Maupassant's philosophy of life is more temperamental than rational. He
expects nothing from gods or men. He trusts his senses for information
and his instinct for deductions. It may seem that he has made but little
use of his mind. But let me be clearly understood. His sensibility is
really very great; and it is impossible to be sensible, unless one thinks
vividly, unless one thinks correctly, starting from intelligible premises
to an unsophisticated conclusion.
This is literary honesty. It may be remarked that it does not differ
very greatly from the ideal honesty of the respectable majority, from the
honesty of law-givers, of warriors, of kings, of bricklayers, of all
those who express their fundamental sentiment in the ordinary course of
their activities, by the work of their hands.
The work of Maupassant's hands is honest. He thinks sufficiently to
concrete his fearless conclusions in illuminative instances. He renders
them with that exact knowledge of the means and that absolute devotion to
the aim of creating a true effect--which is art. He is the most
accomplished of narrators.
It is evident that Maupassant looked upon his mankind in another spirit
than those writers who make haste to submerge the difficulties of our
holding-place in the universe under a flood of false and sentimental
assumptions.
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