Flaubert's Parrot

We owe our knowledge of these letters to the lady herself, who has published them with a frankness more common in France than among ourselves. She has, however, taken every pain to draw the veil about her identity, and it may be said on her behalf that it is none of our business who she was or what she was. But only a very unimaginative reader will spare his conjectures. There is something extremely provoking to curiosity in the image, however shadowy, of a woman clever enough to have all this cleverness addressed to her. The author tells her early in the book that she has “a nature so raffinée”—something more than our “refined”—“as to be for him the summing up of a civilization.” She had a head worth favoring. Constantly busy himself with philological studies, he recommends her to learn Greek as a pastime, and tells her how to set to work. It soon appears that she has taken his advice, and in the course of time we find her enjoying Homer and the tragedians. Later, when, with the privilege of a twenty years' friendship, he utters all the crudities that come into his head, he scolds her at being alarmed at what she finds in Aristophanes...Gradually, however, sentiment of the tenderer sort disappears—but by absorption, as one may say, and not by evanescence. After a correspondence of ten years the writer’s devotion may be taken for granted. His letters become an irremissible habit, an intellectual need, a receptacle for his running commentary on life. The second volume of the Lettres à une Inconnue contain less that is personal to the lady, and more allusions to other people and things, more anecdotes and promiscuous reflections. Mérimée became more and more a man of the world. He was member of two Academies, inspector and conservator of national monuments (a very active post, apparently), a senator of the Empire and an intimate friend of sovereigns. He travels constantly from Moscow to Madrid, makes regular archaeological surveys through the length and breadth of France, and pays frequent visits to England. He meets every one and knows most people—most great people, at least. In the midst of these things he dispatches constant notes to his correspondent, flashing his lantern fitfully over his momentary associates and over the events of the hours. There is a multitude of entertaining opinions, characterizations and anecdotes; but we lack space for quotations. Everything he says is admirably said; his phrase, in its mingled brevity and laxity, is an excellent fit for his thought. He tells anecdotes as vividly as Madame de Sévigné and in much fewer words. His judgments are rarely flattering and his impressions rarely genial; and, as proper names have been retained without, with unprecedented audacity, many of his opinions must have aroused a sufficiently inharmonious echo.