of appreciation which is generally wanting in most of us who are

guided mainly by empty phrases requiring no effort, demanding from
us no qualities except a vague susceptibility to emotion. Nobody

has ever gained the vast applause of a crowd by the simple and
clear exposition of vital facts. Words alone strung upon a

convention have fascinated us as worthless glass beads strung on a
thread have charmed at all times our brothers the unsophisticated

savages of the islands. Now, Maupassant, of whom it has been said
that he is the master of the MOT JUSTE, has never been a dealer in

words. His wares have been, not glass beads, but polished gems;
not the most rare and precious, perhaps, but of the very first

water of their kind.
That he took trouble with his gems, taking them up in the rough and

polishing each facet patiently, the publication of the two
posthumous volumes of short stories proves abundantly. I think it

proves also the assertion made here that he was by no means a
dealer in words. On looking at the first feeble drafts from which

so many perfect stories have been fashioned, one discovers that
what has been matured, improved, brought to perfection by unwearied

endeavour is not the diction of the tale, but the vision of its
true shape and detail. Those first attempts are not faltering or

uncertain in expression. It is the conception which is at fault.
The subjects have not yet been adequately seen. His proceeding was

not to group expressive words, that mean nothing, around misty and
mysterious shapes dear to muddled intellects and belonging neither

to earth nor to heaven. His vision by a more scrupulous, prolonged
and devoted attention to the aspects of the visible world

discovered at last the right words as if miraculously impressed for
him upon the face of things and events. This was the particular

shape taken by his inspiration; it came to him directly, honestly
in the light of his day, not on the tortuous, dark roads of

meditation. His realities came to him from a genuine source, from
this universe of vain appearances wherein we men have found

everything to make us proud, sorry, exalted, and humble.
Maupassant's renown is universal, but his popularity is restricted.

It is not difficult to perceive why. Maupassant is an intensely
national writer. He is so intensely national in his logic, in his

clearness, in his aesthetic and moral conceptions, that he has been
accepted by his countrymen without having had to pay the tribute of

flattery either to the nation as a whole, or to any class, sphere
or division of the nation. The truth of his art tells with an

irresistible force; and he stands excused from the duty of
patriotic posturing. He is a Frenchman of Frenchmen beyond

question or cavil, and with that he is simple enough to be
universally comprehensible. What is wanting to his universal

success is the mediocrity of an obvious and appealing tenderness.
He neglects to qualify his truth with the drop of facile sweetness;

he forgets to strew paper roses over the tombs. The disregard of
these common decencies lays him open to the charges of cruelty,

cynicism, hardness. And yet it can be safely affirmed that this
man wrote from the fulness of a compassionate" target="_blank" title="a.有同情心的 vt.同情">compassionate heart. He is

merciless and yet gentle with his mankind; he does not rail at
their prudent fears and their small artifices; he does not despise

their labours. It seems to me that he looks with an eye of
profound pity upon their troubles, deceptions and misery. But he

looks at them all. He sees--and does not turn away his head. As a
matter of fact he is courageous.

Courage and justice are not popular virtues. The practice of
strict justice is shocking to the multitude who always (perhaps

from an obscure sense of guilt) attach to it the meaning of mercy.
In the majority of us, who want to be left alone with our

illusions, courage inspires a vague alarm. This is what is felt
about Maupassant. His qualities, to use the charming and popular

phrase, are not lovable. Courage being a force will not masquerade
in the robes of affecteddelicacy and restraint. But if his

courage is not of a chivalrous stamp, it cannot be denied that it
is never brutal for the sake of effect. The writer of these few

reflections, inspired by a long and intimateacquaintance with the
work of the man, has been struck by the appreciation of Maupassant

manifested by many women gifted with tenderness and intelligence.
Their more delicate and audacious souls are good judges of courage.

