Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-11-06
LITERARY BEAUTY.

Gsuv de Maupassaut Tells How Artistic
 Literature Is Produced.
 Guy de Maupassant, who is recognized in France as literary godchild and heir of Gustave Flaubert, prefaces one of his novels with an essay on ''The Novel," and in the course of his essay makes some reflections on style which are well worth considering.
 He says: "Whatever the thing we wish to say there is but one word to ex- press it. but one verb to give it move- ment but one adjective to qualify it. We must seek till we find this noun. this verb, and this adjective, and never be content with getting very near it. never allow ourselves to play tricks. even happy ones, or have resourse to sights of language to avoid a difficulty. The subtlest things may be rendered and suggested by applying the hint con- veyed in Boileau's line, He taught the power of a word put in the right place.
 "There is no need for an eccentric cabulary to formulate every shade of thought, the complicated, multifarious and outlandish words which are put upon us nowadays in the name of artistic writing; but every modification of the value of word by the place it fills must be distinguished with ex- treme clearness. Give us fewer nouns, verbs and adjectives, with almost in-' scrutable shades of meaning, and let us have greater variety of phrases, more variously constructed, ingenious1y di- vided, full of sorority and skillful rhythm. Let us strive to be admirable in ufu1a than rnrinno ir an11onf- ing rare words"
 There could be no better or sounder advice to those who have chosen litera- ture as profession, whether their work be writing novels or preparing treat ise on the high mathematics. writer who adopts obsolescent words and ar chaic forms is like the juggler who diverts the attention of his audience from his real purpose by making humor- ous remarks or complimentary speeches or by doing some simple trick which bears no relation to the real features of his performance. It is not difficult matter to impose upon most people by a show of learning. A dictionary and a little industry will enable a writer oi average intelligence to collect a store of what Maupassant we'll denominates l uu1LIIhClOuSS anu out landish words" and whether he uses them with skill or not the general pub. lie is equally impressed with the ele. | gance of his style and the prodigious' ness of his erudition.
 Maupassant himself practices what he breaches. Whatever may be thought o1 the morality of his stories or of his choice of themes, there can be but one opinion as to his use of the French Ian guage. He has not reconstructed it, as Theophile Gautier did in a great meas. ure, but he has selected his words aud made them into phrases with an un erring eye for effect and pure artistic taste. He himself says of the French language: Ut is a pure stream, which affected writers never have and never san trouble. Each age has flung into the limpid waters it pretentious archaisms and euphuisms, but nothing has re mained on the surface to perpetate these futile attempts and impotent efforts. Ii is the nature of the language to be clear logical and vigorous"
 All this and more may be said with equal truth of that composite tongue which we call the English language and Maupassant's remarks about sim. plicity and directness of style apply with added force to that language W ith countless stores of gold to draw from it would be silly man who would attempt to force lead or brass counter. into general circulatio' as money; and yet this is just what some of our writer: seek to do. They neglect the language which the great masters of poetry and prose have found ample for their need, and invented 8 iargon of their own hoping possibly to conceal their paucity of ideas and inability to give clear ex precision even to those few ideas, by ar uncouth and wholly artificial dictioI which shall make the reader lose sigh of the want of power in the machine by being stunned by the rumble of the wheels and blinded by the glitter of it's external and useless trappings.