Page:Pierre and Jean - Clara Bell - 1902.djvu/40

Rh as a background for character or a field for exercise, and, so far as water was concerned, when he could not only look at it but row or sail upon it. The little sketch Sur L'Eau gives a marvellous picture of a misty moonlight night on the Seine; and the Mediterranean volume with the same title shows that the charm of the south could enter into his northern blood. The limitations of his genius, however, are obvious when he tries to describe not the sights and incidents but the reflections of travel. Au Soleil, for instance, fares badly beside such a book as M. Bourget's Sensations d'Italie. Maupassant, in fact, was no critic, and he was also one of the least cosmopolitan of writers. Where his compatriots are concerned, his abstention from caricature is remarkable; but his English are of the long-toothed and orange-whiskered variety dear to the café-concert, and either remain perpetually silent, or ejaculate "A' oh!" at fixed intervals. These are small matters, and a more possible Miss Harriet would have been dearly bought at any sacrifice of the intense nationality of the French types.

Maupassant had no evangel to announce, and would have indignantly disclaimed the imputation of a moral purpose. The world is therefore absolved from discussing his possible aims and