In the _Théâtre de Clara Gazul_, Mérimée's first book, published when he was only twenty-two, it is amusing to observe the conflict of youth with the inveterate natural bias towards gloom and violence. Read superficially, the book produces the effect of a tolerably serious work. Professing to be written in the Spanish style, it nevertheless differs in many essential particulars from Spanish dramatic literature. The plays of which it is composed have no mutual resemblance; they do not, like the mantle-and-dagger tragedies, monotonously repeat the same types of character and the same situations, produced by jealousy and a touchy sense of honour; nor do they accept the extremely conventional ideas of morality current in the tragedies in question. Mérimée's characters have distinctly defined individualities; and instead of exhibiting superhuman self-control and resignation, they are carried blindly away by their passions and desires. Still less resemblance is there between these plays of Mérimée's and the great series of romantic and fantastic dramas (some of them breathing the spirit of Catholicism, others lacking it) in which Calderon reaches the zenith of his productive power and displays all his wealth of colour. It is only with certain heavy Spanish dramas, such as Calderon's _El alcalde de Zalamea, Las tres justicias in una, El medico de su honra, El pintor de su deshonra_, or Moreto's _El valiente justiciero_, that certain of Mérimée's, for example _Inès Mendo_, harmonise in their general tone. Taken as a whole, instead of being what it pretends to be, namely serious, the book is arrogantly wanton and audacious; genuine French frivolity and satire peep out beneath the costume of the Spanish actress. Personages are introduced upon the stage whom, as we are told in the preface to _Une Femme est un Diable_, our nurses taught us to regard with reverence. But the author hopes that "the emancipated Spaniards" will not take this amiss. _Clara Gazul_ is, then, a merry book; the good lady who wrote it is no prude. But what a strange kind of mirth it is! Amongst its manifestations is the free use of the knife. If we try to find a parallel to it, nothing suggests itself but the sportive springs of a young tiger. Mérimée finds it almost impossible to end without killing all his principal characters, and one sword-thrust succeeds the other almost automatically. But he amuses himself by destroying the illusion directly after the catastrophe; the actors rise, and one of them thanks the audience for their kind attention; the whole thing is turned into a jest. _Doña Maria._ Help! She is poisoned, poisoned by me. I will see to my own punishment; the convent well is not far off. (_Exit hurriedly._) _Fray Eugenio_ (_to the audience_). Do not take it too much amiss that I have caused the death of these two charming young ladies; and graciously excuse the shortcomings of the author.