nd inanimate. He is passionately religious with a profound and humble
faith, but it has nothing in common with the sumptuous and decorative
neo-catholicism of men like Huysmans or Paul Claudel. Rather one must
seek his origins in the child-like faith of Saint Francis of Assisi
and the lyrical metaphysics of Pascal.

Those of a higher sophistication and a greater worldliness may smile
at the artlessness, and, if one will, naivete of a man like Jammes. It
is true that his art is limited, and that if one reads too much at one
time there is a note of monotony and a certain paucity of phrase, but
who is the writer of whom this is not equally true? The quality of
beauty, sincerity, and a large serenity are in his work, and how
grateful are these permanencies amid the shrilling noises of the
countless conflicting creeds and dogmas, and amid the poses and
vanities which so fill the world of contemporary literature and art!

As far as the record goes the outward life of Francis Jammes has been
uneventful. In a remarkable poem, "A Francis Jammes," his friend and
fellow-poet, Charles Guerin, has drawn an unforgetable picture of this
Christian Virgil in his village home. The ivy clings about his house
like a beard, and before it is a shadowy fire, ever young and fresh,
like the poet's heart, in spite of wind and winters and sorrows. The
low walls of the court are gilded with moss. From the window one sees
the cottages and fields, the horizon and the snows.

Jammes was born at Tournay in the department of Hautes Pyrenees on
December 2, 1863, and spent most of his life in this region. He was
educated at Pau and Bordeaux, and later spent a short time in a law
office. Early in the nineties he wrote his first volumes, slender
_plaquettes_ with the brief title "Vers." It is interesting that
one of these was dedicated to that strange English genius, Hubert
Crackanthorpe, the author of "Wreckage" and "Sentimental Studies."
This dedication, and the curious orthography (the book was set up in a
provincial printery) led a reviewer in the _Mercure de France_ into an
amusing error, in that he suggested that the book had been written by
an Englishman whose name, correctly spelled, should perhaps be Francis
James.

Since then his life has been wholly devoted to literature and he has
published a considerable number of volumes of poetry and prose which
by their very titles give a clue to the spirit pervading the author's
work. Among the more im