The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII | Page 2

imagine or observe--in accordance with their individual conception of
originality, and that is a special manner of thinking, seeing,
understanding, and judging. Now the critic who assumes that "the
novel" can be defined in conformity with the ideas he has based on the
novels he prefers, and that certain immutable rules of construction can
be laid down, will always find himself at war with the artistic

temperament of a writer who introduces a new manner of work. A critic
really worthy of the name ought to be an analyst, devoid of preferences
or passions; like an expert in pictures, he should simply estimate the
artistic value of the object of art submitted to him. His intelligence,
open to everything, must so far supersede his individuality as to leave
him free to discover and praise books which as a man he may not like,
but which as a judge he must duly appreciate.
But critics, for the most part, are only readers; whence it comes that
they almost always find fault with us on wrong grounds, or compliment
us without reserve or measure.
The reader, who looks for no more in a book than that it should satisfy
the natural tendencies of his own mind, wants the writer to respond to
his predominant taste, and he invariably praises a work or a passage
which appeals to his imagination, whether idealistic, gay, licentious,
melancholy, dreamy, or positive, as "striking" or "well written."
The public as a whole is composed of various groups, whose cry to us
writers is:
"Comfort me."
"Amuse me."
"Touch me."
"Make me dream."
"Make me laugh."
"Make me shudder."
"Make me weep."
"Make me think."
And only a few chosen spirits say to the artist:

"Give me something fine in any form which may suit you best,
according to your own temperament."
The artist makes the attempt; succeeds or fails.
The critic ought to judge the result only in relation to the nature of the
attempt; he has no right to concern himself about tendencies. This has
been said a thousand times already; it will always need repeating.
Thus, after a succession of literary schools which have given us
deformed, superhuman, poetical, pathetic, charming or magnificent
pictures of life, a realistic or naturalistic school has arisen, which
asserts that it shows us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth.
All these theories of art must be recognized as of equal interest, and we
must judge the works which are their outcome solely from the point of
view of artistic value, with an a priori acceptance of the general notions
which gave birth to each. To dispute the author's right to produce a
poetical work or a realistic work, is to endeavor to coerce his
temperament, to take exception to his originality, to forbid his using the
eyes and wits bestowed on him by Nature. To blame him for seeing
things as beautiful or ugly, as mean or epic, as gracious or sinister, is to
reproach him for not being made on this or that pattern, and for having
eyes which do not see exactly as ours see.
Let him be free by all means to conceive of things as he pleases,
provided he is an artist. Let us rise to poetic heights to judge an idealist,
and then prove to him that his dream is commonplace, ordinary, not
mad or magnificent enough. But if we judge a materialistic writer, let
us show him wherein the truth of life differs from the truth in his book.
It is self-evident that schools so widely different must have adopted
diametrically opposite processes in composition.
The novelist who transforms truth--immutable, uncompromising, and
displeasing as it is--to extract from it an exceptional and delightful plot,
must necessarily manipulate events without an exaggerated respect for

probability, molding them to his will, dressing and arranging them so
as to attract, excite, or affect the reader. The scheme of his romance is
no more than a series of ingenious combinations, skillfully leading to
the issue. The incidents are planned and graduated up to the
culminating point and effect of the conclusion, which is the crowning
and fatal result, satisfying the curiosity aroused from the first, closing
the interest, and ending the story so completely that we have no further
wish to know what happened on the morrow to the most engaging
actors in it.
The novelist who, on the other hand, proposes to give us an accurate
picture of life, must carefully eschew any concatenation of events
which might seem exceptional. His aim is not to tell a story to amuse us,
or to appeal to our feelings, but to compel us to reflect, and to
understand the occult and deeper meaning of events. By dint of seeing
and meditating he has come to regard the