More and better than university pro-
fessors, have you contributed to my intellectual life!
fessors, have you contributed to my intellectual life!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v10 - Emp to Fro
France became an attaché of the
Library of the Senate. In December 1896 he was received as
member of the French Academy, succeeding to the chair of Ferdi-
nand de Lesseps, whose eulogy he pronounced with exquisite taste
and grace.
ANATOLE FRANCE
Like Renan, whose disciple he is, this fine artist was formed in
the clerical schools. His perfection of style, clear, distinguished,
scintillating with wit and fancy, furnishes, as a distinguished French
critic remarks, a strong contrast 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 Syl-
vestre Bonnard' (crowned by the Academy) and 'Le Livre de Mon
## p. 5910 (#498) ###########################################
5910
ANATOLE FRANCE
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 charm-
ing writer has fallen short of the standard of these works, though
the versatility of talent he displays is great and admirable.
'Thaïs' he has painted the magnificent Alexandria of the Ptolemies;
in Le Lys Rouge' the Florence of to-day. In 'La Rôtisserie de la
Reine Pedauque' (The Cook-Shop of the Queen Pedauque) and in
'Les Opinions de M. Jérome Coignard,' Gil Blas, Rabelais, Wilhelm
Meister, and Montaigne seem to jostle each other. In 'Le Jardin
d'Épicure (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 Esqui-
maux 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, pro-
posing no remedies for its ills. His literary quality, as M. Jules
Lemaître 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.
T. DROCTOVEUS and the early abbots of Saint-Germain-des-Prés
S have been occupying me for the past forty years; but I do
not know whether I shall be able to write their history be-
fore I go to join them. It is already quite a long time since I
became an old man. One day last year, on the Pont des Arts,
one of my fellow-members at the Institute was lamenting before
me over the ennui of becoming old.
"Still," Sainte-Beuve replied to him, "it is the only way that
has yet been found of living a long time. "
## p. 5911 (#499) ###########################################
ANATOLE FRANCE
5911
I have tried this way, and I know just what it is worth.
The trouble of it is not that one lasts too long, but that one
sees all about him pass away-mother, wife, friends, children.
Nature makes and unmakes all these divine treasures with gloomy
indifference, and at last we find that we have not loved,-- we have
only been embracing shadows. But how sweet some shadows
are! If ever creature glided like a shadow through the life of a
man, it was certainly that young girl whom I fell in love with
when incredible though it now seems-I was myself a youth.
-
A Christian sarcophagus from the catacombs of Rome bears a
formula of imprecation, the whole terrible meaning of which I
only learned with time. It says:-"Whatsoever impious man vio-
lates this sepulchre, may he die the last of his own people! » In
my capacity of archæologist I have opened tombs and disturbed
ashes, in order to collect the shreds of apparel, metal ornaments,
or gems that were mingled with those ashes. But I did it only
through that scientific curiosity which does not exclude the feel-
ings of reverence and of piety. May that malediction graven by
some one of the first followers of the Apostles upon a martyr's
tomb never fall upon me! I ought not to fear to survive my own
people so long as there are men in the world; for there are
always some whom one can love.
But the power of love itself weakens and gradually becomes
lost with age, like all the other energies of man. Example
proves it; and it is this which terrifies me. Am I sure that I
have not myself already suffered this great loss? I should surely
have felt it, but for the happy meeting which has rejuvenated
me. Poets speak of the Fountain of Youth: it does exist; it
gushes up from the earth at every step we take.
And one
passes by without drinking of it!
The young girl I loved, married of her own choice to a rival,
passed, all gray-haired, into the eternal rest. I have found her
daughter-so that my life, which before seemed to me without
utility, now once more finds a purpose and a reason for being.
To-day I "take the sun," as they say in Provence; I take it
on the terrace of the Luxembourg, at the foot of the statue of
Marguerite de Navarre. It is a spring sun, intoxicating as young
wine. I sit and dream. My thoughts escape from my head like
the foam from a bottle of beer. They are light, and their fizzing
amuses me. I dream; such a pastime is certainly permissible to
an old fellow who has published thirty volumes of texts, and
## p. 5912 (#500) ###########################################
5912
ANATOLE FRANCE
contributed to the Journal des Savants for twenty-six years.
have the satisfaction of feeling that I performed my task as well
as it was possible for me, and that I utilized to their fullest
extent these mediocre faculties with which nature endowed me.
