But of the smaller tales which usually accompany her, who shall exaggerate the praise? _Mateo Falcone_, that modern Roman father (by the way, there is said to be more Roman blood in Corsica than in any part of the mainland of Italy, and the portrait above mentioned is almost pure Faustina), is another of those things which are _a prendre ou a laisser_. It could not, again, be better done; and if any one will compare it with the somewhat similar anecdote of lynch-law in Balzac's _Les Chouans_, he ought to recognise the fact--good as that also is. _Les Ames du Purgatoire_ is also "first choice." Of what may be called the satellites of the great _Don Juan_ story--satellites with a nebula instead of a planet for their centre--it is quite the greatest. But of this group _La Venus d'Ille_ is my favourite, perhaps for a rather illegitimate reason. That reason is the possibility of comparing it with Mr. Morris's _Ring given to Venus_--a handling of the same subject in poetry instead of in prose, with a happy ending instead of an unhappy one, and pure Romantic in every respect instead of, as _La Venus d'Ille_ is, late classical, with a strong Romantic _nisus_.[224] For, though it might be improper here to argue out the matter, these last words can be fitted to Merimee's _ethos_ from the days of "Clara Gazul" and "Hyacinthe Maglanovich" to those when he wrote _Lokis_ and _La Chambre Bleue_. A deserter from Romanticism he was never; a Romantic free-lance (after being an actual Romantic pioneer) with a strong Classical element in him he was always. [Sidenote: Those of _Carmen_; _Arsene Guillot_.]