The peculiarity of this novel, in a still more striking way than in "Madame Bovary," is that it has no hero, and is quite as devoid of claims to a heroine. In the antiquated epithet "hero" lies the entire traditional usage of old-fashioned poesy. For centuries authors had paraded a hero before the public; he was characterized by his manly strength and beauty, was grand in his virtues or his vices, and was in every respect an example to be imitated or shunned. There had at length arisen a poet who was willing to deal with a young man of the average type, and who, without expressing either disapproval or regret, showed how completely null and void was the life of such a young man, and how disappointments were showered upon him. These were neither great nor unusual disappointments; to be sure, there was nothing great or unusual in the young man's experiences,--no, they were all those petty disappointments that go to make up the sum of existence. A long chain of petty disappointments, intermingled with a few great ones, is to Flaubert the definition of human life. The charm of the book, however, does not rest chiefly on the prevailing sentiment of its pages. Its main charm to me is the graceful, chaste manner in which the pen is wielded in passages descriptive of Frédéric's great love. This profound comprehension of the young man's dreamy devotion denotes personal experience. Nowhere has Flaubert written more directly from the depths of his own soul and gained less from the five or six artificial souls which he, in common with every critically disposed and critically endowed nature, had the power to give himself. Frédéric loves without any ulterior thought, without hope of reciprocal affection, with a feeling that is akin to gratitude, with a positive need of utter self-renunciation and complete self-sacrifice for the sake of the object of his devotion, which is all the stronger because it finds no requital. As the years pass, however, a feeling of a similar nature develops in the breast of the woman whom he loves. It is a settled thing between them that they can never belong to each other; but their tastes, their judgment, is in harmony. "Often one of them, listening to words of the other, would exclaim: 'I too!' and very soon the other in turn would also cry: 'I too!' And they dream that if Providence had so willed, their lives would have been filled with love alone, 'something as sweet, as glittering, and as sublime as the twinkling of the stars.'