A critical reader of _Corinne_ must remember all this, and he must remember something else, though the reminder has been thought to savour of brutality. It is perfectly clear to me, and always has been so from reading (in and between the lines) of her own works, of Lady Blennerhassett's monumental book on her, of M. Sorel's excellent monograph, and of scores of longer and shorter studies on and references to her English and German and Swiss and French--from her own time downwards, that the central secret, mainspring, or whatever any one may choose to call it, of Madame de Stael's life was a frantic desire for the physical beauty which she did not possess,[13] and a persistent attempt, occasionally successful, to delude herself into believing that she had achieved a sufficient substitute by literary, philosophical, political, and other exertion. [Sidenote: Its improved conditions.] This partly pathetic, partly, alas! ridiculous, but on the whole (with a little charity) quite commiserable endeavour, attained some success, though probably with not a little extraneous help, in _De l'Allemagne_, and the posthumous _Considerations_ on the Revolution; but these books do not concern us, and illustrate only part of the writer's character, temperament, and talent, if not genius. _Corinne_ gives us the rest, and nearly, if not quite, the whole. The author had no doubt tried to do this in _Delphine_, but had then had neither art nor equipment for the task, and she had failed utterly. She was now well, if not perfectly, equipped, and had learnt not a little of the art to use her acquisitions. _Delphine_ had been dull, absurd, preposterous; _Corinne_, if it has dull patches, saves them from being intolerable. If its sentiment is extravagant, it is never exactly preposterous or exactly absurd; for the truth and reality of passion which are absent from the other book are actually present here, though sometimes in unintentional masquerade.