ART. VII. THE NOVELS OF M. ANATOLE FRANCE.

1. Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard. Paris: 1881.

2. Thais. Paris: 1890.

3. Le Puits de Ste.-Claire. Paris: 1895.

4. Clio. Paris: 1900.

And other works.

CLAS

YLASSICAL French literature is distinguished by a certain purity of taste, a discreet reserve, a sense of balance and measure. We admire in this literature its Atticism and urbanity, its orderly government of imagination and sensibility, its avoidance of all inflation and emphasis, its dexterous admixture of art and sincerity. These qualities are largely to be discovered in the work of M. Anatole France, Member of the Academy. For him, the Romantic movement might never have run its course; and the contemporary school of the Naturalists has left no mark upon him. He is, as it were, of the Grand Siècle,' and to the manner born. But Candide' and 'Le Neveu de Rameau' are well known to him; and the Renan of the philosophical dialogues and dramas has taught him indelible lessons. He is a Sophist, or rather-since the term has its unpleasant connotations-a serene and graceful moralist, the mere beauty of whose diction would attract us, even if we cared nothing for the matter of his teaching. If one attends more closely upon him he will delight curiosity by revealing himself in many disguises. Nay, more, he will be showman of the universe, and set before us many ingenious puppets which, playing their parts, inspire such mingled tenderness and disdain as he would have them inspire.

Two main faculties influence and shape his work. Contrary to, but not exclusive of each other, it is not so much that they predominate in turn, as that their interplay creates the whole fabric of his achievement. We have in it a noteworthy example of the perennial conflict between the Heart and the Head. Tender of heart, he yet consents that his intelligence shall be ironical. He is sure that it is good for the heart to be naïve and for the mind to be otherwise. For does not life itself set the copy of mingled contraries? He adds a charming innocence to subtle penetration, if he cannot reconcile them; like the bee, as he says of a brother poet, he produces honey and poison. He would rather feel than understand, and judges that he most fully expresses himself when he is most simple and naïve; but his quarrel with thought and reflection is a lover's quarrel, and he willingly quotes that old scholiast of Virgil who opined that one grows weary of all things, save of comprehension. He finds

that he must report on life ironically, but he will have his philosophic irony to be indulgent and not cruel. He lovingly admires and depicts the simple of heart, even if he laughs at them now and then. Life being what it is, irony-the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom-is a fair armour of proof, wearing which we may smile upon the foolish and perverse who otherwise might provoke us to hate.

Thus divided in himself, M. France looks out upon life in smiling sadness. In his view, the labour of our thought to make of this world an intelligible world is a vain labour, though none the less it is our wistful uneasiness in the face of the inscrutable that chiefly ennobles us. He finds that the doctrine of Pyrrho is in accordance with the Christian theology: all that is not revealed is subject to doubt. If one has the misfortune not to be a Christian, it is wise to be a Pyrrhonian, or an Epicurean, distrusting all speculative thought in the interests of serenity. But on the other hand, if the truth of things escapes us, Sentiment-Love-bids us fashion for ourselves a world that is fair; our desire of the beautiful is perpetual and necessary. And reflection no less than feeling inspires M. France with the desire of beautiful expression, since he has taken upon himself to report of life in images and reveries. To be wholly sincere in expression is to be natural, and so seductive; sincerity and art alike require that the writer's report of life be clear, orderly, and rapid of motion. No style, he maintains, is beautiful unless it is facile; 'let us beware of writing too well'; and his own style is the perfection of a simplicity which varies in degree according to the themea simplicity which presupposes the fair art of concealing art.

The first productions of his complicated talent were tentative. Joining the Parnassus' group of poets, he published a slender volume of Poèmes Dorés.' In these he celebrated the Mother of Things in limpid style and with the sombre fervency of an adept in the doctrines of Lucretius, Darwin, and Leconte de Lisle. Turning to the novel, he essayed pathos in 'Jean Servien' the story of a delicate and ill-balanced déclassé, who blames fate for his own insufficiencies, and meets his end in the chaotic days of the Commune. M. Coppée might almost have signed it, were it not for a conciseness of phrase and portraiture which is already significant and distinctive. The character of the Marquis de Tudesco, a mixture of the poet and the buffoon, the cynic and the apostle, not only reveals a mastery of the grotesque, but also offers a first sketch of that Abbé Coignard who is to be one of M. France's chief creations. This vein of the grotesque is continued in 'Jocaste' and 'Le Chat Maigre.'

M. France is fond of quoting a remark of Dickens, to the effect that mad folk are the most amusing; and, as a moralist, he would have us all be in possession of a grain of folly, that so we may be merry and amiable. The menagerie of Haïtian mulattoes and Bohemian artists and critics in Le Chat Maigre' reminds us of Hoffmann, but of a Hoffmann who should exercise his whimsical phantasy within the limits of the possible. These three slight tales, indeed, are chiefly remarkable because we can already perceive in them the method of M. France's vision of life. 'Tis a mad world, my masters; and the sage, in his selfconscious detachment, contemplates with an amused smile the antics of the performers in the Human Comedy who know not that they are the fatal dupes of their temperament.

