This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By PAUL BOURGET
With a Preface by JULES LEMAITRE, of the French academy,
Born in Amiens, September 2, 1852, Paul Bourget was a pupil at the LyceeLouis le Grand, and then followed a course at the Ecole des HautesEtudes, intending to devote himself to Greek philology. He, however,soon gave up linguistics for poetry, literary criticism, and fiction.When yet a very young man, he became a contributor to various journalsand reviews, among others to the 'Revue des deux Mondes, La Renaissance,Le Parlement, La Nouvelle Revue', etc. He has since given himself upalmost exclusively to novels and fiction, but it is necessary to mentionhere that he also wrote poetry. His poetical works comprise: 'Poesies(1872-876), La Vie Inquiete (1875), Edel (1878), and Les Aveux (1882)'.
With riper mind and to far better advantage, he appeared a few yearslater in literary essays on the writers who had most influenced his owndevelopment—the philosophers Renan, Taine, and Amiel, the poetsBaudelaire and Leconte de Lisle; the dramatist Dumas fils, and thenovelists Turgenieff, the Goncourts, and Stendhal. Brunetiere says ofBourget that "no one knows more, has read more, read better, ormeditated, more profoundly upon what he has read, or assimilated it morecompletely." So much "reading" and so much "meditation," even whenaccompanied by strong assimilative powers, are not, perhaps, the mostdesirable and necessary tendencies in a writer of verse or of fiction.To the philosophic critic, however, they must evidently be invaluable;and thus it is that in a certain self-allotted domain of literaryappreciation allied to semi-scientific thought, Bourget stands to-daywithout a rival. His 'Essais de Psychologie Contemporaine (1883),Nouveaux Essais (1885), and Etudes et Portraits (1888)' are certainly notthe work of a week, but rather the outcome of years of self-culture andof protracted determined endeavor upon the sternest lines. In fact, fora long time, Bourget rose at 3 a.m. and elaborated anxiously study afterstudy, and sketch after sketch, well satisfied when he sometimes noticedhis articles in the theatrical 'feuilleton' of the 'Globe' and the'Parlement', until he finally contributed to the great 'Debats' itself.A period of long, hard, and painful probation must always be laid down,so to speak, as the foundation of subsequent literary fame. But France,fortunately for Bourget, is not one of those places where the foundationis likely to be laid in vain, or the period of probation to endure forever and ever.
In fiction, Bourget carries realistic observation beyond the externals(which fixed the attention of Zola and Maupassant) to states of the mind:he unites the method of Stendhal to that of Balzac. He is alwaysinteresting and amusing. He takes himself seriously and persists inregarding the art of writing fiction as a science. He has wit, humor,charm, and lightness of touch, and ardently strives after philosophy andintellectuality—qualities that are rarely found in fiction. It may wellbe said of M. Bourget that he is innocent of the creation of a singlestupid character. The men and women we read of in Bourget's novels areso intellectual that their wills never interfere with their hearts.
The list of his novels and romances is a long one, considering the factthat his first novel, 'L'Irre