Prosper Mérimée's Short Stories

Such stories have an intrinsic value that renders them independent of an author’s name and reputation, even of his time and country. They are as easily detached from him, and with as little loss to themselves, as precious stones are from the name and place of the mine that once held them. This supreme distinction of a story is, nevertheless, what commends it to the assiduous seekers after the secret of literary perfection; the philosopher’s stone of the world of letters. Mérimée, on the whole, has stood the biographical and critical tests applied to him well, both as man and artist, and, although the secret of his art in truth went to the grave with him, this much at least has been found out, that he was worthy to be the author of his stories.