y time. And as humour without tenderness is an
impossibility, so, too, he could be and was tender. Yet it was seldom
and _malgre lui_, while he allowed the mere exercise of his humour
itself too scantily for his own safety and his readers' pleasure. That
there was any more _fanfaronnade_ either of vice or of misanthropy
about him, I do not believe. An unfortunate conformity of innate
temperament and acquired theory made such a _fanfaronnade_ as
unnecessary as it would have been repugnant to him. But illusion, in
such cases, is more dangerous, if less disgusting, than imposture. And
so it happened that, in despite of the rare and vast faculties just
allowed him, he was constantly found applying them to subjects
distasteful if not disgraceful, and allowing the results to be sicklied
over with a persistent "soot-wash" of pessimism which was always rather
monotonous, and not always very impressive.

It was, of course, inevitable that, on this side of the Channel at
least, strictures should be passed--and appealed against--on a writer of
this kind. The impropriety of M. de Maupassant's subjects, the
"cruelty," the "brutality," the "pessimism," and what not, of his
handling, were sure to be denounced or defended, as the case may be.
Although the merely "shoking" tone (as the spelling dear to Frenchmen
has it) has waned persistently ever since his day, expressions in it
have not been wanting; while, on the other hand, newer-fashioned and
probably younger censors have scornfully waved aside the very
consideration of this part of the subject. Further, no less a critic
than my friend Mr. Traill entered, long ago, a protest against the
admission of Maupassant's pessimism as a drawback. "He did not," says
Mr. Traill (I quote from memory), "_pose_ as a pessimist; he was
perfectly sincere, and an artist's sincere life-philosophy, whatever it
is, is not to be urged against the products of his art."

I think that these questions require a little discussion, even in a
general _History_.

With reference to the impropriety matter, I have myself, after a
lifetime of fighting against the _heresie de l'enseignement_, not the
very slightest intention of deserting to or transacting with it. I do
most heartily agree and affirm that the subject of a work of art is not,
as such, the better or the worse, the more or the less legitimate,
because of its tastefulness or distastefulness on moral considerations.
But there is a perpetual danger, when