The enormous admiration which it exacted at the time of its
appearance may seem somewhat strange in this year of grace; but then
it must be remembered that Italy was not the over-written country it
has since become. Besides this, Madame de Stael was the most
conspicuous personage of her day. Except Chateaubriand, she had
nobody to dispute with her the palm of literary glory in France. Her
exile, her literary circle, her courageous opinions, had kept the eyes
of Europe fixed on her for years, so that any work from her pen was
sure to excite the liveliest curiosity.

Corinne is a kind of glorified guide-book, with some of the qualities
of a good novel. It is very long winded, but the appetite of the age
was robust in that respect, and the highly-strung emotions of the hero
and heroine could not shock a taste which had been formed by the
Sorrows of Werther. It is extremely moral, deeply sentimental, and of
a deadly earnestness--three characteristics which could not fail to
recommend it to a dreary and ponderous generation, the most deficient
in taste that ever trod the earth.

But it is artistic in the sense that the interest is concentrated from
first to last on the central figure, and the drama, such as it is,
unfolds itself naturally from its starting point, which is the
contrast between the characters of Oswald and Corinne.

The 'dreary and ponderous generation, the most deficient in taste that
ever trod the earth,' seems to me a somewhat exaggerated mode of
expression, but 'glorified guide-book' is a not unfelicitous description
of the novel that once thrilled Europe. Miss Duffy sums up her opinion
of Madame de Stael as a writer in the following passage:

Her mind was strong of grasp and wide in range, but continuous effort
fatigued it. She could strike out isolated sentences alternately
brilliant, exhaustive, and profound, but she could not link them to
other sentences so as to form an organic whole. Her thought was
definite singly, but vague as a whole. She always saw things
separately, and tried to combine them arbitrarily, and it is generally
difficult to follow out any idea of hers from its origin to its end.
Her thoughts are like pearls of price profusely scattered, or
carelessly strung together, but not set in any design. On closing one
of her books, the reader is left with no continuous impression. He
has been dazzled and delighted, enlightened also by flashes; but the
horizons disclosed have vanished again, and the outlook is enriched by
no new vistas.

Then she was deficient in the higher qualities of the imagination. She
could analyse, but not characterise; construct, but not create. She
could take one defect like selfishness, or one passion like love, and
display its workings; or she could describe a whole character, like
Napoleon's, with marvellous penetration; but she could not make her
personages talk, or act like human beings. She lacked pathos, and had
no sense of humour. In short, hers was a mind endowed with enormous
powers of comprehension, and an amazing richness of ideas, but
deficient in perception of beauty, in poetry, and in true originality.