reflect a little upon the texture of two stories included in this volume:
"A Piece of String," and "A Sale." How many openings the last offers for
the gratuitous display of the author's wit or clever buffoonery, the
first for an unmeasured display of sentiment! And both sentiment and
buffoonery could have been made very good too, in a way accessible to the
meanest intelligence, at the cost of truth and honesty. Here it is where
Maupassant's austerity comes in. He refrains from setting his cleverness
against the eloquence of the facts. There is humour and pathos in these
stories; but such is the greatness of his talent, the refinement of his
artistic conscience, that all his high qualities appear inherent in the
very things of which he speaks, as if they had been altogether
independent of his presentation. Facts, and again facts are his unique
concern. That is why he is not always properly understood. His facts
are so perfectly rendered that, like the actualities of life itself, they
demand from the reader the faculty of observation which is rare, the
power of appreciation which is generally wanting in most of us who are
guided mainly by empty phrases requiring no effort, demanding from us no
qualities except a vague susceptibility to emotion. Nobody has ever
gained the vast applause of a crowd by the simple and clear exposition of
vital facts. Words alone strung upon a convention have fascinated us as
worthless glass beads strung on a thread have charmed at all times our
brothers the unsophisticated savages of the islands. Now, Maupassant, of
whom it has been said that he is the master of the _mot juste_, has never
been a dealer in words. His wares have been, not glass beads, but
polished gems; not the most rare and precious, perhaps, but of the very
first water of their kind.

That he took trouble with his gems, taking them up in the rough and
polishing each facet patiently, the publication of the two posthumous
volumes of short stories proves abundantly. I think it proves also the