ch took in the
surface of things, whether it was love, or philosophy, or politics, or
scenery, or manners, with remarkable and indifferent facility. She had
also a style which, if it cannot be ranked among the great literary
styles from its absence of statuesque outline, and from its too great
fluidity, was excellently suited for the task of improvisation. Her
novels, therefore, slipped from her without the slightest mental effort,
and appear to have cost her nothing. It is not true, in this case, that
what has cost nothing is worth nothing. But even favourable critics
admit that it is peculiarly difficult to read a novel of George Sand a
second time, and this is perhaps a decisive test. She is, indeed, far
more of an improvising novelist than Dumas, to whom the term has more
often been applied, though she wrote better French, and attempted more
ambitious subjects. The better characteristics of her novels reappeared,
perhaps to greater advantage, in her numerous and agreeable letters,
especially those to the novelist Flaubert.

[Sidenote: Merimee.]

In striking contrast with these three novelists was Prosper Merimee,
also a novelist for the most part, but, unlike them, a comparatively
infertile writer[292], and one of the most exquisite masters of French
prose that the nineteenth century has seen. Merimee was born in 1803,
and was therefore almost exactly of an age with the writers just
mentioned. For a time he took a certain share in the Romantic movement,
but his distinguishing characteristic was a kind of critical cynicism,
partly real, partly affected, which made him dislike and distrust
exaggeration of all kinds. He accordingly soon fell off. Possessing
independent means, and entering the service of the government, he was
not obliged to write for bread, and for many years he produced little,
devoting himself as much to archaeology and the classical languages as to
French. He accepted the Second Empire apparently from a genuine and
hearty hatred of democracy, and was rewarded with the post of senator.
But he had to assist Napoleon III. in his _Caesar_, and to dance
attendance on the Court, the latter duty being made somewhat less
irksome to him by his personal attachment to the Empress. Two
collections of letters, which have appeared since his death, one
addressed to an unknown lady, and the other to the late Sir Antonio
Panizzi, while adding to Merimee's literary reputation, have thrown very
curious light on his