allow one to call him a Meissonier in words.

The school of romanticrealism which was founded by Merimee and
Balzac found its culmination in De Maupassant. He surpassed his

mentor, Flaubert, in the breadth and vividness of his work, and
one of the greatest of modern French critics has recorded the

deliberate opinion, that of all Taine's pupils Maupassant had the
greatest command of language and the most finished and incisive

style. Robust in imagination and fired with natural passion, his
psychological curiosity kept him true to human nature, while at

the same time his mental eye, when fixed upon the most ordinary
phases of human conduct, could see some new motive or aspect of

things hitherto unnoticed by the careless crowd.
It has been said by casualcritics that Maupassant lacked one

quality indispensable to the production of truly artistic work,
viz: an absolutely" target="_blank" title="ad.绝对地；确实">absolutelynormal, that is, moral, point of view. The

answer to this criticism" target="_blank" title="n.批评；评论(文)">criticism is obvious. No dissector of the gamut of
human pas- sion and folly in all its tones could present aught

that could be called new, if ungifted with a viewpoint totally
out of the ordinary plane. Cold and merciless in the use of this

point de vue De Maupassant undoubtedly is, especially in such
vivid depictions of love, both physical and maternal, as we find

in "L'histoire d'une fille de ferme" and "La femme de Paul." But
then the surgeon's scalpel never hesitates at giving pain, and

pain is often the road to health and ease. Some of Maupassant's
short stories are sermons more forcible than any moral

dissertation could ever be.
Of De Maupassant's sustained efforts "Une Vie" may bear the palm.

This romance has the distinction of having changed Tolstoi from
an adversecritic into a warm admirer of the author. To quote the

Russian moralist upon the book:
" 'Une Vie' is a romance of the best type, and in my judgment the

greatest that has been produced by any French writer since Victor
Hugo penned 'Les Miserables.' Passing over the force and

directness of the narrative, I am struck by the intensity, the
grace, and the insight with which the writer treats the new

aspects of human nature which he finds in the life he describes."
And as if gracefully to recall a former adversecriticism" target="_blank" title="n.批评；评论(文)">criticism,

Tolstoi adds:
"I find in the book, in almost equal strength, the three cardinal

qualities essential to great work, viz: moral purpose, perfect
style, and absolutesincerity. . . . Maupassant is a man whose

vision has penetrated the silent depths of human life, and from
that vantage- ground interprets the struggle of humanity."

"Bel-Ami" appeared almost two years after "Une Vie," that is to
say, about 1885. Discussed and criticised as it has been, it is

in reality a satire, an indignantoutburst against the corruption
of society which in the story enables an ex-soldier, devoid of

conscience, honor, even of the commonest regard for others, to
gain wealth and rank. The purport of the story is clear to those

who recognize the ideas that governed Maupassant's work, and even
the hasty reader or critic, on reading "Mont Oriol," which was

published two years later and is based on a combination of the
motifs which inspired "Une Vie" and "Bel-Ami," will reconsider

former hasty judgments, and feel, too, that beneath the triumph
of evil which calls forth Maupassant's satiric anger there lies

the substratum on which all his work is founded, viz: the
persistent, ceaseless questioning of a soul unable to reconcile

or explain the contradiction between love in life and inevitable
death. Who can read in "Bel-Ami" the terriblygraphicdescription

of the consumptive journalist's demise, his frantic clinging to
life, and his refusal to credit the slow and merciless approach

of death, without feeling that the question asked at Naishapur
many centuries ago is still waiting for the solution that is

always promised but never comes?
In the romances which followed, dating from 1888 to 1890, a sort

of calm despair seems to have settled down upon De Maupassant's
attitude toward life. Psychologically acute as ever, and as

perfect in style and sincerity as before, we miss the note of
anger. Fatality is the keynote, and yet, sounding low, we detect

a genuine subtone of sorrow. Was it a prescience of 1893? So much
work to be done, so much work demanded of him, the world of

