eistic Pantheism. This failing,
the Temptation reverts to the moral forms, Death and Vice contending for
Anthony and bidding against each other. The next shift of the
kaleidoscope is to semi-philosophical fantasies--the Sphinx, the
Chimaera, basilisks, unicorns, microscopic mysteries. The Saint is
nearly bewildered into blasphemy; but at last the night wanes, the sun
rises, and the face of Christ beams from it. The Temptation is
ended.[398]

The magnificence of the style, in which the sweep of this
dream-procession over the stage is conveyed to the reader, is probably
the first thing that will strike him; and certainly it never palls. But,
if not at once, pretty soon, any really critical mind must perceive
something different from, and much rarer than, mere style. It is the
extraordinary power--the exactness, finish, and freedom from any excess
or waste labour, of the narrative, in reproducing dream-quality. A very
large proportion--and there is nothing surprising in the fact--of the
best pieces of ornate prose in French, as well as in English, are busied
with dreams; but the writers have not invariably remembered one of the
most singular--and even, when considered from some points of view,
disquieting--features of a dream,--that you are never, while dreaming,
in the least surprised at what happens. Flaubert makes no mistake as to
this matter. The real realism which had enabled him to re-create the
most sordid details of _Madame Bovary_, the half-historic grime and
gorgeousness mixed of _Salammbo_, and the quintessentially ordinary life
of _L'Education_, came mightily to his assistance in this his Vision of
the Desert. You see and hear its external details as Anthony saw and
heard them: you almost feel its internal influence as if Hilarion had
been--as if he _was_--at your side.

[Sidenote: _Trois Contes._]

The _Trois Contes_ which followed, and which practically completed
(except for letters) Flaubert's finished work in literature,[399] have
one of those half-extrinsic interests which, once more, it is the duty
of the historian to mention. They show that although, as has been said,
Flaubert suffered from no monotony of faculty, the range of his
faculty--or rather the range of the subjects to which he chose to apply
it--was not extremely wide. Of the twin stories, _Un Coeur Simple_ is,
though so unlike in particular, alike in general _ordinariness_ to
_Madame Bovary_ and _L'Education Sentimentale_. The unlikeness in