Glancing through it just now I came across this:--
"_'Kate, avez-vous soupe avant le spectacle?'
'Non, je n'avais guere le coeur a manger.'_"
Well, that's easy enough. But I doubt if it is one of the most
characteristic passages. It doesn't give you a clue to LAFORGUE'S
manner, any more than "'Must I sit here, mother?' 'Yes, without a
doubt you must,'" tells you all that you want to know about MEREDITH.
There's more in it than that.
And I've got to tell him.
But fancy holding forth on an author's style after reading him
laboriously with a dictionary!
However, I must do my best; and in my more hopeful moments I see the
conversation going like this:--
"Well?"
"Oh, wonderful." _(With emotion)_ "Really wonderful."
"You see them all there?"
"Yes, yes. It's really--wonderful. MEREDITH--I mean--well, it's
simply--(_after a pause_) wonderful."
"You see MEREDITH there most?"
"Y--yes. Sometimes. And then sometimes I--I don't" (_with truth_).
"It's difficult to say. Sometimes I--er--SHAW--er--well, it's ----"
(_with a gesture somewhat Gallic_) "How can I put it?"
"Not THACKERAY at all?" he says, watching me eagerly.
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