The sun., 1909-01-24

tnEuished surgeon. could write: Il am
r4Ading books on hygiene; how comical
they are. What impertinence these ply
slaans have Whet asses for the most
part they are!'
Du camp, who was clever and witty as
rel! as !neract and reckless Of statements,
7as a man given to envies and literary
@alousies--he never got over Flaubert's
startling suocess with Madame Bovary.'
He once wrote a fancful epitaph for
louise colet, a French woman Of nedioc-
.ty the Muse Of Flaubert, a general
routls breeder and recipient Of Flau-
bert correspondence. The Colet had
ea!b.oiled herself with De AIusset and
had published spiteful romance in which
rttr Flaubert was the villain. This Is
The Du Camp inscription: Here lies the
ronlan who compromised Victor Cousin
made Alfred de Musset ridiculous. oalum-
mated Gustave Flaubert and tried to
assassnate Alphonse Karr: Requiescdt an
ace \ like epitaph suggests itself for
Maxine du Camp: ~Hic jdcet the man
who sandered Baudelaire, traduced his
loving friend Gustave Flaubcrt, and was
sruhed out of critical existence by Guy
ds Naupassant."
The massive shouldered Hercules, Flau-
bert, Hercules spinning prose for his
s1acting Dejanra of art has been called
unintelligent by Anatole France. lie had
not, it is true, the subtle critical brain
and thorough scholarship OF NJ. France.
vet Flaubert was learned. Brunetiere
taxed him with an excess Of erudition.
However, his Observation-Disclosures con-
versa ion, his lack of logic. his rather gross
tense of humor. are not to be found in his
work Without that work. without "Sa-
ammbo." for example would we have
Rad the pleasure, thrice distilled. OF read
,ng Anatole Frances "Thais"? (See Il
angle instance in edition defntte Temp
tatiop," page lis. episode Of the Gym
nosophistl All revlvals Of the antique
world are unsatisfactory at best, whether
Chateaubriand Martyrs or the unsub-
.tantial lath and plaster Of Bulwer's Last
Days of Pompeii' and the fabhness and
fustian Of Quo Nadis.' The most per-
feet attempt il 'Salammb6," an opera
in words. and its battlements of purple
prose were riddled by Sainte- Beuve. by
Froehner, and lately by Maurice Pezard
who proved to his own satisfaction
that Flsubert was sadly amiss in his
Punio archaeology. Well, who cares
4 he was incorrect in details? His par
rally successful reconstruction of an
epoch is admitted, though the human
element is somewhat obliterated. Flau-
bert vas bound to be more Carthaginian
than Carthage
After the scandal caused by the prose-
ruticn Of Madame Bovary, that alIstere,
moral book. Flaubert was afraid to pub
ish his 1856. second version, OF -St. An |
tony He had been advised by the sapient |
Du Camp to cast the manuscript into the |
fire, after reading before Bouilhet and !
Du Camp lasting thirty-three hours. |
But he had refused This was In Sep I
rsmber, 1s49. Du Camp declares that
he asked him to essay the 'Delaunay af-
fair meaning the Delamarre story.
This Flaubert did and the result was the
priceless history of Charles and Emma
Bovary. D D'Aurevilly attacked the book;
Baudelaire defended 1t. Later Turgeneff
wrote TO Flaubert: After all, you are
Flaubert!' George Sand was inotherly !
consoler. Their letters are delightful. She /
did not understand the bluff, naive Gus |.
tave--she who composed 80 fowingly /
snd could turn on or of her prose ike Z
me rap Of kitchen hydrant the simle ,
,s her ovn). How could she fathpm the /
tormented desire of her friend for ter
fAction, for the blending of idea and |
mage, for the eternal pursuit of the I
night word, the shapely sentence, the ,
cadenced coda of a paragraph And /
~ the larger demands of style of the tone
~ page, chapter, book. why should .
this fluent and graceful writer. called
George Sand, concern herself with such .
slpereuities? It was always an q n'iiodO .
With Flaubert-the most copious careless
- correspondents. He had set for him
self an impossible standard Of perfection
end an ideal OF impersonality in art neither
RI which he realized But there Is no
outward sign Of his conhicts in his work;
al trace Of the labor bestowed upon his
Paragraphs is absent His style j. sim
ole, direct large; above all claar-.thc
clarity Of classic prose.
His declaiming aloud his sentences ha,
tseu ad1uced TO prove his ahserc" of
sanity. Beethoven too wa- pronounced
crazy by his various landladios because
he sarg and howled in his voice Of = com
poser compositions in the making, Flau
NeEI Was tnS pOsSeSsoT OF An "fculdt"
musical ear Not without Justice did
roppee call him "the Beethoven of French
nrose' His sense Of rhythm was acute,
he earned it so far that be would sarri-
t2s grammar 70 rhythmic flow lie :
tested his sentences aloud. Once in his
apartment Rue Murillo, overlooking Pare .
Nonceau, he rehearsed a page Of IA new
hook for hours. Belated coachmen not
'-g The open windows, hearing an out
rsgeous vocal noise, concluded that
rrps!cal soiree was in progress. Gradually
the street filed OH either side with car ,
rlages in search of passengers; but the :
guests never emerged from the house. :
In the early morning the lights were cx-
rngushed and the oaths Of the disap-
pointed coachmen must have been en- !
lnyed by Flaubert. n
He would annotate three hundred vol s
vines for page OF facts. His bump of g
.crupulousness was large. In twenty
pages he would sometimes save three or
fnIr from destruction. He did not be-
come, however. as captious as Balzac in =
the handling Of proofs. Amartyr of style, :.
tsvas not an enaIneler in precious stones, =
Trt a r,a liant tnosaic unrkar suparipn q