They bring sleeplessness into the mansions of the rich and into
the garret of the poet; they animate the village. In winter they give
a livelier reflection to the sparkling log, great privileges to the
story-teller. It is nature, in sooth, who creates story-tellers.
Vainly are you a learned, grave writer, if you have not been born a
story-teller, and you will never obtain the popularity of the
_Mysteries of Udolpho_ and the _Shagreen Skin_, the _Arabian Nights_,
and Monsieur de Balzac. I have somewhere read that God created Adam,
the nomenclator, saying to him: You are the story-teller. And what a
story-teller! What verve and wit! What indefatigable perseverance in
painting everything, daring everything, branding everything! How the
world is dissected by this man! What an annalist! What passion and
what coolness!
"The _Philosophic Tales_ are the red-hot interpretation of a
civilization ruined by debauch and well-being, which Monsieur de
Balzac exposes in the pillory. The _Arabian Nights_ are the complete
history of the luxurious East in its days of happiness and perfumed
dreams. _Candide_ is the epitome of an epoch in which there were
bastilles, a stag-park, and an absolute king.
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