ABSTRACT
Irony itself becomes something to be approached only in an ironical spirit. But the pervasive irony of a Stendhal is much less a matter of the figure of speech than of the temper, outlook, and attitude of the speaker. Consider only the use he made of Sophia's poodle in The Old Wives' Tale. The reader is tense with the effort of imagining the meeting of the sisters after their long parting. Mr George Moore, on the other hand, in those far off days when he was a disciple of Zola, was almost ostentatiously non-ironical. So Esther Waters became the noblest tract after Pilgrim's Progress, as well as the most English of all novels. Even when alone with Jesus, who is guiding him through the hills in secret to Caesarea, Paul half deludes himself with the idea that the other is some poor madman or else an evil spirit.
