A skin of Lacrymae Christi that has turned sour. At times the good Viscount drops molasses into the skin to take away the taste of vinegar; at other times, he drops in more vinegar to take away the sweet taste of the molasses. He is both moth-eaten and sublime. _Victor Hugo_ Victor Hugo, the most talented of rhetoricians! Victor Hugo, the most exquisite of vulgarians! Victor Hugo--mere common sense dressed up as art. _Stendhal_ The inventor of a psychological automaton moved by clock work. _Balzac_ A nightmare, a dream produced by indigestion, a chill, rare acuteness, equal obtuseness, a delirium of splendours, cheap hardware, of pretence and bad taste. Because of his ugliness, because of his genius, because of his immorality, the Danton of printers' ink. _Poe_ A mysterious sphinx who makes one tremble with lynx-like eyes, the goldsmith of magical wonders. _Dickens_ At once a mystic and a sad clown. The Saint Vincent de Paul of the loosened string, the Saint Francis of Assisi of the London Streets. Everything is gesticulation, and the gesticulations are ambiguous. When we think he is going to weep, he laughs; when we think he is going to laugh, he cries. A remarkable genius who does everything he can to make himself appear puny, yet who is, beyond doubt, very great. _Larra_ [Footnote: A Spanish poet and satirist (1809-37), famous under the pseudonym of Figaro. He committed suicide. The poet Zorrilla first came into prominence through some verses read at his tomb.] A small, trained tiger shut up in a tiny cage. He has all the tricks of a cat; he mews like one, he lets you stroke his back, and there are times when his fiercer instincts show in his eyes. Then you realize that he is thinking: "How I should love to eat you up!" THE NATURALISTS _Flaubert_ Flaubert is a heavy-footed animal. It is plain that he is a Norman. All his work has great specific gravity. He disgusts me. One of Flaubert's master strokes was the conception of the character of Homais, the apothecary, in _Madame Bovary_. I cannot see, however, that Homais is any more stupid than Flaubert himself, and he may even be less so. _The Giants_ The good Zola, vigorous, dull and perspiring, dubbed his contemporaries, the French naturalistic novelists, "Giants." What an imagination was possessed by Zola! These "Giants" were none other than the Goncourts, whose insignificance approached at times imbecility, and in addition, Alphonse Daudet, with the air of a cheap comedian and an armful of mediocre books--a truly French diet, feeble, but well seasoned. These poor Giants, of whom Zola would talk, have become so weak and shrunken with time, that nobody is able any longer to make them out, even as dwarfs. THE SPANISH REALISTS