Painting" that the beautiful was in its essence infinite and various in form; whilst ten years after, when such belief had been recognised and overpassed, he remained in the same position, and was as much behindhand in his views as he had formerly been in advance.

At heart somewhat of a classic, he broke a lance in favour of romanticism, by defining it as the art of presenting people the literary work which should give them the most pleasure; whilst classicism was that which gave the most pleasure to their grandfathers.

His first novel, "Quelques Scènes d'un Salon de Paris en 1827," appeared in that year, but if one expected from the title-page to find some record of the characters and manners of the time there must have been considerable disappointment. It is chiefly the story of two mysterious, ultra romantic beings who sacrifice their mutual affection to a host of imaginary obstacles, and although the conflict of feeling and reason is detailed at great length with much pathos and delicacy, it has about as much meaning as "Rouge et Noir" and the "Chartreuse de Parme," but is their superior in a sort of juvenile freshness. He consoled himself for the flatness with which his three works of fiction were received by the persuasion that he stood on a platform apart from his fellows; that he alone, in a world remarkable for a growing spirit of egoism, commercial drudgery, and preoccupation, was susceptible of sentiment-that he alone understood. how to appreciate, and, above all, how to love.

As a writer of history his want of painstaking is very conspicuous: a great interest in the Middle Ages led him to rest content, as soon as he had been bitten by a subject, with whatever records he had happened to find. Charmed with a romance, he would not be much concerned with historical facts, assuming that what was known to himself must be known to everybody else.

The condition of morals during the Renaissance offered him the reflections in which he delighted, and out of the faits divers collected here and there for his amusement, he made of history just what Emerson says it always should be-"a cheerful apologue or parable."

But when he condescends to real life-to the life of Napoleonhe throws an admirable light on the days when Paris, escaping from the Directoire, became essentially patriotic; when the only cry was. utilité à la patrie, when the Emperor was regarded primarily as of use the greatest captain the world had ever seen: indeed, he himself at that time followed the universal tone of enthusiasm, and thought less of his own aggrandisement than of the glory of France.

"I had hoped," writes Beyle, "that some of those who has

VOL. CCLXXXV. NO. 2011.

H

known Napoleon would have been charged to relate the story of his life. I had waited twenty years, and seeing that this great man remains more and more uncomprehended, I would not die without stating the opinion of those who knew him best-of his companions in arms-for in the midst of all the platitudes one hears, there were also men whose thoughts were free even in the Palace of the Tuileries, then the centre of the world."

This was what Beyle's writings did not always possess the true ring-for Napoleon was the idol of the army, and no ties are more powerful than those which bind the soldier to his chief.

There is also some historic value, it must be fairly admitted, in the "Chartreuse de Parme," where he wrote of incidents which really took place of characters who had lived-of scenes with which he was familiar. He describes the political intrigues of petty princes, ambitious churchmen, conspirators, carbonari, all imbued with the violent passions of the time, its fury, its heroism, its utter want of probity and mercy. The novel was reviewed by Balzac in the "Revue Parisienne" with a perfect storm of eulogy, surprising no one more than the author himself, who is said to have burst out laughing when he read it. The enthusiastic critic relates at length the chief incidents of the story, interrupting himself with notes of admiration at the felicity of every new development or any passing reflection which seems to him too true and deep to be overlooked. Balzac divides the literature of the day into two schools-the school of "pictorial images" and the school of "ideas." Of this last he proclaims Stendhal the most distinguished master, the only obstacle to his supremacy being the want of readers sufficiently cultivated to appreciate it, these being only to be found amongst diplomatists, politicians, observers, eminent men of the world, and distinguished artists. Such being the case, if Balzac is to be credited, it is quite conceivable that few journalists took time either to study or to comprehend so great a work. And the truth is that the papers took but little notice of it. But the author of the "Comédie Humaine" was right in asserting that literary men would better understand the merits of the "Chartreuse de Parme"; Sainte-Beuve's award is almost as flattering as his own. He speaks of the author's notable originality, and ranks him amongst the independent spirits, bold and strong, of a much earlier age-a less conventional day. Alfred de Vigny describes the "Chartreuse de Parme" as a work full of just observations on the diplomatic world, but adds that it was a low and hateful world, and that the portraits were so vivid and so little disguised that everybody must recognise them.

Taine gives Stendhal the credit of being a grand romancier, and still greater psychologist, but there were others who frankly acknowledged astonishment at so much eulogy. With Victor Hugo a profound antipathy to the man was added to contempt of his work, and Zola calls his personages mere machines, and himself only a charlatan.

