f all possible worlds. This
was by no means principally shown in the stories of supernatural terror
to which, with an inconsistency by no means uncommon in declared
materialists, and, had it not been for his unhappy end, very amusing, he
was so much given. The chief of these, _Le Horla_, has not been much of
a favourite with the lovers of "ghost-stories" in general. I think they
are rather unjust to it. But if it has a fault, that fault lies (and, to
avoid the charge of being wise after the event, I may observe that I
thought so at the time) in too much conviction. The darkness is darkness
which has been felt, and felt so much by the artist that he has lost
his artistic grasp and command. There was, perhaps, in his own actual
state, too much reason for this. In earlier things of the kind it is
less perceptible. _Fou?_ is rather splendid. _Aupres d'un Mort_--an
anecdote of the death-bed of Schopenhauer, whom Maupassant naturally
admired as the greatest of _saccageurs de reves_, though there are some
who, admiring the first master of thoroughly good German prose style and
one of the best of German critics, have kept the fort of their dreams
safe from all he could do--has merits. _Lettre trouvee sur un noye_ is
good; _L'Horrible_ not quite so good; _Le Loup_ (a sort of fancy from
the "bete du Gevaudan" story) better; _Apparition_ of the best, with _La
Morte_ to pair it, and _Un Cas de Divorce_ and _Qui sait?_ to make up
the quartette. Perhaps the best of all (I do not specify its title in
order that those who do not know it may read till they find it out) is
that where the visionary sees the skeletons of the dead rising and
transforming their lying epitaphs into confessions--the last tomb now
bearing the true cause of his own mistress's death. But the
double-titled _La Nuit--Cauchemar_ runs it hard.

Yet it is not in these stories of doubt and dread, or in the ostensible
and rather shallow philosophisings of the travel-books, that
Maupassant's pessimism is most obvious. His preference for the unhappy
ending amounts almost to a _tic_, and would amount wholly to a
bore--for _toujours_ unhappy-ending is just as bad as _toujours_
marriage-bells--if it were not relieved and lightened by a real presence
of humour. With this sovereign preservative for self, and more sovereign
charm for others, Guy de Maupassant was more richly provided than any of
his French contemporaries, and more than any but a very few of his
countrymen at an