in ink, can give us these. Indeed, no! So long as we see the author's
proper person in his work, we do not see the flower of him. Let him
retreat himself, if he pretend to be an artist. There is no less of
subtle skill, no less impersonality, in the "Bergeret" volumes than in
"Le Lys Rouge." No less labour and mental torturing went to their
making, page by page, in order that they might exhale their perfume of
mysterious finality, their withdrawn but implicit judgment. Flower of
author is not quite so common as the buttercup, the Californian poppy, or
the gay Texan gaillardia, and for that very reason the finality it gives
off will never be robust enough for a mankind at large that would have
things cut and dried, and labelled in thick letters. For, consider--to
take one phase alone of this demand for factual finality--how continual
and insistent is the cry for characters that can be worshipped; how
intense and persistent the desire to be told that Charles was a real
hero; and how bitter the regret that Mary was no better than she should
be! Mankind at large wants heroes that are heroes, and heroines that are
heroines--and nothing so inappropriate to them as unhappy endings.

Travelling away, I remember, from that Grand Canyon of Arizona were a
young man and a young woman, evidently in love. He was sitting very
close to her, and reading aloud for her pleasure, from a paper-covered
novel, heroically oblivious of us all:

"'Sir Robert,' she murmured, lifting her beauteous eyes, 'I may not tempt
you, for you are too dear to me!' Sir Robert held her lovely face between
his two strong hands. 'Farewell!' he said, and went out into the night.
But something told them both that, when he had fulfilled his duty, Sir
Robert would return . . . ." He had not returned before we reached
the Junction, but there was finality about that baronet, and we well knew
that he ultimately would. And, long after the sound of that young man's