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Notes on Life and Letters-Part4_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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is in them. His determinism, barren of praise, blame and

consolation, has all the merit of his conscientious art. The worth



of every conviction consists precisely in the steadfastness with

which it is held.



Except for his philosophy, which in the case of so consummate an

artist does not matter (unless to the solemn and naive mind),



Maupassant of all writers of fiction demands least forgiveness from

his readers. He does not require forgiveness because he is never



dull.

The interest of a reader in a work of imagination is either ethical



or that of simple curiosity. Both are perfectlylegitimate, since

there is both a moral and an excitement to be found in a faithful



rendering of life. And in Maupassant's work there is the interest

of curiosity and the moral of a point of view consistently



preserved and never obtruded for the end of personal gratification.

The spectacle of this immensetalent served by exceptional



faculties and triumphing over the most thankless subjects by an

unswerving singleness of purpose is in itself an admirable lesson



in the power of artistichonesty, one may say of artistic virtue.

The inherentgreatness of the man consists in this, that he will



let none of the fascinations that beset a writerworking in

loneliness turn him away from the straight path, from the



vouchsafed vision of excellence. He will not be led into perdition

by the seductions of sentiment, of eloquence, of humour, of pathos;



of all that splendid pageant of faults that pass between the writer

and his probity on the blank sheet of paper, like the glittering



cortege of deadly sins before the austere anchorite in the desert

air of Thebaide. This is not to say that Maupassant's austerity



has never faltered; but the fact remains that no tempting demon has

ever succeeded in hurling him down from his high, if narrow,



pedestal.

It is the austerity of his talent, of course, that is in question.



Let the discriminating reader, who at times may well spare a moment

or two to the consideration and enjoyment of artisticexcellence,



be asked to reflect a little upon the texture of two stories

included in this volume: "A Piece of String," and "A Sale." How



many openings the last offers for the gratuitous display of the

author's wit or clever buffoonery, the first for an unmeasured



display of sentiment! And both sentiment and buffoonery could have

been made very good too, in a way accessible to the meanest



intelligence, at the cost of truth and honesty. Here it is where

Maupassant's austerity comes in. He refrains from setting his



cleverness against the eloquence of the facts. There is humour and

pathos in these stories; but such is the greatness of his talent,



the refinement of his artisticconscience, that all his high

qualities appear inherent in the very things of which he speaks, as



if they had been altogether independent of his presentation.

Facts, and again facts are his unique concern. That is why he is



not always properly understood. His facts are so perfectly

rendered that, like the actualities of life itself, they demand



from the reader the faculty of observation which is rare, the power




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