My efforts were not all in vain, and I have contributed, in my
own modest way, to that renaissance of historical labors which
will remain the honor of this restless century. I shall certainly
be counted among those ten or twelve who revealed to France
her own literary antiquities. My publication of the poetical
works of Gautier de Coincy inaugurated a judicious system and
made a date. It is in the austere calm of old age that I decree
to myself this deserved credit, and God, who sees my heart,
knows whether pride or vanity have aught to do with this self-
award of justice.
But I am tired; my eyes are dim; my hand trembles, and I
see an image of myself in those old men of Homer, whose weak-
ness excluded them from the battle, and who, seated upon the
ramparts, lifted up their voices like crickets among the leaves.
So my thoughts were wandering, when three young men seated
themselves near me. I do not know whether each one of them
had come in three boats, like the monkey of La Fontaine, but the
three certainly displayed themselves over the space of twelve
chairs. I took pleasure in watching them, not because they had
anything very extraordinary about them, but because I discerned
in them that brave joyous manner which is natural to youth.
They were from the schools. I was less assured of it by the
books they were carrying than by the character of their physiog-
nomy. For all who busy themselves with the things of the mind
can be at once recognized by an indescribable something which
is common to all of them. I am very fond of young people; and
these pleased me, in spite of a certain provoking wild manner
which recalled to me my own college days with marvelous vivid-
ness. But they did not wear velvet doublets and long hair, as
we used to do; they did not walk about, as we used to do, with
a death's-head; they did not cry out, as we used to do, "Hell
and malediction! " They were quite properly dressed, and neither
their costume nor their language had anything suggestive of the
Middle Ages. I must also add that they paid considerable atten-
tion to the women passing on the terrace, and expressed their
admiration of some of them in very animated language. But
their reflections, even on this subject, were not of a character to
## p. 5913 (#501) ###########################################
ANATOLE FRANCE
5913
oblige me to flee from my seat. Besides, so long as youth is
studious, I think it has a right to its gayeties.
One of them having made some gallant pleasantry which I
forget, the smallest and darkest of the three exclaimed, with a
slight Gascon accent:
-
"What a thing to say! Only physiologists like us have any
right to occupy ourselves about living matter. As for you, Gélis,
who only live in the past,-like all your fellow archivists and
paleographers,-you will do better to confine yourself to those
stone women over there, who are your contemporaries. "
And he pointed to the statues of the Ladies of Ancient France
which towered up, all white, in a half-circle under the trees of
the terrace. This joke, though in itself trifling, enabled me to
know that the young man called Gélis was a student at the École
des Chartes. From the conversation which followed I was able
to learn that his neighbor, blond and wan almost to diaphaneity,
taciturn and sarcastic, was Boulmier, a fellow-student. Gélis and
the future doctor (I hope he will become one some day) dis-
coursed together with much fantasy and spirit. In the midst of
the loftiest speculations they would play upon words, and make
jokes after the peculiar fashion of really witty persons- that is
to say, in a style of enormous absurdity. I need hardly say, I
suppose, that they only deigned to maintain the most monstrous
kind of paradoxes. They employed all their powers of imagina-
tion to make themselves as ludicrous as possible, and all their
powers of reasoning to assert the contrary of common-sense.
All the better for them! I do not like to see young folks too
rational.
The student of medicine, after glancing at the title of the
book that Boulmier held in his hand, exclaimed:-
—
"What! - you read Michelet -
you? »
"Yes," replied Boulmier very gravely.
"I like novels. "
Gélis, who dominated both by his fine stature, imperious ges-
tures, and ready wit, took the book, turned over a few pages
rapidly, and said:-
"Michelet always had a great propensity to emotional tender-
ness. He wept sweet tears over Maillard, that nice little man
who introduced la paperasserie into the September massacres.
But as emotional tenderness leads to fury, he becomes all at once
furious against the victims. There is no help for it. It is the
sentimentality of the age. The assassin is pitied, but the victim.
