lived only by your head, and you will see that the evils you suffer from now are but pin-pricks compared to the dagger-blows that will rain down on you when the time of passions comes." M. Taine, in a masterly preface to these volumes, has laid his finger on the weak spot in Mérimée's character. "For fear of being dupe, he mistrusted in life, in love, in science, in art; and he was dupe of his mistrust. One is always dupe of something." This latter sentence may be true; but Mérimée's fallacy was, of all needful illusions, the least remunerative while it lasted, for it eventually weakened an intellect which had every reason for being strong. The letters of his latter years are sad reading. His wit loses none of its edge; but what the French call sécheresse had utterly invaded his soul. His health breaks down, and his short notes are hardly more than a record of reiterated ailments and contemptuous judgments. Most forms of contempt are unwise; but one of them seems to us peculiarly ridiculous—contempt for the age one lives in. Men with but a tithe of Mérimée's ingenuity have been able, and have not failed, in every age, to make out a deplorable case for mankind.
Poor Mérimée, apparently, long before his death, ceased to enjoy anything but the sunshine and a good dinner. His imagination faded early, and it is certainly
