Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 1.djvu/40

xxxii the "Gogol" will always hold rank as the "letters of introduction" (so to speak) of a new literature to Europe, by an introducer of exceptional competence and position. If there are two disappointing pieces here, they are the "Nodier" and the "Ampère." Yet the very disappointment is interesting because it is just (to use the hackneyed jest) what we always expected. Both were diploma-pieces, exercises set to the writer in his capacity as Academician. And these are the things that a man of Mérimée's temperament,—shy, proud, not used to taskwork, and decidedly recalcitrant to it, hating gush and gossip, rhetoric and rigmarole—always does worst.

I would fain dwell on his reviews of great histories, of politics and literature—Grote, Merivale, Ticknor—on the Mormon article, antiquated now, of course, as a mere piece of information and halting in the middle of the story even then, but a miracle of easy and orderly narration;—on the "Cossacks," which contains, with less elaboration and research, the gist of his later book on the subject. I should like to notice his extraordinarily sensible plan of reform for the French Schools of Art at Rome;—and still more the masterly articles, each longer than the other and each justifying its increased length by the combined art and matter of the