Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/168

 154 "Padre Pugnaccio" and "Henriquez," by Louis Bertrand, and that strange lovely "Captive," by Ephraïm Mikhaël, are as admirable in their limitations as in their finish. They show us one thing only, and show it with swift yet comprehensive lucidity. But if "Padre Pugnaccio" be a pastel, then, by that same token, "Solitude" is not. It is a moderately long and wholly allegorical story, and its merits are of a different order. As for Maurice de Guérin's "Centaur," that noble fragment has nothing in common with the fragile delicacy of the pretty little picture poems which surround it. It is a masterpiece of breadth and virility. Its sonorous sentences recall the keener life of the antique world, and it stands among its unsubstantial companions like a bust of Hermes in a group of Dresden figures, all charming, but all dwarfed to insignificance by the side of that strong young splendor. To call "The Centaur" a pastel is as absurd as to call "Endymion" an etching.

However, Mr. Merrill's translations are far from defining the limits of the term. On the contrary, we have M. Paul Bourget's group of