Their finer penetration has discovered his genuine masculinity
without display, his virility without a pose. They have discerned

in his faithful dealings with the world that enterprising and
fearlesstemperament, poor in ideas but rich in power, which

appeals most to the feminine mind.
It cannot be denied that he thinks very little. In him extreme

energy of perception achieves great results, as in men of action
the energy of force and desire. His view of intellectual problems

is perhaps more simple than their nature warrants; still a man who
has written YVETTE cannot be accused of want of subtlety. But one

cannot insist enough upon this, that his subtlety, his humour, his
grimness, though no doubt they are his own, are never presented

otherwise but as belonging to our life, as found in nature, whose
beauties and cruelties alike breathe the spirit of serene

unconsciousness.
Maupassant's philosophy of life is more temperamental than

rational. He expects nothing from gods or men. He trusts his
senses for information and his instinct for deductions. It may

seem that he has made but little use of his mind. But let me be
clearly understood. His sensibility is really very great; and it

is impossible to be sensible, unless one thinks vividly, unless one
thinks correctly, starting from intelligible premises to an

unsophisticated conclusion.
This is literaryhonesty. It may be remarked that it does not

differ very greatly from the ideal honesty of the respectable
majority, from the honesty of law-givers, of warriors, of kings, of

bricklayers, of all those who express their fundamental sentiment
in the ordinary course of their activities, by the work of their

hands.
The work of Maupassant's hands is honest. He thinks sufficiently

to concrete his fearless conclusions in illuminative instances. He
renders them with that exact knowledge of the means and that

absolute devotion to the aim of creating a true effect--which is
art. He is the most accomplished of narrators.

It is evident that Maupassant looked upon his mankind in another
spirit than those writers who make haste to submerge the

difficulties of our holding-place in the universe under a flood of
false and sentimental assumptions. Maupassant was a true and

dutiful lover of our earth. He says himself in one of his
descriptive passages: "Nous autres que seduit la terre . . ." It

was true. The earth had for him a compelling charm. He looks upon
her august and furrowed face with the fierceinsight of real

passion. His is the power of detecting the one immutable quality
that matters in the changing aspects of nature and under the ever-

shifting surface of life. To say that he could not embrace in his
glance all its magnificence and all its misery is only to say that

he was human. He lays claim to nothing that his matchlessvision
has not made his own. This creative artist has the true

imagination; he never condescends to invent anything; he sets up no
empty pretences. And he stoops to no littleness in his art--least

of all to the miserablevanity of a catching phrase.
ANATOLE FRANCE--1904

I.--"CRAINQUEBILLE"
The latest volume of M. Anatole France purports, by the declaration

of its title-page, to contain several profitable narratives. The
story of Crainquebille's encounter with human justice stands at the

head of them; a tale of a well-bestowed charity closes the book
with the touch of playful irony characteristic of the writer on

whom the most distinguishedamongst his literary countrymen have
conferred the rank of Prince of Prose.

Never has a dignity been better borne. M. Anatole France is a good
prince. He knows nothing of tyranny but much of compassion. The

detachment of his mind from common errors and current superstitions
befits the exalted rank he holds in the Commonwealth of Literature.

It is just to suppose that the clamour of the tribes in the forum
had little to do with his elevation. Their elect are of another

stamp. They are such as their need of precipitate action requires.
He is the Elect of the Senate--the Senate of Letters--whose

Conscript Fathers have recognised him as PRIMUS INTER PARES; a post
of pure honour and of no privilege.

It is a good choice. First, because it is just, and next, because
it is safe. The dignity will suffer no diminution in M. Anatole

France's hands. He is worthy of a great tradition, learned in the
lessons of the past, concerned with the present, and as earnest as

to the future as a good prince should be in his public action. It
is a Republican dignity. And M. Anatole France, with his sceptical

insight into an forms of government, is a good Republican. He is
indulgent to the weaknesses of the people, and perceives that

political institutions, whether contrived by the wisdom of the few
or the ignorance of the many, are incapable of securing the