For applause and fame Maupassant cared nothing, and his proud contempt
for Orders and Academies is well known.
In a letter to Marie Bashkirtseff he writes as follows:
"Everything in life is almost alike to me, men, women, events. This is
my true confession of faith, and I may add what you may not believe,
which is that I do not care any more for myself than I do for the
rest. All is divided into ennui, comedy and misery. I am indifferent
to everything. I pass two-thirds of my time in being terribly bored. I
pass the third portion in writing sentences which I sell as dear as I
can, regretting that I have to ply this abominable trade."
And in a later letter:
"I have no taste that I cannot get rid of at my pleasure, not a desire
that I do not scoff at, not a hope that does not make me smile or
laugh. I ask myself why I stir, why I go hither or thither, why I give
myself the odious trouble of earning money, since it does not amuse me
to spend it."
And again:
"As for me, I am incapable of really loving my art. I am too critical,
I analyze it too much. I feel strongly how relative is the value of
ideas, words, and even of the loftiest intelligences. I cannot help
despising thought, it is so weak; and form, it is so imperfect. I
really have, in an acute, incurable form, the sense of human
impotence, and of effort which results in wretched approximations."
For nature, Maupassant had an ardent passion.... His whole being
quivered when she bathed his forehead with her light ocean breeze.
She, alone, knew how to rock and soothe him with her waves.
Never satisfied, he wished to see her under all aspects, and travelled
incessantly, first in his native province, amid the meadows and waters
of Normandy, then on the banks of the Seine along which he coasted,
bending to the oar. Then Brittany with its beaches, where high waves
rolled in beneath low and dreary skies, then Auvergne, with its
scattered huts amid the sour grass, beneath rocks of basalt; and,
finally, Corsica, Italy, Sicily, not with artistic enthusiasm, but
simply to enjoy the delight of grand, pure outlines. Africa, the
country of Salammbô, the desert, finally call him, and he breathes
those distant odors borne on the slow winds; the sunlight inundates
his body, "laves the dark corners of his soul." And he retains a
troubled memory of the evenings in those warm climes, where the
fragrance of plants and trees seems to take the place of air.
Maupassant's philosophy is as little complicated as his vision of
humanity. His pessimism exceeds in its simplicity and depth that of
all other realistic writers.