ries possess the quality in almost the highest degree.

[125] He tried several pseudonyms, but settled on this. Unfortunately,
he sometimes (not always) made it "_De_ Stendhal," without anything
before the "De," and more unfortunately still, in the days of his
Napoleonic employment he, if he had not called himself, had allowed
himself to be called "M. _de_ Beyle"--an assumption which though
dropped, was not forgotten in the days of his later anti-aristocratism.

[126] Beyle himself recognized the necessity of the reader's
collaboration.

[127] This does not apply to poets as much as to prose writers: a fact
for which reasons could perhaps be given. And it certainly does not
apply to Balzac.

[128] He was now forty-four, and had published not a few volumes, mostly
small, of other kinds--travel description (which he did uncommonly
well), and miscellaneous writing, and criticism, including the famous
_Racine et Shakespeare_, an _avant-coureur_ of Romanticism which
contained, besides matter on its title-subjects, some sound estimate of
Scott as a writer and some very unsound abuse about him as a man. This
last drew from Byron, who had met Beyle earlier at Milan, a letter of
expostulation and vindication which did that noble poet infinite credit,
but of which Beyle, by no means to _his_ credit, took notice. He was
only too like Hazlitt in more ways than one: though few books with
practically the same title can be more different than _De l'Amour_ and
_Liber Amoris_.

[129] As for instance, those from Dekker and Massiger; Camoens and
Ercilla are allowed their native tongues "neat."

[130] The actual "Chartreuse" of Parma only makes its appearance on the
very last page of the book, when the hero, resigning his arch bishopric,
retires to it.

[131] He is the younger son of a rich and noble family, but his father
disowns and his older brother denounces him quite early. It is
characteristic of Beyle that we hear very little of the father and are
practically never even introduced to the brother.

[132] These four words somehow make me think of Samuel Newcome's comment
on the unfortunate dinner where "Farintosh" did not appear: "Scarcely
anything was drank."

[133] See note above.

[134] Both would have declined to meddle with her, I think, but for
different reasons.

[135] Beyle, who had himself no good looks, is particularly lavish of
them to his heroes.

[136] Perhaps one of the rare biographical details which, as