The Argosy — page 338: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

318 Our Log-Book. Mee Aecosy. essentially differ very little from each other—led him, by thc very neces- sity he was under of interesting his readers, to seek revea/tn; differences of personality through putting into the mouths of his characters remarks which were utterly untrue to them as beng expressed by them. Becky Sharp is made to say herself what no Becky in real life would herself have said; and hence the assertion we often hear, that Becky Sharp is an impossibly wicked character. She is no more impossible than Colonel Newcome is as a good character, though both are doubtful and unreal, through being made mere mediums of confession, and all on one side. But Mr. Ross iis faithful to his characters in reserving much on their behalf, and making the story, as a whole, reveal a very great deal about all the types he brings before us. Here, as in life, men are mirrors through which they read each other. This reserve, sometimes amounting almost to a commonplace coldness, in some of Mr. Ross’s most exquisite turns of dialogue, has reminded us a little of Houssaye. We do not mean by this that there is anything borrowed or suggested. Mr. Ross may not even have read the bnilliant nouvelettes of that author. But there is now and then the same seemingly unimportant, yet clear and sharply-curved lines of conversation, supporting and carrying over a pe- culiar current of impassioned suggestion, deepening sometimes, through very simplicity, into tragic fulness ; while yet the dialogue itself seems to stand out, distinct and clear, from the element which, unexpressed, gives to it its whole value. Even when you are most moved to laughter by the abrupt irrelevancies, the awkwardnesses or puzzled constraints of the cha- racters—as of poor Polyblank in his first meeting with the Baroness, and, indeed, :n most of his contact with her—you are caught m the very midst of that laughter by a peculiar pathos that throbs through it upon you with inexpressible effect. That conversation between the Baroness and Mr. Raynal about the cigar-case, within hearing of poor Polyblank, is perhaps the best specimen of this in the book. The ground-work of the story, as we have said, is simple, yet it has excellent elements, naturally wrought out. An old miserly baron gets enamoured of Floreska, a young actress, and by enlisting the aid of a greedy, interested mother, succeeds in marrying her. He dies soon thereafter, leaving her with an income of 3,000/. a year. Living in the grand chateau on her estate, she is inexpressibly lonely, and 1s fain to find relief in obeying the promptings of her heart by visiting the poor and sick near her—her companion, Dubosgq, being a fine offset. One day she meets with poor Polyblank, the simple awkward usher in the Imperial Academy, trespassing on her grounds. Notwithstanding the ludicrousness of his position, her heart is touched, and she resolves to befriend him; but the pride which moves like a fresh spring beneath the ice of his shy awkwardness, makes this difficult. Polyblank, how- ever, has found an apartment in the house of M. Pomponney, the fussy, cowardly, self-important chemist (a genuine specimen of the French shop- COMIC OOOKS. EO