with a sound framework and having the suppleness of a living organism.

Very industrious and very careful at first, Maupassant, in the fever
of production, became less careful. He early accustomed himself to
composing in his mind. "Composition amuses me," he said, "when I am
thinking it out, and not when I am writing it." ... Once he had
thought out his novels or romances, he transcribed them hurriedly,
almost mechanically. In his manuscripts, long pages follow each other
without an erasure.

His language appears natural, easy, and at first sight seems
spontaneous. But at the price of what effort was it not acquired! ...

In reality, in the writer, his sense of sight and smell were
perfected, to the detriment of the sense of hearing which is not very
musical. Repetitions, assonances, do not always shock Maupassant, who
is sometimes insensible to quantity as he is to harmony. He does not
"orchestrate," he has not inherited the "organ pipes" of Flaubert.

In his vocabulary there is no research; he never even requires a rare
word....

Those whom Flaubert's great organ tones delighted, those whom
Theophile Gautier's frescoes enchanted, were not satisfied, and
accused Maupassant, somewhat harshly, of not being a "writer" in the
highest sense of the term. The reproach is unmerited, for there is but
one style.

But, on the other hand, it is difficult to admit, with an eminent
academician that Maupassant must be a great writer, a classical