Page:The Yellow Book - 04.djvu/258

232 Germans than he is to his countrymen; for the sentiment, of which he is the epicure and the apologist has nothing in common with the reverent and poetic sentiment in which the Germans are so rich. This last Beyle hates as he hates Rousseau and Madame de Staël. It is phrase, moonshine, and the fact that it is bound up in a stable and orderly character but makes it the more irritating. They are sentimental, innocent, and unintelligent, he says, and he quotes with a sneer, as true of the race: "A soul honest, sweet, and peaceful, free of pride and remorse, full of benevolence and humanity, above the nerves and the passions." In short, quite anti-Beylian, quite submissive, sweet, and moral. For England he has much more respect and even a slight affection. He likes their anti-classicism, and he likes especially the beauty of their women, which he thinks second only to that of the Italians. The rich complexions, the free, open countenances, the strong forms rouse him sometimes almost to enthusiasm; but of course it is all secondary in the inevitable comparison. "English beauty seems paltry, without soul, without life, before the divine eyes which heaven has given to Italy." The somewhat in the submissive faces of the Englishwomen that threatens future ennui, Stendhal thinks has been ingrained there by the workings of the terrible law of propriety which rules as a despot over the unfortunate island. It is the vision of caprice in the face of the Italian woman that makes him certain of never being bored.

It is not surprising that women should be the objects through which Beyle sees everything. A man who sees in relativity, arbitrariness, caprice, the final law of nature, and who feels a sympathy with this law, not unnaturally finds in the absolute, personal, perverse nature of women his most congenial companionship. He finds in women something more elemental than reasonableness. He finds the basal instincts. They best illustrate his psychology