There have, however, been a few dissenters: and I venture to join myself to them in the very dissidence of their dissent.

Lovelace, it is true, is a most astonishingly "succeeded" blend of a snob's fine gentleman and of the fine gentleman of a silly and rather unhealthy-minded schoolgirl.

He is--it is difficult to resist the temptation of dropping and inserting the h's--handsome, haughty, arbitrary, as well as rich, generous after a fashion, well descended, well dressed, well mannered--except when he is insolent.

He is also--which certainly stands to his credit in the bank which is not that of the snob or the schoolgirl--no fool in a general way.

But he is not in the least a gentleman except in externals: and there is nothing really "great" about him at all.