Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 1.djvu/41

 treatment, on Mediæval Religious Architecture, Mediæval Military Architecture, and The Church of Saint Savin. But if I did so, I should encroach too much on the space left me for his purely creative work—a space hardly, as it is, sufficient for "that which is here and that which is not"—for the fictions in semi-dramatic form which have had mostly to be excluded, as well as for those in direct narrative which are the main objects and subjects of the present undertaking. For, as I have said at the beginning, there is hardly any author who demands to be studied as a whole more than Mérimée; and while it is thus all the more necessary to notice the parts of his work which can not be reproduced here in full, it is at the same time desirable to distribute this notice with a view to the relative connection of these parts with his chief and principal function.

It is noteworthy enough that Mérimée's first exercises in this function, besides being hoaxes, were taken in paths which were not really his own. "Clara Gazul" writes things which at any rate look like plays; which at any rate are "Tig and Tirry" to use Dr. Johnson's quaint and agreeable figure. Now, Mérimée