e himself, nor would the ardor of the semi-animal of the
man-of-pleasure who abandons himself to the frenzy of vice. He invented
for himself, partly from instinct, partly from method, a compromise
between his contradictory tendencies, which he formulated in a fashion
slightly pedantic, when he said that his sole aim was to "intellectualize
the forcible sensations;" in clearer terms, he dreamed of meeting with,
in human life, the greatest number of impressions it could give and to
think of them after having met them.

He thought, with or without reason, to discover in his two favorite
writers, Goethe and Stendhal, a constant application of a similar
principle. His studies had, for the past fourteen years when he had begun
to live and to write, passed through the most varied spheres possible to
him. But he had passed through them, lending his presence without giving
himself to them, with this idea always present in his mind: that he
existed to become familiar with other customs, to watch other characters,
to clothe other personages and the sensations which vibrated within them.
The period of his revival was marked by the achievement of each one of
his books which he composed then, persuaded that, once written and
construed, a sentimental or social experience was not worth the trouble
of being dwelt upon. Thus is explained the incoherence of custom and the
atmospheric contact, if one may so express it, which are the
characteristics of his work. Take, for example, his first collection of
novels, the 'Etudes de Femmes,' which made him famous. They are about a
sentimental woman who loved unwisely, and who spent hours from excess of
the romantic studying the avowed or disguised demi-monde. By the side of
that, 'Sans Dieu,' the story of a drama of scientific consciousness,
attests a continuous frequenting of the Museum, the Sorbonne and the
College of France, while 'Monsieur de Premier' presents one of the most
striking pictures of the contemporary political world, which could only
have been traced by a familiar of the Palais Bourbon.

On the other hand, the three books of travel pretentiously named
'Tourisime,' 'Les Profils d'Etrangeres' and the 'Eclogue Mondaine,' which
fluctuated between Florence and London, St.-Moritz and Bayreuth, revealed
long sojourns out of France; a clever analysis of the Italian, English,
and German worlds; a superficial but true knowledge of the languages, the
history and literature, which in no way