Note 389 — Chapter XI

He might have said—to make a Thackerayan translation of what was actually said later of an offering of roses rashly made to some French men of letters at their hotel in London: "Who the devil is this? Let them flank him his vegetables to the gate!" But what he did say, I believe, though he did not know or mention my name, was that "a blonde son of Albion" had ventured something gigantesque on him. And gigantesque had, if I do not again fondly err, sometimes if not always its "milder shade" of meaning in Flaubert's energetic mouth.