel society--rascals enough, but living in no state of convulsive crimes; and we follow him in his lively, malicious account of their manners, without risk of lighting upon any such horrors as Balzac or Dumas has provided for us.

Let us give an instance:--it is from the amusing novel called "Les Ailes d'Icare," and contains what is to us quite a new picture of a French fashionable rogue.The fashions will change in a few years, and the rogue, of course, with them.Let us catch this delightful fellow ere he flies.It is impossible to sketch the character in a more sparkling, gentlemanlike way than M.de Bernard's; but such light things are very difficult of translation, and the sparkle sadly evaporates during the process of DECANTING.

A FRENCH FASHIONABLE LETTER.

同类推荐
  • 昌言

    昌言

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 肇论新疏

    肇论新疏

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 送王建秘书往渭南庄

    送王建秘书往渭南庄

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 出生菩提心经

    出生菩提心经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 瑜伽师地开释分门记五识身相应地等前十二地同卷

    瑜伽师地开释分门记五识身相应地等前十二地同卷

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 末日突袭丫

    末日突袭丫

    末日突袭,过半的人类一夜之间沦为没有灵魂的行尸走肉……恐怖袭击?病毒扩散?天外来客?没有人知道答案……也许只是因为灵气复苏呢?其它位面逃逸出来的本源灵气辐射地球,‘天选之子’的幸运儿无法承受本源之力的庞大能量纷纷化为丧尸……人类数千年的文明秩序被彻底打碎,为了生存,大战一触即发……我们的故事从一个跑龙套的演员说起……他会不会带领那些幸存下来的人类对抗丧尸,重建人类秩序?不会?全书完!!会,故事才慢慢开始……让我们跟着猪脚开启一场奇幻之旅!!
  • 徐志摩作品集(一)(中国现代文学名家作品集)

    徐志摩作品集(一)(中国现代文学名家作品集)

    《中国现代文学名家作品集——徐志摩作品集(一)》本书分为志摩的诗、翡冷翠的一夜、猛虎集等部分。
  • 天启之门

    天启之门

    【NPC反击玩家!吊打穿越者!】我的世界我做主!哪里轮到你们这些魂淡来作威作福?!走上【史上最强救世主】的道路,注定充满了刺激!……陈小练:从今天开始,一个宗旨为抵抗那些魂淡的抵抗组织成立了!我们的团队名就叫……逗逼联盟!队员:队长,这名字,我怕说出去会被人打啊…………
  • 20几岁每天学点经济学

    20几岁每天学点经济学

    本书从生活中司空见惯的现象入手,以深入浅出的方式向20几岁的年轻人介绍一些最基本、生活中最常用的经济学原理,从而让年轻人在轻松的阅读中探究生活中常见现象背后隐藏的经济规律,学会像经济学家一样思考,理性地处理自己的日常行为,理性地规划好自己的人生。
  • 中国文化博览4

    中国文化博览4

    《中国文化博览4》主要章节分为“文学”、“艺术”、“思想家”。
  • 我到远古来修仙

    我到远古来修仙

    请问一下,在座的各位有没有体会过什么叫做被雷一劈回到解放前的感觉?而且...还是被劈到了远古!看着一只只剑齿虎从她身边走过,她表示她一堂堂的现代修仙界天才,还能怕了不成?佛挡杀佛,神挡杀神!不管是豺狼虎豹还是阴谋诡计,在她面前都是纸老虎!!(本文纯属虚构背景,非真实远古时期现状)
  • 重生之乖乖妻

    重生之乖乖妻

    不谙世事的少女,被他老婆撞的没了命,成为了他老婆体内的一缕魂。--情节虚构,请勿模仿
  • 飘香剑雨(吴优、任言恺主演)

    飘香剑雨(吴优、任言恺主演)

    吴优、任言恺主演的青春武侠大剧2月8日爱奇艺播出。江湖云诡波谲,飘香风波又起。《飘香剑雨》,是古龙“江湖名篇”系列之一。当正义威胁到了生存,一个人该如何抉择?本书中古龙对此问题进行了深刻的思考。名满江湖的铁戟温侯吕南人因妻子背叛自己、改嫁武林恶势力“天争教”教主萧无,打算从此隐姓埋名,躲避仇家。然而他与生俱来的正义之心却让他结识了一帮武林正道好友,更练就了一身非凡的武功。正当他准备踏上为武林除害的复仇之路时,却突然得知前妻曾为自己产下一子,当天就被人掠走……等待着这对父子的会是怎样的命运呢?吕氏父子让我们知道,为了正义而不惜牺牲一切者,谓之侠!
  • Signals for Strategists

    Signals for Strategists

    This book is for strategists—leaders, managers, entrepreneurs—who are so caught up in the daily pressures of business that they're missing key signals of their future reality. It's like driving a car heads down, staring at the dashboard, rather than heads up, looking through the windshield. We need to do both. The book is devoted to the practice of sensing, or scanning the horizon for signs of emerging trends. The sooner we see them, the better our response.Each chapter starts with a set of signals—data we observed that, taken together, helped us to reveal a trend. The impact of new technology on strategy is a theme of the book, and each chapter looks at how organizations are using new technologies to their advantage.
  • 泊宅编

    泊宅编

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。