It is particularly difficult, in such a book as this, to deal with so large a collection of what may be most appropriately called "Scenes and Characters" as that which constitutes his most valuable if not all his valuable work. In the older handling referred to, I selected, for pretty full abstract and some translation, _Un Homme Serieux_ among longer books, and _Le Gendre_ among the short stories; and I still think them the best, except _Le Pied d'Argile_, which, from Thackeray's incomparable adaptation[273] of it in _The Bedford Row Conspiracy_, remains as a standing possibility of acquaintance with Charles de Bernard's way for those who do not read French, or do not care to "research" for the original. Thackeray also gave a good deal of _Les Ailes d'Icare_ in abstract and translation, and he borrowed something more from it in _A Shabby Genteel Story_. _La Peau du Lion_ and _La Chasse aux Amants_ have some slight resemblance to _Le Gendre_, in that the gist of all three is concerned with the defeat of unscrupulous lovers, and neither is much inferior to it. I never knew anybody who had read _La Femme de Quarante Ans_ and its history of sentimental star-gazing _a deux_ without huge enjoyment; and _L'Arbre de la Science_, as well as the shorter _Un Acte de Vertu_, deserve special mention. But, in fact, take the volumes entitled _L'Ecueil_, _Le Noeud Gordien_, _Le Paravent,_ and _Le Paratonnerre_; open any of them where you like, and it will go hard but, in the comic stories at any rate, you will find yourself well off. The finest of the tragic ones is, I think, _L'Anneau d'Argent_, which in utilising the sad inefficacy of the Legitimist endeavours to upset the July Monarchy, comes close to the already-mentioned things of Sandeau and Ourliac.