drifting, and connected together by conjunctions into a loose aggregate.  The ‘Precious’ writers had dimly realized the importance of form, but they had not realized at all the importance of simplicity.  This was Pascal’s great discovery.  His sentences are clear, straightforward, and distinct; and they are bound together into a succession of definitely articulated paragraphs, which are constructed, not on the system of mere haphazard aggregation, but according to the logical development of the thought.  Thus Pascal’s prose, like the verse of Malherbe and Corneille, is based upon reason; it is primarily intellectual.  But, with Pascal, the intellect expresses itself even more exactly.  The last vestiges of medieval ambiguities have been discarded; the style is perfectly modern.  So wonderfully did Pascal master the resources of the great instrument which he had forged, that it is true to say that no reader who wishes to realize once for all the great qualities of French prose could do better than turn straight to the Lettres Provinciales.  Here he will find the lightness and the strength, the exquisite polish and the delicious wit, the lambent irony and the ordered movement, which no other language spoken by man has ever quite been able to produce.  The Lettres are a work of controversy; their actual subject-matter—­the ethical system of the Jesuits of the time—­is remote from modern interests; yet such is the brilliance of Pascal’s art that every page of them is fascinating to-day.  The vivacity of the opening letters is astonishing; the tone is the gay, easy tone of a man of the world; the attack is delivered in a rushing onslaught of raillery.  Gradually, as the book proceeds, there are signs of a growing seriousness; we have a sense of graver issues, and round the small question of the Jesuits’ morality we discern ranged all the vast forces of good and evil.  At last the veil of wit and laughter is entirely removed, and Pascal bursts forth into the full fury of invective.  The vials of wrath are opened; a terrific denunciation rolls out in a thundering cataract; and at the close of the book there is hardly a note in the whole gamut of language, from the airiest badinage to the darkest objurgation, which has not been touched.

In sheer genius Pascal ranks among the very greatest writers who have lived upon this earth.  And his genius was not simply artistic; it displayed itself no less in his character and in the quality of his thought.  These are the sides of him which are revealed with extraordinary splendour in his Pensees—­a collection of notes intended to form the basis for an elaborate treatise in defence of Christianity which Pascal did not live to complete.  The style of many of these passages surpasses in brilliance and force even that of the Lettres Provinciales.  In addition, one hears the intimate voice of Pascal, speaking upon the profoundest problems of existence—­the most momentous topics which can agitate the minds