His characters are never simple, straightforward beings; yet he manages to impart to them, to the women as well as the men, a peculiar imprint of nobility. They possess a certain genuine, though distorted heroism, a certain strength of aspiration which elevates all their emotions; and in the hour of trial they show that they have finer feelings and stouter hearts than the generality of human beings. Observe some of the little characteristics with which he stamps his women. Of Madame de Rénal in _Rouge et Noir_ we are told: "Hers was one of those noble and enthusiastic souls which feel almost as keen remorse for not having performed a magnanimous action of which they have perceived the possibility, as for having committed a crime." Mathilde de la Mole says: "I feel myself on a plane with everything that is audacious and great.... What great action has not seemed foolishness at the moment when it was being ventured on? It is not till it is accomplished that it seems possible to the ordinary mortal." In these two short quotations, two uncommon female characters of opposite types, the self-sacrificing and the foolhardy, are outlined with the hand of a master. We feel that Beyle was absolutely correct when, in his letter to Balzac, he defines his artistic method as follows: "I take some person or other whom I know well; I allow him or her to retain the fundamental traits of his or her character--_ensuite je lui donne plus d'esprit_." Of the two novels, _Le Rouge et le Noir_, the scene of which is laid in France, is unmistakably the better; in _La Chartreuse de Parme_ we only occasionally feel that we are treading the firm ground of reality. Beyle constructed his own Italy upon the foundation of the fantastically interpreted experiences of his youth, and upon us moderns this Italy produces an impression of untrustworthiness. Both in his novel and in his essays he shows that the Italian mind, by reason of its quality of vivid imagination, is much more plagued by suspicions and delusions than the French, but that in compensation its pleasures are more intense and more lasting, and that it possesses a keener sense of beauty and less vanity. We are every now and then surprised by observations in the domain of racial psychology, which, provided they are correct (which I believe them to be), are extraordinarily acute. We are told, for instance, of the Duchess of Sanseverina, that, although she herself had employed poison to make away with an enemy, she was almost beside herself with horror when she heard that the man she loved was in danger of being poisoned. "The moral reflection did not occur to her which would at once have suggested itself to a woman educated in one of those religions of the North which permit personal examination: 'I employed poison and am therefore punished by poison.' In Italy this species of reflection in a moment of tragic passion would seem as foolishly out of place as a pun would in Paris in similar