## p. 5914 (#502) ###########################################
ANATOLE FRANCE
5914
is considered quite unpardonable. In his later manner Miche-
let is more Michelet than ever before. There is no common-
sense in it; it is simply wonderful! Neither art nor science,
neither criticism nor narrative; only furies and fainting spells
and epileptic fits over matters which he never deigns to explain.
Childish outcries-envies de femme grosse! -and a style, my
friends! not a single finished phrase! It is astounding! "
And he handed the book back to his comrade.
"This is
amusing madness," I thought to myself, "and not quite so devoid
of common-sense as it appears. This young man, though only
playing, has sharply touched the defect in the cuirass. "
But the Provençal student declared that history was a thor-
oughly despicable exercise of rhetoric. According to him, the
only true history was the natural history of man. Michelet was
in the right path when he came in contact with the fistula of
Louis XIV. , but he fell back into the old rut almost immediately
afterwards.
―
After this judicious expression of opinion, the young physiol-
ogist went to join a party of passing friends. The two archi-
vists, less well acquainted in the neighborhood of a garden so
far from the Rue Paradis-aux-Marais, remained together, and
began to chat about their studies. Gélis, who had completed his
third class-year, was preparing a thesis, on the subject of which
he expatiated with youthful enthusiasm. Indeed, I thought the
subject a very good one, particularly because I had recently
thought myself called upon to treat a notable part of it. It was
the 'Monasticum Gallicanum. ' The young erudite (I give him the
name as a presage) wants to describe all the engravings made
about 1690 for the work which Dom Michel Germain would have
had printed, but for the one irremediable hindrance which is
rarely foreseen and never avoided. Dom Michel Germain left
his manuscript complete, however, and in good order when he
died. Shall I be able to do as much with mine? - but that is
not the present question. So far as I am able to understand,
M. Gélis intends to devote a brief archæological notice to each
of the abbeys pictured by the humble engravers of Dom Michel
Germain.
His friend asked him whether he was acquainted with all the
manuscripts and printed documents relating to the subject. It
was then that I pricked up my ears. They spoke at first of ori-
ginal sources; and I must confess they did so in a satisfactory
## p. 5915 (#503) ###########################################
ANATOLE FRANCE
5915
Then
manner, despite their innumerable and detestable puns.
they began to speak about contemporary studies on the subject.
"Have you read," asked Boulmier, "the notice of Courajod? »
"Good! " I thought to myself.
"Yes," replied Gélis; "it is accurate. "
"Have you read," said Boulmier, "the article by Tamisey de
Larroque in the Revue des Questions Historiques? "
"Good! " I thought to myself, for the second time.
"Yes," replied Gélis, "it is full of things. "
"Have you read," said Boulmier, "the "Tableau des Abbayes
Bénédictines en 1600,' by Sylvestre Bonnard? »
"Good! " I said to myself, for the third time.
"Ma foi! no! " replied Gélis.
Turning my head, I perceived that the shadow had reached
the place where I was sitting. It was growing chilly, and I
thought to myself what a fool I was to have remained sitting
there, at the risk of getting the rheumatism, just to listen to the
impertinence of those two young fellows!
"Let this prat-
"Well! well! " I said to myself as I got up.
tling fledgeling write his thesis, and sustain it! He will find my
colleague Quicherat, or some other professor at the school, to
show him what an ignoramus he is. I consider him neither more
nor less than a rascal; and really, now that I come to think of
it, what he said about Michelet awhile ago was quite insufferable,
outrageous! To talk in that way about an old master replete with
genius! It was simply abominable! "
"Bonnard is an idiot! "
CHILD-LIFE
From The Book of My Friend'
Ε΄
It was
VERYTHING in immortal nature is a miracle to the little child.
I was happy. A thousand things at once familiar and
mysterious filled my imagination, a thousand things which
were nothing in themselves, but which made my life.
very small, that life of mine; but it was a life—which is to say,
the centre of all things, the kernel of the world. Do not smile
at what I say,—or smile only in sympathy, and reflect: whoever
lives, be it only a dog, is at the centre of all things.