Beyle's philosophy, which in his own estimation comes next in force and clearsightedness to his study of love, was hardly so penetrating as he supposed; he had imbued himself with the spirit of oldtime thinkers, whose tenets he copied with the utmost fidelity, setting aside modern investigations and conclusions as simply emphatic and declamatory. Helvetius had already laid it down that men were not naturally wicked, but irresistibly governed by their interests; other writers had stated that the actions of a human being resulted commonly from what the laws have put into his head and the climate into his heart, and that if men were duly enlightened as to their true interests, they would seek their own good by being useful, or, at all events, not hurtful to others. In accentuating these certainly not very novel views, Stendhal assured himself of his reasonableness, and failed to remark that he rendered his more original convictions practically harmless, merely narrowing and debasing his models, when he asserts that happiness is the true end and aim of existence, that every exertion, every gift, should be employed for this all-absorbing purpose, and that it is the first duty of genius itself to discover the supreme art of being happy. It did not apparently occur to him that genius has not hitherto directed its search for this summum bonum with any very great success. Both theoretically and practically he indulged in a frank unmitigated egoism, was always prosecuting his search, always inquiring of his own mind as to whether he had attained to the felicity which the more he pursued became, as he was obliged to admit, the more illusive. His intelligence forced him to perceive that the struggle was vain, and that every man who thinks must be a sad man. pure selfishness, which hardly stands in need of much cultivation, he extols as a step in advance, and writes with some self-complacency to one of his friends: "I am not one of those philosophers who can regret the rain when it falls in June because it may injure the hayharvest or the blossoms of the vine. The rain seems to me delightful because it soothes the nerves, refreshes the air, and gives me pleasure, I reflect that I may quit the world to-morrow, and may not live to taste the wine whose inflorescence embalms the hills of the Mont d'Or."

The

In another place he boasts that he deplores the Revolution, not for its tragedy, but because it deprives him of the presence of the gay and charming people who never took anything sadly or seriously.

His essay on Love, which he considered the most important of his writings, is no doubt a remarkably subtle analysis of character and temperament, but it is full of illusions-mistakes-absurditiesparadox. His rules and regulations cannot be made to fit so wide and so intangible a subject. It was well said that those who know most about love seldom talk about it, and the remark of Edmond de Goncourt, that love is the poetry of the man who does not write verses, comes nearer to truth than many of Stendhal's elaborate definitions.

One may gather that his own experiences in what he calls the controlling spring of all the affairs of life were curiously disappointing. "What is wanting in the woman one loves," he writes, "is the habit of a little attention, and the necessary logic to comprehend !" And "where," he continues, "shall we find the man who, either in love or marriage, experiences the happiness of communicating his thoughts as they present themselves to his mind to the woman with whom he passes his life? He may find a good heart which participates in his troubles, but he is always obliged to change his ideas into very small money, if he would be understood, and it would be absurd to expect counsel from an intellect which needs such a régime before it can seize the object submitted to it. The most perfect of women, according to the rules of actual education, leaves her partner isolated in the dangers of life, and very often runs the risk of boring him."

The Revolution of 1830 and the accession of Louis Philippe disturbed Stendhal in the midst of his literary work; he found the Government in accord with his own political views, and was appointed to the Consulship of Trieste, where he spent a year lamenting over his banishment to a dull place with uncongenial surroundings. He was transferred to Civita Vecchia, which was hardly more enlivening, but from whence he permitted himself frequent absences without much regard to official requirements; delightful excursions far and near renewed the spirit of the tourist that was within him, and the want of steady work which made his more pretentious writings so unsatisfactory-his hatred of trammels and his strong objection to give himself any trouble-seemed to belong of right to the wanderer, who from day to day and hour to hour received new facts and new impressions. The want of accuracy in his historic work, the irregularity and sketchiness of his novels and essays, his general want of

order and sequence, were not out of rule in the records of the sightseer. His "Promenades dans Rome," where he had studied every edifice was at home in every ruin, and observant of every relic-is a delightful guide-book, and whenever he met with congenial travellers he made himself an invaluable cicerone, contriving even to evade the ennui which was the bugbear of his own existence.

Considering himself at liberty to indulge in his favourite habit of mystification, he enjoyed the pleasure of misleading his friends by dating his letters from every imaginable abode, signing himself by various grotesque pseudonyms, whilst under such innocent diversions he felt as if renewing his past Bohemian light-heartedness; but one day, seated on the steps of an old church, there came upon him the moment, so pathetically described by Victor Hugo, when "the weight of years fell suddenly" upon him; he realised that he was more than half a century old, and felt affected as if by an unexpected misfortune. It came into his mind to write the story of his life, but it was already too late. He had only time to correct some old manuscripts, when he was forbidden to employ his already over-taxed brain with any sort of literary work. The neglect of this advice brought on an attack from which he never recovered.

He had composed his own epitaph in the language of the country he always spoke of as his own, and it was engraved with the date of his birth and death in the cemetery of Montmartre :—

ARRIGO BEYLE,

MILANESE,

SCRISSE,

AMÒ,

VISSE.

C. E. MEETKERKE.