It may be that this young lady, now grown old, who nursed the man of seventy and eighty with a mixture of motherly love and hero-worship, who served and cheered him and now carefully guards herself from appearing as the editor of his works, although the entire literary world of Paris recognises her as such--it may be that in this she has preserved the same course of exclusiveness which was the peculiar characteristic of her author during his life-time. Perhaps she does not wish that the common herd should read him? Perhaps she has chosen the nonpareil type for the purpose of raising a protecting barrier between him and the reading public? It may be her wish to admit only the strong souls and genuine readers who can stand the test of small print, and who have no objection to spoiling their eyes; readers of the kind who never swallow any book, who only care to digest a couple of pages a day. There are not more than two hundred such readers in Europe and about as many in Boston and New York. But these two hundred will love her author and carry his memory with them to the grave. When Barbey D’Aurevilly died a few years ago in a small room in one of the quiet side streets off the Bon Marché, little more was known of him either in the history of literature or in his public life than that he used to dress in a very eccentric and remarkable manner in his younger days, and that both in his conversation and in his writings he displayed an obsolete and antiquated form of Catholicism. It was not likely that a man such as he would be considered a great author; Hugo and Gautier, Dumas fils and Zola were very different people. They occupied themselves with “modern problems,” they were liberal and radical, pessimists and writers who described the habits and customs of the day. None of them were reactionary, least of all orthodox Catholics. And latterly, when the Church has regained her influence, and devotion has increased to so great an extent that even the profoundly sceptical Bourget finds it convenient to become more and more Catholic in every new book that he writes,--even this did not make any appreciable difference to Barbey. He is too strong, too liberal, too radical and too terribly realistic to be welcomed by modern piety. In these days of exploding bombs, the anxious souls who take refuge under the dreamy arches of the Church do not want to be still more terrified by the reading of books. Times may change as they like, but Barbey D’Aurevilly never was in harmony with the spirit of the age, he is not in harmony with it now, and in the form that his friend has published his books, there is ample prospect of his continuing to remain out of harmony with it. A man who has such a difficult and doubtful prospect of fame must be already a great author--or nothing at all.