Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 1.djvu/67

Rh added gifts not exactly common of heart and (I must ask indulgence for a minute) even of soul; a man who could (in the old Carlyle-Emerson sense) divine very much; who knew even more; and lastly, who loved more than all.

From mere gusto in the true art sense, from mere enjoyment and interest in the things of what some have been pleased to call the Coarse Arts, to actual passion, this peculiarity is noticeable by those we can see just as it is not noticeable in some great poets and prose-writers who have entirely escaped the reputation of cynicism and gained that of being very good men. Indeed, Mérimée's surface may sometimes show like ice, but there is almost always fire beneath, and it is this which gives him his peculiar quality—a quality not more noteworthy in his choice and handling of subjects than in his style itself.

This style of his has been the object of almost universal admiration among the competent, the only reservations having been made by those who, like Mr. Pater, had a somewhat excessive fancy for the "precious," or those who, like Mr. Henley, were affected in the same way toward the "strenuous." For both of these classes it may be a little too quiet and plain, too cold, and (as statues used to be though they are not