Deciding to be a hermit and a saint, and to resign the good
things of this world, I threw my toys out of the window.
## p. 5916 (#504) ###########################################
5916
ANATOLE FRANCE
"The child is a fool! " cried my father, closing the window.
I felt anger and shame at hearing myself thus judged. But im-
mediately I considered that my father, not being so holy as I,
could never share with me the glory of the blessed, and this
thought was for me a great consolation.
Every Saturday we were taken to confession. If any one will
tell me why, he will greatly oblige me. The practice inspired me
with both respect and weariness. I hardly think it probable that
M. le Curé took a lively interest in hearing my sins; but it was
certainly disagreeable to me to cite them to him. The first diffi-
culty was to find them. You can perhaps believe me, when I
declare that at ten years of age I did not possess the psychic
qualities and the methods of analysis which would have made it
possible rationally to explore my inmost conscience.
less it was necessary to have sins: for no sins, no confession.
I had been given, it is true, a little book which contained them
all: I had only to choose. But the choice itself was difficult.
There was so much obscurely said of "larceny, simony, prevari-
cation"! I read in the little book, "I accuse myself of having
despaired; I accuse myself of having listened to evil conversa-
tions. " Even this furnished little wherewith to burden my con-
science. Therefore ordinarily I confined myself to "distractions. "
Distractions during mass, distractions during meals, distractions.
in "religious assemblies,"I avowed all; yet the deplorable
emptiness of my conscience filled me with deep shame.
I was
humiliated at having no sins.
I will tell you what, each year, the stormy skies of autumn,
the first dinners by lamplight, the yellowing leaves on the shiver-
ing trees, bring to my mind; I will tell you what I see as I
cross the Luxembourg garden in the early October days - those
sad and beautiful days when the leaves fall, one by one, on the
white shoulders of the statues there.
.
-
What I see then is a little fellow who with his hands in his
pockets is going to school, hopping along like a sparrow. I see him
in thought only, for he is but a shadow, a shadow of the "me"
as I was twenty-five years ago. Really, he interests me,- this
little fellow. When he was living I gave him but little thought,
but now that he is no more, I love him well. He was worth alto-
gether more than the rest of the "me's" that I have been since.
He was a happy-hearted boy as he crossed the Luxembourg gar-
den in the fresh air of the morning. All that he saw then I see
## p. 5917 (#505) ###########################################
ANATOLE FRANCE
5917
to-day.
It is the same sky, and the same earth; the same soul
of things is here as before, that soul that still makes me gay,
or sad, or troubled: only he is no more! He was heedless enough,
but he was not wicked; and in justice to him I must declare
that he has not left me a single harsh memory. He was an
innocent child that I have lost. It is natural that I should
regret him; it is natural that I should see him in thought, and
delight in recalling him to memory.
Nothing is of more value for giving a child a knowledge of
the great social machine than the life of the streets. He should
see in the morning the milkwomen, the water carriers, the char-
coal men; he should look in the shop windows of the grocer, the
pork vender, and the wine-seller; he should watch the regiments
pass, with the music of the band. In short, he should suck in
the air of the streets, that he may learn that the law of labor is
Divine, and that each man has his work to do in the world.
Oh! ye sordid old Jews of the Rue Cherche-Midi, and you
my masters, simple sellers of old books on the quays, what
gratitude do I owe you!
More and better than university pro-
fessors, have you contributed to my intellectual life! You dis-
played before my ravished eyes the mysterious forms of the life
of the past, and every sort of monument of precious human
thought. In ferreting among your shelves, in contemplating
your dusty display laden with the pathetic relics of our fathers
and their noble thoughts, I have been penetrated with the most
wholesome of philosophies. In studying the worm-eaten volumes,
the rusty iron-work, the worn carvings of your stock, I expe-
rienced, child as I was, a profound realization of the fluent,
changing nature of things and the nothingness of all, and I have
been always since inclined to sadness, to gentleness, and pity.
