oreign to his work.

But a peculiarity of Flaubert's,--and one more personal, which even most
of the naturalists have not shared with him, neither the Dutch in their
paintings, nor the English in the history of romance (the author of _Tom
Jones_ or of _Clarissa Harlowe_), nor the Russians, Tolstoi or
Dostoiefski,--is to despise the role of irony in art. "My personages are
profoundly repugnant to me," he wrote, _a propos_ of _Madame Bovary_.
But they were not always repugnant to him, at least not all of them,
and, in verification of this, we find that he has not for Spendius,
Matho, Hamilcar, and Hanno, the boundless scorn that he affects for
Homais or for Bournisien, for Bouvard or for Pecuchet.

We recognise here the particular and special form of Flaubert's
pessimism. That there could be people in the world, among his
contemporaries, who were not wholly absorbed and preoccupied with art,
surpassed his comprehension, and when this indifference did not arouse
an indignation which exasperated him even to blows, it drew from him a
scornful laughter that one might call Homeric or Rabelaisian, since it
incited more to anger than to gaiety. And this is the reason why _Madame
Bovary_, _Education Sentimentale_, _Un Coeur Simple_, and _Bouvard et
Pecuchet_ would be more truly named were they called satires and not
representations.

The exaggeration of the principle here recoils upon itself. That
disinterestedness, that impartiality, that serenity which permitted him
to "hover impartially above all objects" deserted him. A satirist, or to
be more exact, a caricaturist, awoke within the naturalist. He raged at
his own characters. He railed at them and mocked them. The interest of
the representation had undergone a change. He was no longer in the
attitude of mere fidelity to facts, but in a state of scorn and violent
derision. Homais and Bournisien are no longer studies in themselves, but
a burden to Flaubert. His _Education Sentimentale_, in spite of him,
became, to use his own expression, an overflow of rancour. In _Bouvard
et Pecuchet_ he gave way to his hatred of humanity; here, as a favour,
and under the mask of irony, he brings himself into his work, and, like
a simple Madame Sand, or a vulgar De Musset, we perceive Flaubert
himself, bull-necked and ruddy, with the moustaches of a Gallic chief,
agonizing at each turn in the romance.

It is not necessary to exaggerate Flaubert's influence. In his time
there were ten other