Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 1.djvu/31

Rh not a very little on Mérimée: and this has rather altered the complexion of the rapport between the two. Each has been shown to have been, in familiar phrase, a much better fellow than he pretended to be: while, on the other hand, the morbid and warped strains in each have been more clearly demonstrated and illustrated. But while the motto of both was no doubt that μέμνησο απιστεῖν which Mérimée actually adopted, the complexion of their mistrust of themselves and of mankind was very different—even more different than their fortunes. Mérimée has been emphatically pronounced by more than one good judge "a gentleman," and it is exceedingly difficult to imagine any definition of that word that would take in Beyle. Beyle had been a really badly treated (though also a rather badly behaved) child, and he never forgot it; while his career was a string of failures. Mérimée was all his life rather "spoilt" by this or that person, and his career was in literature a brilliant and in other ways a considerable success.

Lastly, Mérimée, whether he did great things or small, did them with a leisurely and enjoying completeness, with an absolute knowledge of what he wanted to do and an absolute faculty of