The open-air school taught me, as you see, great lessons; but
the home school was more profitable still. The family repast, so
charming when the glasses are clear, the cloth white, and the
faces tranquil,-the dinner of each day with its familiar talk,-
gives to the child the taste for the humble and holy things of
life, the love of loving. He eats day by day that blessed bread
which the spiritual Father broke and gave to the pilgrims in the
inn at Emmaus, and says, like them, "My heart is warmed
within me. " Ah! how good a school is the school of home! . .
The little fellow of whom I spoke but just now to you, with a
sympathy for which you pardon me, perhaps, reflecting that it is
-
•
## p. 5918 (#506) ###########################################
5918
ANATOLE FRANCE
not egotistic but is addressed only to a shadow, the little fellow
who crossed the Luxembourg garden, hopping like a sparrow,-
became later an enthusiastic humanist.
---
I studied Homer. I saw Thetis rise like a white mist over
the sea, I saw Nausicaa and her companions, and the palm-tree
of Delos, and the sky, and the earth, and the sea, and the tear-
ful smile of Andromache. I comprehended, I felt. For six
months I lived in the Odyssey. This was the cause of numerous
punishments: but what to me were pensums? I was with Ulys-
ses on his violet sea. Alcestis and Antigone gave me more noble
dreams than ever child had before. With my head swallowed up
in the dictionary on my ink-stained desk, I saw divine forms,-
ivory arms falling on white tunics,- and heard voices sweeter
than the sweetest music, lamenting harmoniously.
This again cost me fresh punishments. They were just; I was
"busying" myself "with things foreign to the class. " Alas! the
habit remains with me still. In whatever class in life I am put
for the rest of my days, I fear yet, old as I am, to encounter
again the reproach of my old professor: "Monsieur Pierre No-
zièrre, you busy yourself with things foreign to the class. "
But the evening falls over the plane-trees of the Luxembourg,
and the little phantom which I have evoked disappears in the
shadow. Adieu! little
Adieu! little "me" whom I have lost, whom I should
forever regret, had I not found thee again, beautified, in my son!
Translated for A Library of the World's Best Literature. '
FROM THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS ›
IN
RONY and pity are two good counselors: the one, who smiles,
makes life amiable; the other, who weeps, makes it sacred.
The Irony that I invoke is not cruel. She mocks neither
love nor beauty. She is gentle and benevolent. Her smile calms
anger, and it is she who teaches us to laugh at fools and sinners
whom, but for her, we might be weak enough to hate.
## p. 5919 (#507) ###########################################
5919
ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI
(1182-1225)
BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN
RANCIS D'ASSISI was at first called Francis Bernardone. His
father Pietro was a merchant of Assisi, much given to the
pomps and vanities of the world, a lover of France and of
everything French. It was after a visit to France in 1182 that, re-
joining his beloved wife Pica in the vale of Umbria, he found that
God had given to him a little son. Pica called the boy John, in
honor of the playmate of the little Christ; but Pietro commanded
that he should be named Francis, because of the bright land from
whence he drew the rich silks and thick velvets he liked to handle
and to sell.
The vale of Umbria is the place for poets; it should be visited in
the summer, when the roses bloom on the trellises which the early
Italian painters put as backgrounds to their mothers and children.
Florence is not far away; and near is the birthplace of one of the
fathers of the sonnet, Fra Guittone, and of another poet, Propertius.
Francis's childhood, boyhood, and later youth were happy. His
father denied him no luxury in his power to give; he was sent to the
priests of the church of St. George. They taught him some Latin
and much of the Provençal tongue, - for at that time there was no
Italian language; there were only dialects, and the Provençal was
used by the elegant, those who loved poetry. Francis Bernardone
was one of these; he sang the popular Provençal songs of the day to
the lute, for he had learned music. And so passionately did he long
for "excess of it," that, the legend says, he stayed up all one night
singing a duet with a nightingale. The bird conquered; and later,
Francis made a poem glorifying the Creator who had given such a
thrilling voice to it.
Up to the age of twenty-four Francis had been one of the lightest
hearted and the lightest headed of the rich young men of Assisi.
