These unusual and somewhat sensational characters give high
color, warmth, and variety to the romance. The two exquisite Creole women,
Aurora and her daughter, Clotilde, are a triumph of delicate
characterization, being at one and the same time winning, lovable,
illogical, innocent, capable, and noble. The love scene in which Aurora
says "no," while she means "yes," and is not taken at her word, is as
delicious a bit of humor and sentiment as there is in modern fiction. In
neither _Dr. Sevier_ nor _Bonaventure_ are there the buoyancy, vital
interest, and unity of impression of _The Grandissimes_, which is one of
the artistic products of American novelists. Cable may not have rendered
the Creole character exactly true to life; but he has in a measure done for
these high-spirited, emotional, brave people what Irving did for the
Knickerbockers of New York and what Hawthorne did for the Puritan.
Cable has also given graphic pictures of New Orleans. His poetic powers of
description enabled him to make the picturesque streets, the quaint
interiors, the swamps, bayous, forests, and streams very vivid realities to
his readers. He has warmth of feeling and a most refined and subtle humor.
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