Paris, in all its brilliant and attractive phases, at his feet,
and yet--inevitable, ever advancing death, with the question of

life still unanswered.
This may account for some of the strained situations we find in

his later romances. Vigorous in frame and hearty as he was, the
atmosphere of his mental processes must have been vitiated to

produce the dainty but dangerous pessimism that pervades some of
his later work. This was partly a consequence of his honesty and

partly of mentaldespair. He never accepted other people's views
on the questions of life. He looked into such problems for

himself, arriving at the truth, as it appeared to him, by the
logic of events, often finding evil where he wished to find good,

but never hoodwinking himself or his readers by adapting or
distorting the reality of things to suit a preconceived idea.

Maupassant was essentially a worshiper of the eternal feminine.
He was persuaded that without the continual presence of the

gentler sex man's existence would be an emotionally silent
wilderness. No other French writer has described and analyzed so

minutely and comprehensively the many and various motives and
moods that shape the conduct of a woman in life. Take for

instance the wonderfully subtle analysis of a woman's heart as
wife and mother that we find in "Une Vie." Could aught be more

delicately incisive? Sometimes in describing the apparently
inexplicable conduct of a certain woman he leads his readers to a

point where a false step would destroy the spell and bring the
reproach of banality and ridicule upon the tale. But the

catastrophe never occurs. It was necessary to stand poised upon
the brink of the precipice to realize the depth of the abyss and

feel the terror of the fall.
Closely allied to this phase of Maupassant's nature was the

peculiar feeling of loneliness that every now and then breaks
irresistibly forth in the course of some short story. Of kindly

soul and genial heart, he suffered not only from the oppression
of spirit caused by the lack of humanity, kindliness, sanity, and

harmony which he encountered daily in the world at large, but he
had an ever abiding sense of the invincible, unbanishable

solitariness of his own inmost self. I know of no more poignant
expression of such a feeling than the cry of despair which rings

out in the short story called "Solitude," in which he describes
the insurmountable barrier which exists between man and man, or

man and woman, however intimate the friendship between them. He
could picture but one way of destroying this terrible loneliness,

the attainment" target="_blank" title="n.达到；得到；造诣">attainment of a spiritual--a divine--state of love, a
condition to which he would give no name utterable by human lips,

lest it be profaned, but for which his whole being yearned. How
acutely he felt his failure to attain his deliverance may be

drawn from his wail that mankind has no UNIVERSAL measure of
happiness.

"Each one of us," writes De Maupassant, "forms for himself an
illusion through which he views the world, be it poetic,

sentimental, joyous, melancholy, or dismal; an illusion of
beauty, which is a human convention; of ugliness, which is a

matter of opinion; of truth, which, alas, is never immutable."
And he concludes by asserting that the happiest artist is he who

approaches most closely to the truth of things as he sees them
through his own particular illusion.

Salient points in De Maupassant's genius were that he possessed
the rare faculty of holding direct communion with his gifts, and

of writing from their dictation as it was interpreted by his
senses. He had no patience with writers who in striving to

present life as a whole purposely omit episodes that reveal the
influence of the senses. "As well," he says, "refrain from

describing the effect of intoxicating perfumes upon man as omit
the influence of beauty on the temperament of man."

De Maupassant's dramaticinstinct was supremely powerful. He
seems to select unerringly the one thing in which the soul of the

scene is prisoned, and, making that his keynote, gives a picture
in words which haunt the memory like a strain of music. The

description of the ride of Madame Tellier and her companions in a
country cart through a Norman landscape is an admirable example.

You smell the masses of the colza in blossom, you see the yellow
carpets of ripe corn spotted here and there by the blue coronets

of the cornflower, and rapt by the red blaze of the poppy beds
and bathed in the fresh greenery of the landscape, you share in

the emotions felt by the happy party in the country cart. And yet
with all his vividness of description, De Maupassant is always