32. GUY DE MAUPASSANT. LE MAISON TELLIER. MADAME TELLIER'S
ESTABLISHMENT. _Any translation, preferably not one bound in paper or
in an "Edition de Luxe."_

Guy de Maupassant's short stories remain, with those of Henry James
and Joseph Conrad, the very best of their kind. After "Madame
Tellier's Establishment" perhaps the stories called respectively "A
Farm Girl" and "Love" are the best he wrote.

He has the eternal excellencies of savage humanity, savage sincerity,
and savage brevity. His pessimism is deep, absolute, unshaken;--and
the world, as we know it, deserves what he gives it of sensualized
literary reactions, each one like the falling thud of the blade of a
murderous axe.

His racking, scooping, combing insight, into the recesses of man's
natural appetites will never be surpassed. How under the glance of his
Norman anger, all manner of pretty subterfuges fade away; and "the
real thing" stands out, as Nature and the Earth know it--"stark,
bleak, terrible and lovely." His subjects may not wander very far from
the basic situations. He does not deal in spiritual subtleties. But
when he hits, he hits the mark.



33. STENDHAL (HENRI BEYLE). LE ROUGE ET LE NOIR. _Either the
original French or any translation, if possible with a preface; for