But under the shadow of this terrible phantasm as he was, latterly his cold, unsympathetic scrutiny of men and things had warmed somewhat, and his latest writings--his productive period covers only about ten intensely active years--show more gentleness, more sympathy with struggling humanity. But never did he really depart from the morbid and cynical view of life, and the horror of death as the final breakdown of all things desirable, which showed so plainly in most of his fictions. If we see but little of Guy de Maupassant’s life in his writings, it is to them we must turn to discover his temperament and his philosophy--glimpses of which we have already had. Absolutely French, almost a typical Latin, Maupassant was not unemotional; he merely refused to allow _his_ emotions to color the characters he delineated. He was himself a passionate pleasure-seeker, determined to extract the last drop of satisfaction from life, but he erred in thinking that one may at the same time drain the cup of mental joys and that of physical pleasures. What wonder that this vampire, in love with the blood of life, should suck final poison whence he had thought to draw only pulsing bliss. His very repressions supplied power for each fresh explosion of private excess--yet always the cold precision of his artistry grew, until the perfection of his chiselling left critics wordless. The deft maker of word-masterpieces never lost the artist in the man. According to this warped genius, life was intended to amuse, to gratify self. Inner beauty he scouted--the beauty of the seen he adored. For such a nature the ideal existed only as a foolish figment. Even ideal love he scouted, depicting with relentless fidelity the sins of a mother as discovered by her loving children, the universal laxity of the Norman peasants as condoned by complacent priests, the ravishing of every illusion, the degradation of every virtue. What other conclusion was there for so sad, so hopeless, so pitiless, so materialistic, a philosophy, than _What’s the use!_ But if there was little of apparent beauty in our author’s character, it is impossible not to admire his industry, his will, his passionate devotion to a perfect art, his relentless literary fidelity to truth as he saw it, his magic mastery of diction and of dialogue, his incisive though unmoral analysis of character and life, his constant advance in craftsmanship to the end. To turn out something beautiful in form was to him worth a lifetime of effort. How great would he have grown had his eyes been opened to the inner light! I have chosen his _Clair de Lune_ for presentation here because it more nearly approaches spiritual beauty than any other of his stories. It needs no commentary--it speaks its own beauties in tones subtly delicate yet silver clear. MOONLIGHT (_CLAIR DE LUNE_) By Guy de Maupassant