ore.

As a writer of verse Bourget was merely trying his wings, and his poems,
which were collected in two volumes(1885-1887), are chiefly interesting
for the light which they throw upon his mature method and the later
products of his art. It was in criticism that his genius first found its
true bent. The habit of close scientific analysis which he derived from
his father, the sense of style produced by a fine ear and moulded by a
classical education, the innate appreciation of art in all its forms,
the taste for seeing men and cities, the keen interest in the oldest not
less than the newest civilizations, and the large tolerance not to be
learned on the _boulevard_--all these combined to provide him with a
most uncommon equipment for the critic's task. It is not surprising that
the _Sensations d'ltalie_ (1891), and the various psychological studies,
are in their different ways scarcely surpassed throughout the whole
range of literature. Bourget's reputation as a novelist has long been
assured. Deeply impressed by the singular art of Henry Beyle (Stendhal),
he struck out on a new course at a moment when the realist school
reigned without challenge in French fiction. His idealism, moreover, had
a character of its own. It was constructed on a scientific basis, and
aimed at an exactness, different from, yet comparable to, that of the
writers who were depicting with an astonishing faithfulness the
environment and the actions of a person or a society. With Bourget
observation was mainly directed to the secret springs of human
character. At first his purpose seemed to be purely artistic, but when
_Le Disciple_ appeared, in 1889, the preface to that remarkable story
revealed in him an unsuspected fund of moral enthusiasm. Since then he
has varied between his earlier and his later manner, but his work in
general has been more seriously conceived. From first to last he has
painted with a most delicate brush the intricate emotions of women,
whether wronged, erring or actually vicious; and he has described not
less happily the ideas, the passions and the failures of those young men
of France to whom he makes special appeal.

Bourget has been charged with pessimism, and with undue delineation of
one social class. The first charge can hardly be sustained. The lights
in his books are usually low; there is a certain lack of gaiety, and the
characters move in a world of disenchantment. But there is no despair in
his own outlook upon h