ntrast to the painful and heavy periods of
the literary products of a State education. He is an enthusiastic
humanist, a fervent Neo-Hellenist, delicately sensitive to the beauty
of the antique, the magic of words, and the harmony of phrase.

Outside of France, his best known works are 'Le Crime de Sylvestre
Bonnard' (crowned by the Academy) and 'Le Livre de Mon Ami.' The
first of these expresses the author's Hellenism, sentiment,
experience, love of form, and gentle pessimism. Into the character of
Sylvestre Bonnard, that intelligent, contemplative, ironical,
sweet-natured old philosopher, he has put most of himself. In 'Le
Livre de Mon Ami' are reflected the childhood and youth of the author.
It is a living book, made out of the impulses of the heart, holding
the very essence of moral grace, written with exquisite irony
absolutely free from bitterness.

It is to be regretted that in some of his later writings this charming
writer has fallen short of the standard of these works, though the
versatility of talent he displays is great and admirable. In 'Thais'
he has painted the magnificent Alexandria of the Ptolemies; in 'Le Lys
Rouge' the Florence of to-day. In 'La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque'
(The Cook-Shop of the Queen Pedauque) and in 'Les Opinions de M.
Jerome Coignard,' Gil Blas, Rabelais, Wilhelm Meister, and Montaigne
seem to jostle each other. In 'Le Jardin d'Epicure' (The Garden of
Epicurus) a modern Epicurus, discreet, indulgent, listless, listens to
lively discussions between the shades of Plato, Origen, Augustine,
Hegel, and Schopenhauer, while an Esquimaux refutes Bossuet, a
Polynesian develops his theory of the soul, and Cicero and Cousin
agree in their estimate of a future life.

In his own words, M. Anatole France has always been inclined to take
life as a spectacle, offering no solution of its perplexities,
proposing no remedies for its ills. His literary quality, as M. Jules
Lemaitre observes, owes little or nothing to the spirit or literature
of the North. His intelligence is the pure and extreme product of
Greek and Latin tradition.

IN THE GARDENS

From 'The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard.' Copyright, 1890, by Harper &
Brothers

APRIL 16.

St. Droctoveus and the early abbots of Saint-Germain-des-Pres have
been occupying me for the past forty years; but I do not know whether
I shall be able to write their history before I go to