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M. France somewhere tells us that he has spent happy and unproductive years in which, studying nothing and learning much, he made many intellectual and moral discoveries. It is quite possible to suppose that his art has been chiefly influenced by the discovery that we deal with the images and not with the realities of things; that our vision of life is a subjective dream. M. France's dream is busy and peopled. If he is to invite other men to share his dreams, shall he trick out his puppets in the livery of the past or of the present? It matters little. On ne peint bien que soi et les siens.' The artist can but set forth his own soul; and his work, whatever be its costume, does but exhibit the range of his sympathies. Thus M. France, in L'Étui de Nacre,' Balthasar, Le Puits de Ste.-Claire,' and 'Clio,' adapting the form of the conte to his purpose of self-expression, reduces it to a bare and delicate simplicity. Dramatic incident and the complications of hazard are not to be expected from him; little or no appeal is made to such readers as desire superficial pleasure or excitement, or the touch of primitive emotions. His intellectual curiosity will prompt him to realise the états d'âme of a Farinata degli Uberti, betrayer of Florence for the love of Florence; of a Guido Cavalcanti, accused of being an Epicurean and atheist because he wooed Dame Philosophy with a great devotion, and sang the ancient doctrine of that Love which leads to Virtue; of a Commius Atrebas, the Gallic ally and enemy of the might of Rome; of a Homer, weary of men and life in those fair Grecian days when the world was young. He will represent to himself in the 'Mémoires d'un Volontaire' the emotions of a young Frenchman, receptive of all influences in the optimistic days that preceded the great Revolution; and set forth anecdotes significant of the courageous bearing of Frenchwomen in the mad turmoil of the Revolution itself. He will tell of a

'Fille de Lilith' who prays for death that she may taste life, and for remorse that she may know pleasure, like the daughters of Eve; or of a 'Leslie Wood' (read, if you will, Lawrence Oliphant), who, despairing of truth, finds it, or, by espousing poverty and simplicity, finds such certainty as agrees with his nature.

Simplicity-singleness of heart-that is the theme of the half of these contes; and it is characteristic of M. France that, to express this theme, he has recourse to such 'gothic legends as are neglected by the theologian and known to the antiquary alone.' In the second slender volume of his poems he had handled, in a lyrically dramatic form, that legend of the Bride of Corinth which supplied Goethe with a ballad that baffles commentators. In M. France's poem the conflicting Pagans and Christians are of an equal charm and innocence; only the mother of the maiden, who hesitates whether she shall be the bride of her lover or of Christ, repels by her consistent logic. But in these prose legends of saints M. France cares not to dwell upon their logical rigour. He is concerned for the moment to exalt feeling rather than to abase reason; and, besides, the uncompromisingly logical saint labours no less than the Pyrrhonian sage to despoil himself of humanity. M. France recounts these legends either as though they were so many fairy tales of sentiment, or in the tone of a tenderhearted Pagan who should incline to place votive Ausonian verses upon Christian tombs rather than upon sacred trees. His irony at the most plays gently upon the idea that the same words may equally express the return of spring and the Easter victory: Amycus the faun dwells lovingly with Celestine the hermit, and is baptised by him, since they both adore the risen god. But, of all these legends, that which best represents M. France's love of the simple-hearted is 'Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame.' Barnabé practised juggling in the days of King Louis, and, gaining his bread by the sweat of his brow, bore more than his share of the misery due to the fault of our father Adam. But, as he was of a simple heart, he took his suffering in patience. He had never reflected upon the origin of riches, nor upon the inequality of human lots. He counted firmly that, if this world were bad, the other could not fail to be good; and this hope sustained him. At length, hearing of the delights of the monastic life, he became a monk, and was sad because he knew not how to celebrate Our Lady with such skill as his fellows possessed. Held to scorn for his ignorance, he passes in the chapel those hours which the rest consecrate to their various arts, and is no longer sad. One

day the prior, seeking to discover the secret of his happy solitude, finds him before the altar, feet in air, and juggling with balls and knives. He was executing, in honour of Our Lady, the tricks which sometime had won him the most applause. And the prior rebukes his attendants, who cry out upon such sacrilege.Happy are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.'

In certain of these contes M. France has had the notable privilege of renewing the conte philosophique of the eighteenth century. 'Balthasar,' 'Thaïs,' and 'L'Humaine Tragédie' deserve all attention. In Thaïs,' Paphnuce, like the Philammon of 'Hypatia,' conceives the design of reclaiming a courtesan. But here all likeness ends; the press and turmoil of parti-coloured circumstance are alien from M. France's purpose. Paphnuce, the youthful ascetic of the Thebaïd, meditating upon the days which he passed in Alexandria after the manner of the Gentiles, laments that he had even approached the threshold of Thaïs. To dwell upon her image is to dwell upon the ugliness of sin. But pity springs in his heart. Is this pity only that false tenderness which leads to concupiscence? He will question Palamon, the simple and holy anchoret who tills his garden and lives undisturbed of devils. Saint Anthony, replies Palæmon, was accustomed to say that the Christian, in whatsoever place he found himself, was little anxious to go elsewhere, and Paphnuce should remember that such as quit their cells for the haunts of worldlings resemble fishes drawn out upon the dry land. Let him pray to abide in peace; but if he must adventure forth, may the Lord 'bless thy design, Paphnuce, as he has blessed my lettuces. For each morn He lavishes His grace and His dew upon my garden, and His loving-tenderness urges me to glorify Him in the cucumbers and gourds that He gives me.' Paphnuce interprets a vision to his comfort, and hesitates no longer. On his way he greets an aged man who, by all signs, should be a brother in discipline and macerations. This Greek, indeed, had long ago forsworn all save the profession of wisdom, and, with the aid of an Indian sage, had passed from the uncompromising Pyrrhonian to the complete Gymnosophist :

Think not to make me share thy sentiments. All dispute is sterile. My opinion is to have no opinion. I live exempt from trouble on condition of living without preferences. Follow thy way, and labour not to withdraw me from the blessed apathy in which I am plunged as in a delicious bath, after the sharp travail of my days.' In Alexandria he seeks out the rich and elegant Nicias, once his friend, and now to be hated as a favoured suitor of Vol. 192.-No. 384.

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