EGOISTS, A BOOK OF SUPERMEN STENDHAL, BAUDELAIRE, FLAUBERT, ANATOLE FRANCE, HUYSMANS, BARRÈS, NIETZSCHE, BLAKE, IBSEN, STIRNER, AND ERNEST HELLO BY JAMES HUNEKER WITH PORTRAIT OF STENDHAL; UNPUBLISHED LETTER OF FLAUBERT; AND ORIGINAL PROOF PAGE OF MADAME BOVARY NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1909 [Illustration: Henry Beyle-Stendhal--Redrawn by Edwin B. Child from a crayon portrait.] TO DR. GEORG BRANDES "Leb' Ich, wenn andere leben?"--Goethe The studies gathered here first appeared in _Scribner's Magazine_, the _Atlantic Monthly_, the _North American Review_, the _New York Times_, and the _New York Sun_. CONTENTS I. A Sentimental Education: Henry Beyle-Stendhal II. The Baudelaire Legend III. The Real Flaubert IV. Anatole France V. The Pessimists' Progress: J.-K. Huysmans VI. The Evolution of an Egoist: Maurice Barrès VII. Phases of Nietzsche I. The Will to Suffer II. Nietzsche's Apostasy III. Antichrist? VIII. Mystics I. Ernest Hello II. "Mad Naked Blake" III. Francis Poictevin IV. The Road to Damascus V. From an Ivory Tower IX. Ibsen X. Max Stirner I A SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION HENRY BEYLE-STENDHAL I The fanciful notion that psychical delicacy is accompanied by a corresponding physical exterior should have received a death-blow in the presence of Henry Beyle, better known as Stendhal. Chopin, Shelley, Byron and Cardinal Newman did not in personal appearance contradict their verse, prose and music; but Stendhal, possessing an exquisite sensibility, was, as Hector Berlioz cruelly wrote in his Memoirs: "A little pot-bellied man with a spiteful smile, who tried to look grave." Sainte-Beuve is more explicit. "Physically his figure, though not short, soon grew thick-set and heavy, his neck short and full-blooded. His fleshy face was framed in dark curly hair and whiskers, which before his death were assisted by art. His forehead was fine: the nose turned up, and somewhat Calmuck in shape. His lower lip, which projected a little, betrayed his tendency to scoff. His eyes were rather small but very bright, deeply set in their cavities, and pleasing when he smiled. His hands, of which he was proud, were small and daintily shaped. In the last years of his life he grew heavy and apoplectic. But he always took great pains to conceal the symptoms of physical decay even from his own friends."