In fiction, on the other hand, the world of fashion is
"played out." Nobody cares to read or write about the dear duchess.
If a peer comes into a novel he comes in, not as a coroneted
curiosity, but as a man, just as if he were a dentist, or a
stockbroker. His rank is an accident; it used to be the essence of
his luminous apparition. I scarce remember a lord in all the many
works of Mr. Besant, nor do they people the romances of Mr. Black.
Mr. Kipling does not deal in them, nor Mr. George Meredith much; Mr.
Haggard hardly gets beyond a baronet, and HE wears chain mail in
Central Africa, and tools with an axe. Mrs. Oliphant has a Scotch
peer, but he is less interesting and prominent than his family
ghost. No, we have only Ouida left, and Mr. Norris--who writes
about people of fashion, indeed, but who has nothing in him of the
old fashionable novelist.
Is it to a Republic, to France, that we must look for our
fashionable novels--to France and to America. Every third person in
M. Guy de Maupassant's tales has a "de," and is a Marquis or a
Vicomte. As for M. Paul Bourget, one really can be happy with him
in the fearless old fashion. With him we meet Lord Henry Bohun, and
M. De Casal (a Vicomte), and all the Marquises and Marquises; and
all the pale blue boudoirs, and sentimental Duchesses, whose hearts
are only too good, and who get into the most complicated amorous
scrapes.
Pages:
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124