The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-08-05
BIRTHDAY OF MAUPAsSANT.
 MASTER OF SHORT STORY

Paris will today honor the memory of Guy de Maupassant, supreme mas ter of the short story. on the occa- sion of the sixty-second anniversary of his birth. While those who know that unfortunate genius only through English translations have missed much of the delicacy' and charm of the orig 1nal French, Mauppassant has be- come of late years extremely popular in America and England and dozens of editions of his works have been published. While his novels, essays and verses are delightful, it was by Frenchman won. enduring fame His novels lack continuity and are in real ity only short stories strung together or expanded. A second memorial to Maupassant will be dedicated today in the Paris he loved and which loved him. At the unTeiling of the first Maupassant monument in Paris, Ennile Zola was the principal speaker. He described the master of the short story as "a Latin of good, clear solid head a maker of beautiful sentences shining like gold pure as the diamond z
 Maupassant was born August 5. 1850 in an ancient chateau in Normandy, and came. of an old and noble falnily y. He was early initiated into the '.mis- CTlcS OA IIIdlIlufOuJ Dy IL0 COIlJuS dl infelicity of his parents, who separ- ated when he was still child. Yve- tot, in Normandy, the scene of many of his tales, was MaMpassaDt's early home, and as a lad he gained the in- sight into the Norman peasant char acter that he later wrought into gems of prose and verse. Knowing the peasantRy, he was also intimate with the gentry of the country, and his pie lures of their life, their loves and passions, one feels are true to real .ity.
 AS young man, MaupaSSant was a clerk in the civil service, serving in the navy and education departments, and the men he met appear in vari- oHs of his tales. The weary grind and trivial duties of such life ap~ palled him, and the grim necessity of escaping from such career drove him to the pen. Tn his literary am bitions he had the benefit of the ad- vice and counsel of tGuStave F1aubert his god father and an old friend of his family Flaubert taught his pu- pill that genius was an infinite fcapae- tty for taking pains, and this advice was much needed by the youth. Foi
 half a, dozen years he served an ap- premiership under F1aubert, writing numberless tales, novels, essays verses and dramas. submitting them to the criticism of his master, ano then destroying them. At last F'lau- bert advised him to seek a publisher and 'Boule de Stiff brought immed- fate recognition to the young author He resigned his position with the gov ernment and turned his entire atten' ton to writing, turning out two oi three volumes a year. Altogether
 Maupassant wrote over 200 stories, be sides much other work.
 Oftenest he turned for topics to the
 baser and. ignoble sides of life, and perhaps it was this that led him into habits of dissipation. Overwork anc vice led to madness, and for a time before his death in 1893 he was vio- lentIy insane. To the last he enter tained detestation for love and life honors and fame. Three things, he
 declared, were a disgrace to any
 Frenchman-to become a member o1 the Academy, to wear the ribbon oi the Legion of Honor, and to write for the Revue des Deux Mondes. Ht had scores of love affairs, with al
 classes and types of fernininity, but
 real love he never knew.