Page:Pierre and Jean - Clara Bell - 1902.djvu/32

Rh 's attitude as a writer towards the whole question is, as always, the outcome of his personality. There have been writers far less lax than their books, and others far less restrained; he himself was the gaillard exubérant, sensuel, violent, souleve par tous les désirs, described in his essay; and he had no idea of doing violence to his nature. For however little his point of view may be commended, it is at least absolutely natural. It has nothing in common with the leering salacities which disfigure the pages of many less virile writers; it is rather a manifestation of the esprit gaulois, akin to the Rabelaisian naturalisme, the cult of Physis, and having something in common with the prodigalities of Whitman. To Maupassant the existence of sex was almost the prime and paramount fact in the world. It beset his mind with a perpetual appeal, and therefore inevitably strikes the dominant note in his books. There is an odd simplicity, sometimes almost ludicrous, in his frank commiseration for those who by inclination or circumstance live otherwise. To him an elderly maiden aunt is a far more piteous spectacle than a blind beggar, for the latter, before he was a beggar and blind, may have known the joys of la noce, whereas the poor lady is past praying for. The fate of the vieille fille so haunts him that he can