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 artistic
conscience, 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
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.