Anatole France sees life steadily, and sees it whole. With the insight of genius he can enter into the state of mind and speak with the tongue appropriate to all his characters, from the highest to the lowest—scholar, politician, priest, soldier, voluptuary, wanton, all the motley dramatis personæ that move across the stage of life.
Those who have come under the spell of Anatole France and are conscious of his peculiar charm, know instinctively that, when his voice is hushed, such accents will never fall upon their ears again. There will doubtless be born other writers whose work will be no less illumined by grace and beauty, but it will be a different grace, a different beauty. And the reason perhaps is that, in nearly all his writings, certainly in all those by which he will be chiefly held in memory, he gives utterance not so much to the mere results of some intellectual process, but rather to the dictates of his whole nature, heart and mind indissolubly interwoven, and, if the language he employs is the language of France, his voice is the voice of all humanity.
In an illuminating article recently published in the Quarterly Review, Mr. George Saintsbury, the greatest living English authority on French literature, says that to him "M. France has continued to appear as a new embodiment, Avatar, exponent, or anything else you please, of French style—as giving the quintessence thereof." He adds that "almost always he is a Master of the Laugh; and Heaven only knows what Earth would do without Laughter."
Looking back over the progress of Anatole France's popularity with English-speaking readers, it is an interesting fact that from the outset The Bodley Head has stood sponsor to him in this country. His work was known only to comparatively few here till Maurice Baring published his fine survey of it in Volume V of the Yellow Book (April, 1895), and it was this same volume which contained a contribution from Anatole France's own pen. Then followed various translations, culminating in the splendid Library Edition issued from The
