Essays on French Novelists Author:George Saintsbury General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1891 Original Publisher: Percival and Co. Subjects: French fiction Literary Criticism / European / French Poetry / Continental European Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you b... more »uy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: Ill ALAIN RENE" LESAGE A Critic of whom I desire to speak with all respect -- the late Rector of Lincoln -- said that "mere style cannot confer immortality upon any book apart from its contents." The context from which this remark is taken deals with the Provinciates and Penstes of Pascal, concerning which Mr. Pattison thought that the former are but an ephemeral pamphlet, the latter are for all time. So startling a judgment makes the reader a little inclined to dogmatise hyperbolically in his turn, and to say that there is nothing perennial but style. This, indeed, would be merely running from one extreme to another; nevertheless, there is more truth in it than in the other exaggeration. For the attitude of men's minds changes singularly, from one time to another, with regard to mere " contents "; it changes very little with regard to the expression of those contents. This is, perhaps, nowhere seen more clearly than in the case ofvery voluminous authors whose works are preserved in unequal remembrance. When suc cases are examined, it will generally be found that the reason for the preference which posterity has expressed has been almost entirely due to literary merit. Between the merit of the contents of Defoe's different novels there is not very much to choose ; yet no one who speaks with competence will question that the literary art of Robinson Crusoe is, on the whole, far superior to that of Moll Flanders and Colonel Jack. So, in the not wholly dissimilar case of o...« less