His father openly rejoiced in his extravagance, and admired the
graceful manner with which he wore gay clothes cut in latest fashions
of France. Madonna Picā, his mother, trembled for his future, while
she adored him and in spite of herself believed in him. Her neigh-.
bors reproached her: "Your son throws money away; he is the son
of a prince! " And Picā, troubled, answered, "He whom you call the
child of a prince will one day be a child of God. "
## p. 5920 (#508) ###########################################
5920
ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI
Pietro was delighted to see his son lead in all the sports of the
corti of Assisi. The corti were associations of young men addicted to
Provençal poetry and music and all sorts of gayety. Folgore da San
Gemiano gives, in a series of sonnets, well translated by Dante Ga-
briel Rossetti, descriptions of their sports arranged according to the
months. March was the season for
«-lamprey, salmon, eel, and trout,
Dental and dolphin, sturgeon, all the rout
Of fish in all the streams that fill the seas. "
In April are dances:
"And through hollow brass
A sound of German music on the air. »
When summer came, Folgore says the corti had other things:-
"For July, in Siena by the willow-tree
I give you barrels of white Tuscan wine,
In ice far down your cellars stored supine;
And morn and eve to eat, in company,
Of those vast jellies dear to you and me;
Of partridges and youngling pheasants sweet,
Boiled capons, sovereign kids; and let their treat
Be veal and garlic, with whom these agree. »
___
Francis was permeated with the ideas of chivalry, and his language
was its phraseology. So much was he in love with chivalry that he
became the founder of a new order, whose patroness should be the
Lady Poverty. Never had there been a time in Europe since the de-
cay of the Roman empire, when poverty was more derided. Princes,
merchants, even many prelates and priests, neglected and contemned
the poor.
The voices of the outcasts and the leper went up to God,
and he sent their terrible echoes to awaken the heart of Francis.
In Sicily, Frederick II. -the Julian of the time-lived among
fountains and orange blossoms and gorgeous pomegranate arches,— a
type of the arrogant voluptuousness of the time, a voluptuousness
which Dante symbolized later as the leopard. Against this luxury
Francis put the lady of his love, Poverty. In the 'Poètes Francis-
canis, Frederick Ozanam says:-
"He thus designated what had become for him the ideal of all
perfection, the type of all moral beauty. He loved to personify
Poverty as the symbolic genius of his time; he imagined her as the
daughter of Heaven; and he called her by turns the lady of his
thoughts, his affianced, and his bride. "
The towns of Italy were continually at war, in 1206 and thereabout.
Francis was taken prisoner in a battle of his native townsmen with
the Perugians. Restless and depressed, unsatisfied by the revelry of
## p. 5921 (#509) ###########################################
ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI
5921
his comrades, he threw himself into the train of the Count de Brienne,
who was making war on the German Emperor for the two Sicilies.
About this time, he was moved to give his fine military clothes to a
shivering soldier. At Spoleto, after this act of charity, he dreamed
that the voice of God asked what he valued most in life. "Earthly
fame," he said. —“But which of two is better for you,-the Master, or
the servant? And why will you forsake the Master for the servant,
the Lord for the slave ? »-«O Lord, what shall I do? " asked Fran-
cis. -"Return unto the city," said the voice, "and there it will be
told you what you shall do and how you may interpret this vision. "
He obeyed; he left the army; his old companions were glad to see
him, and again he joined the corti. But he was paler and more silent.
"You are in love! " his companions said, laughingly.
"I am in truth thinking of a bride more noble, more richly dow-
ered, and more beautiful than the world has ever seen. "
Pietro was away from home, and his son made donations to the
poor. He grew more tranquil, though the Voice had not explained
its message. He knelt at the foot of the crucifix one day in the old
chapel of St. Damian, and waited. Then the revelation came:-
"Francis, go to rebuild my house, which is falling into ruin! "
Francis took this command, which seemed to have come from the
lips of his crucified Redeemer, literally. It meant that he should re-
pair the chapel of St. Damian. Later, he accepted it in a broader
sense. More important things than the walls of St. Damian were
falling into ruin.
Francis was a man of action, and one who took life literally. He
went to his father's shop, chose some precious stuffs, and sold them
with his horse at Foliquo, for much below their value. Pietro had
brought Francis up in a princely fashion: why should he not behave
as a prince? And surely the father who had not grudged the richest
of his stuffs for the celebrations of the corti, would not object to their
sacrifice at the command of the Voice for the repairing of St. Damian!
