Mérimée

Merimee says of George Sand that he has known her "maigre comme un clou et noire comme une taupe."

It is as clear and precise as Merimee, and it has all the color and imagination that he lacks to make him a poet.

To this monster, Merimee, in his Double Mistake, had given a thrust but a thrust that made it bleed only.

There are fine things in Balzac and passages in Merimee which strike one like a keen blast of sea air.