Some readers may know (for I, and the others, which I shall probably quote again, have quoted it before now) a remark of Emile de Girardin when Theophile Gautier asked him how people liked a story which "Theo" had prevailed on that experienced editor to insert as a _feuilleton_ in the _Presse_: "Mon ami, l'abonne ne s'amuse pas _franchement_. Il est gene par le style." Girardin, though not exactly a genius, was an exceedingly clever man, and knew the foot of his public--perhaps of "_the_ public"--to a hundredth of an inch. But he could hardly have anticipated the extent to which his criticism would reflect the attitude of persons who would have been, and would be, not a little offended at being classed with _l'abonne_. The reproach of "over-styling" has been cast at Gautier by critics of the most different types, and--more curiously at first sight than after a moment's reflection--by some who are themselves style-mad, but whose favourite vanities in that matter are different from his. I can hardly think of any writer--Herrick as treated by Hazlitt is the chief exception that occurs to me at the moment--against whom this cheap and obvious, though, alas! not very frequently possible, charge of "bright far-shining emptiness," of glittering frigidity, of colour without flesh and blood, of art without matter, etc., etc., has been cast so violently--or so unjustly. In literature, as in law and war, the favourite method of offensive defence is to reserve your _triarii_, your "colophon" of arms or arguement, to the last; but there are cases in all three where it is best to carry an important point at once and hold it. I think that this is one of these cases; and I do not think that the operation can be conducted with better chance of success than by inserting here that outline,[198] with specimens, of _La Morte Amoureuse_ which has been already promised--or threatened--in the Preface. For here the glamour--if it be only glamour--of the style will have disappeared; the matter will remain. [Sidenote: Abstract (with translations) of _La Morte Amoureuse_.]