Bourgeois_. In the second place, this length is not obtained--as
length with him is too often obtained--by digressions, by long
retrospective narrations, or even by the insertion of such "padding"
as the collection business in _Le Cousin Pons_. The whole stuff and
substance of _La Cousine Bette_ is honestly woven novel-stuff, of one
piece and one tenor and texture, with for constant subject the
subterranean malignity of the heroine, the erotomania of Hulot and
Crevel, the sufferings of Adeline, and the _pieuvre_ operations of
Marneffe and his wife,--all of which fit in and work together with
each other as exactly as the cogs and gear of a harmonious piece of
machinery do. Even such much simpler and shorter books as _Le Pere
Goriot_ by no means possess this seamless unity of construction, this
even march, shoulder to shoulder, of all the personages of the story.

In the second place, this story itself strikes hold on the reader with
a force not less irresistible than that of the older and simpler
stories just referred to. As compared even with its companion, this
force of grasp is remarkable. It is not absolutely criminal or
contemptible to feel that _Le Cousin Pons_ sometimes languishes and
loses itself; this can never be said of the history of the evil
destiny partly personified in Elizabeth Fischer, which hovers over the
house of Hulot.

Some, I believe, have felt inclined to question the propriety of the
title of the book, and to assign the true heroineship to Valerie
Marneffe, whom also the same and other persons are fond of comparing
with her contemporary Becky Sharp, not to the advantage of the latter.
This is no place for a detailed examination of the comparison, as to
which I shall only say that I do not think Thackeray has anything to
fear from it. Valerie herself is, beyond all doubt, a powerful study