Once he had
thought out his novels or romances, he transcribed them hurriedly,
almost mechanically. In his manuscripts, long pages follow each other
without an erasure.

His language appears natural, easy, and at first sight seems
spontaneous. But at the price of what effort was it not acquired! ...

In reality, in the writer, his sense of sight and smell were
perfected, to the detriment of the sense of hearing which is not very
musical. Repetitions, assonances, do not always shock Maupassant, who
is sometimes insensible to quantity as he is to harmony. He does not
"orchestrate," he has not inherited the "organ pipes" of Flaubert.

In his vocabulary there is no research; he never even requires a rare
word....

Those whom Flaubert's great organ tones delighted, those whom
Theophile Gautier's frescoes enchanted, were not satisfied, and
accused Maupassant, somewhat harshly, of not being a "writer" in the
highest sense of the term. The reproach is unmerited, for there is but
one style.

But, on the other hand, it is difficult to admit, with an eminent
academician that Maupassant must be a great writer, a classical
writer, in fact, simply because he "had no style," a condition of
perfection "in that form of literary art in which the personality of
the author should not appear, in the romance, the story, and the
drama."

A classic, Maupassant undoubtedly is, as the critic to whom I alluded
has said, "through the simple aptness of his terms and his contempt
for frivolous ornamentation."

He remains a great writer because, like Molière, La Bruyère, and La
Fontaine, he is always close to nature, disdaining all studied
rhetorical effect and all literary verbosity.

For applause and fame Maupassant cared nothing, and his proud contempt
for Orders and Academies is well known.

In a letter to Marie Bashkirtseff he writes as follows:

"Everything in life is almost alike to me, men, women, events. This is
my true confession of faith, and I may add what you may not believe,
which is that I do not care any more for myself than I do for the
rest. All is divided into ennui, comedy and misery. I am indifferent
to everything. I pass two-thirds of my time in being terribly bored. I
pass the third portion in writing sentences which I sell as dear as I
can, regretting that I have to ply this abominable trade."

And in a later letter:

"I have no taste that I cannot get rid of at my pleasure, not a desire
that I do not scoff at, not a hope that does not make me smile or
laugh. I ask myself why I stir, why I go hither or thither, why I give
myself the odious trouble of earning money, since it does not amuse me
to spend it."

And again:

"As for me, I am incapable of really loving my art. I am too critical,
I analyze it too much. I feel strongly how relative is the value of
ideas, words, and even of the loftiest intelligences. I cannot help
despising thought, it is so weak; and form, it is so imperfect. I
really have, in an acute, incurable form, the sense of human
impotence, and of effort which results in wretched approximations."

For nature, Maupassant had an ardent passion.... His whole being
quivered when she bathed his forehead with her light ocean breeze.
She, alone, knew how to rock and soothe him with her waves.

Never satisfied, he wished to see her under all aspects, and travelled
incessantly, first in his native province, amid the meadows and waters
of Normandy, then on the banks of the Seine along which he coasted,
bending to the oar. Then Brittany with its beaches, where high waves
rolled in beneath low and dreary skies, then Auvergne, with its
scattered huts amid the sour grass, beneath rocks of basalt; and,
finally, Corsica, Italy, Sicily, not with artistic enthusiasm, but
simply to enjoy the delight of grand, pure outlines. Africa, the
country of Salammbô, the desert, finally call him, and he breathes
those distant odors borne on the slow winds; the sunlight inundates
his body, "laves the dark corners of his soul." And he retains a
troubled memory of the evenings in those warm climes, where the
fragrance of plants and trees seems to take the place of air.

Maupassant's philosophy is as little complicated as his vision of
humanity. His pessimism exceeds in its simplicity and depth that of
all other realistic writers.

Still there are contradictions and not unimportant ones in him. The
most striking is certainly his fear of Death. He sees it everywhere,
it haunts him. He sees it on the horizon of landscapes, and it crosses
his path on lonely roads. When it is not hovering over his head, it is
circling round him as around Gustave Moreau's pale youth.... Can he,
the determined materialist, really fear the stupor of eternal sleep,
or the dispersion of the transient individuality? ...

Another contradiction. He who says that contact with the crowd
"tortures his nerves," and who professes such contempt for mankind,
yet considers solitude as one of the bitterest torments of existence.
And he bewails the fact that he cannot live just for himself, "keep
within himself that secret place of the ego, where none can enter."

"Alas!" said his master, "we are all in a desert." Nobody understands
anyone else and "whatever we attempt, whatever be the impulse of our
heart and the appeal of our lips, we shall always be alone!"

In this gehenna of death, in these nostalgias of the past, in these
trances of eternal isolation, may we not find some relinquishing of
his philosophy? Certainly not, for these contradictions accentuate all
the more the pain of existence and become a new source of suffering.

In any case, Maupassant's pessimism becomes logical in terminating in
pity, like that of Schopenhauer. I know that I am running foul of
certain admirers of the author who do not see any pity in his work,
and it is understood that he is pitiless. But examine his stories more
closely and you will find it revealed in every page, provided you go
to the very bottom of the subject. That is where it exists naturally,
almost against the desire of the writer, who does not arouse pity, nor
teach it.

And, again, if it remains concealed from so many readers, it is
because it has nothing to do with the humanitarian pity retailed by
rhetoricians. It is philosophical and haughty, detached from any
"anthropocentric" characteristics. It is universal suffering that it
covers. And to tell the truth, it is man, the hypocritical and cunning
biped who has the least share in it. Maupassant is helpful to all
those of his fellows who are tortured by physical suffering, social
cruelty and the criminal dangers of life, but he pities them without
caring for them, and his kindness makes distinctions.

On the other hand, the pessimist has all the tenderness of a Buddhist
for animals, whom the gospels despise.