were not pleasant improvisations nor witty digressions: they were serious, weighty, ill suited for the public. His ability to mount from the little fact to the great idea, from the fleeting moment to the most remote past or the most fantastic future, from the individual to the universal, from the materialism of appearances to the purity of a transcending idea, shines brilliantly throughout this work. It would seem that in these last years of weariness he sought to accomplish his most heroic feats. In comparison with him Rastignac is but flat champagne, Scarfoglio a parlor volcano, Bergeret a gossip of the tea-table.
But his style could not win popularity. A roughness of manner, a solemn austerity, a passionate eloquence gave sacredness and majesty to every theme he handled. Like the mythical king who turned whatever he touched to gold, so Oriani gave the air of greatness to all subjects, even the most trivial. He was not a man of laughter. Everything was serious to him—love and history, woman and frailty. When his indignation was aroused he could attack a man or an idea with a persistent fusillade of scornful invectives, but he never attained the ridicule that can slay as surely as an insult. His spirit was inherently tragic. He lacked the ability to laugh and to make others laugh; his irony was too
