interior of the mind. The plot consists of the sentimental complications resultant on the consciousness of the hero, who is one of those souls made to feel with energy, of his natural disqualification for efficient marriage. Yet with a subtlety which is Jamesian in everything but the clearness of the style, the actual difficulty is never explicitly mentioned, though every nuance of sensitiveness is delicately delineated. And with what delicate simplicity does Stendhal narrate the suicide of Octave, who has simply married his adored cousin in order to leave her the prestige of a rich and honourable widowhood. Shortly after the marriage Octave has left his wife and set sail for Greece.

"Never had Octave been so under the spell of the most tender love as in this supreme moment. He granted to himself the luxury of telling everything to Armance except the nature of his death. A cabin boy from the top of the mast cried out 'land.' It was the soil of Greece and the mountains of the Morea which were to be perceived on the horizon. A fresh wind carried on the vessel rapidly. The name of Greece reawakened the courage of Octave. I salute you, he said to himself, oh land of heroes. And at midnight on the third of March, as the moon was rising behind Mount Kalos, a self-prepared mixture of opium and digitalis softly delivered Octave from that life of his which had been so agitated. He was found at dawn motionless on the bridge, resting on some cordage. A smile was on his lips, and his rare beauty struck even the sailors charged with his burial."

Stendhal's next work was the well-known Promenades en Rome, an admirable book entirely free from the taint of the conscientious sightseer, but replete with the original observations of an acute cosmopolitan who never shrinks from following his fancy along some amiable digression. It was however in Le Rouge et le Noir, 1830, that Stendhal gave to the world his real masterpiece. This work, which has become since the end of the last century the revered object of the cult of the Rougistes, among whom it is a point of honour to know the whole book by heart, and which occupies an equal rank with that of the Comédie Humaine or Madame Bovary, is remarkable both by reason of the intrinsic character of the hero and the psychological technique with which the story is told.

The hero, like Stendhal himself, possesses a subjective and sensitive mind, rendered tough and virile by the savage energy of the Revolution. In fact some previous knowledge both of Stendhal's life and Stendhal's character are requisite for the full appreciation of a book which, in spite of the fact that the hero is not only a seducer but also an attempted murderer, has yet some claim to be regarded as the dignified confession of a robust faith.

Julien Sorel is the son of a carpenter in a small provincial town. Proved guilty from his infancy of the unpardonable crime of being different from the average child, he is harshly treated by his father. The Napoleonic legend inflames his imagination, but he lives in the time of the Restoration, when it is the Church and not the Army which opens a career to the ambitious parvenu. By a stroke of fortune Julien obtains when nineteen the post of tutor to the children of the local mayor, M. de Rênal. Feeling acutely the degradation of his menial position, he violently rebels against his own sensitiveness, as he deliberately forges the natural softness of his heart into the most brutal iron. Formulating the ideals of pride and success, he determines to live up to them at whatever cost either to himself or others. When consequently the charming though ordinary Mme. de Rênal begins to manifest towards him a somewhat personal interest, he sets himself to force the pace, as a matter neither of sensuality nor even of politeness, but of sheer self-respect. What for instance are Julien's feelings during the first assignation?

"Instead of being attentive to the transports which he was bringing into existence, and to those feelings of remorse which somewhat dulled their vivacity, the idea of his duty never ceased to be present to his eyes. He was afraid of an awful remorse and of an eternal stultification if he should deviate from that ideal model which he proposed to follow." From being, however, the mere instrument of his ethical self-discipline, Mme. de Rênal becomes the sincere object of his romantic devotion. But the intrigue is discovered and Julien is packed off to a theological seminary. Though a devout freethinker, he sacrifices his beliefs to his ambition. His deviation from the mediocre pattern renders him unpopular, but his very unpopularity only serves to stiffen his perverse obstinacy for success. After an agonising struggle he succeeds in winning the due of abilities, and goes to Paris to become secretary to the Marquis de la Môle, an influential nobleman, drawn after the model of the author's relative, Comte Daru. He gains the confidence of his employer, which he rewards by an intrigue with his daughter Mathilde (Mme. Daru). Here again it is stern devotion to principle, not natural love, which is the motive. It is in fact on purely ethical and idealistic considerations that he goes to the nocturnal rendezvous in the same spirit that a soldier goes to the field of battle or a martyr to the stake. And as Banti in that variation of Hamlet's soliloquy of "To be or not to be," which we have already considered, clinched the question by the consideration that if he did not embrace the opportunity he would regret it all his life, so did Julien exclaim: "Au fond il y a de la lâcheté à ne pas y aller, ce mot décide tout." Note also the masterly delineation of the girl herself, who, yielding originally by reason neither of her love nor her weakness, but simply through her romantic desire to emulate an illustrious ancestress, falls completely in love and manifests a courage which in spite of some affectation is none the less genuine. The Marquis de la Môle is compelled to promise to recognise Julien as his son-in-law and procures for him a commission in the army. But now just when the hero's ambitions are beginning to realise themselves, Mme. de Rênal writes, under priestly instigation, a slanderous letter to his prospective father-in-law, who withdraws his consent to the marriage. Julien in a fit of rage shoots at Mme. de Rênal, gives himself up, and dies "poetically" on the scaffold.

It is not surprising that in view of these facts critics lacking in subtlety have found the character of Julien the wildest of impossibilities, the most monstrous of distortions. It is, however, a reasonably safe maxim to assume that those characters in novels which are thought to be too bizarre to exist are taken from actual life. In this case the actual framework of fact is drawn from the history of a young student of Besançon named Berthet, while as we have already seen his mental attitude is that of Stendhal himself. While no doubt a villain from the ethical standpoint of a modern serial, Julien is none the less, viewed more deeply, the Nietzschean knight-errant of energy and efficiency, the successful pursuer of a subjective ideal, and a perfect example of the Aristotelian virtue of ἐγκράτεια. Of all the discontented young idealists of the literature of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, who find themselves thrown into collision with conventional society, the Werthers, the Renés, the Don Juans, the Karl Moors, and the Vivian Greys, Julien Sorel is by far the most interesting and intellectually by far the most respectable. He has no hysterical and visionary aspirations, no mawkish Weltschmerz. A phenomenal power of analysis renders his aim direct and simple. He proposes to open the oyster of the world with the sword of his intellect. Le Rouge et le Noir is the tragedy of