Pietro, who had not heard the Voice, vowed vengeance on his son for
his foolishness. The priest at St. Damian's had refused the money;
but Francis threw it into the window, and Pietro, finding it, went
away swearing that his son had kept some of it. Francis wandered
about begging stones for the rebuilding of St. Damian's. Pietro,
maddened by the foolishness of his son, appealed to a magistrate.
Francis cast off all his garments, and gave them to his father. The
Bishop of Assisi covered his nakedness with his own mantle until the
gown of a poor laborer was brought to him. Dipping his right hand
in a pile of mortar, Francis drew a rough cross upon his breast:
"Pietro Bernardone," he said, "until now I have called you my father;
henceforth I can truly say, 'Our Father who art in heaven,' for he
is my wealth, and in him do I place all my hope. "
X-371
## p. 5922 (#510) ###########################################
ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI
5922
Francis went away, to build his chapel and sing in the Provençal
speech hymns in honor of God and of love for his greatness. In
June 1208 he began to preach. He converted two men, one rich and
of rank, the other a priest. They gave all to the poor, and took up
their abode near a hospital for lepers. They had no home but the
chapel of the Angels, near the Portiuncula. This was the beginning
of the great order of the Friars Minors, the Franciscans.
Francis was the first poet to use the Italian speech
a poet who
was inspired to change the fate of Europe. "He would never," the
author of a recent monograph on St. Francis says, destroy or tread
on a written page. If it were Christian writing, it might contain
the name of God; even if it were the work of a pagan, it contained
the letters that make up the sacred name. When St. Francis, of the
people and singing for the people, wrote in the vernacular, he asked
Fra Pacifico, who had been a great poet in the world, to reduce his
verses to the rules of metre. "
«<
-
St. Bonaventura, Jacomino di Verona, and Jacopone di Todi, the
author of the Stabat Mater,' were Franciscans who followed in his
footsteps. "The Crusades were," to quote again, "defensive as well
as offensive. The Sultan, whom St. Francis visited and filled with
respect, was not far from Christendom. " Frederick of Sicily, with
his Saracens, menaced Assisi itself. Hideous doctrines and practices
were rife; and the thirty thousand friars who soon enrolled them-
selves in the band of Francis gained the love of the people, preached
Christianity anew, symbolized it rudely for folk that could not read,
and, as St. Francis had done, they appealed to the imagination. The
legends of St. Francis-one can find them in the 'Little Flowers,' of
which there are at least two good English translations - became the
tenderest poems of the poor.
If St. Francis had been less of a poet, he would have been less of
a saint. He died a poet, on October 4, 1225: he asked to be buried
on the Infernal Hill of Assisi, where the crusaders were laid to rest;
"and," he said, "sing my Canticle of the Sun,' so that I may add a
song in praise of my sister Death. The lines," he added, "will be
found at the end of the 'Cantico del Sole. '»
(
Paul Sabatier's 'Life of St. Francis,' and Mrs. Oliphant's, are best
known to English-speaking readers. The most exhaustive Life' is
by the Abbé Leon Le Monnier, in two volumes. It has lately been
translated into English.
manni Francis Egan
## p. 5923 (#511) ###########################################
ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI
5923
ORDER
[Our Lord Speaks]
A
ND though I fill thy heart with hottest love,
Yet in true order must thy heart love me,
For without order can no virtue be;
By thine own virtue, then, I from above
Stand in thy soul; and so, most earnestly,
Must love from turmoil be kept wholly free:
The life of fruitful trees, the seasons of
The circling year move gently as a dove:
I measured all the things upon the earth;
Love ordered them, and order kept them fair,
And love to order must be truly wed.
O soul, why all this heat of little worth?
Why cast out order with no thought of care?
For by love's heat must love be governèd ?
Translation of Maurice Francis Egan.
THE CANTICLE OF THE SUN
[The title is Incipiunt Laudes Creaturarum quas fecit Franciscus ad Lau-
dem et Honorem Dei cum esset Infirmus ad Sanctum Damianum. ' It is
sometimes called the Canticle of the Creatures. › It is in Italian, and it
opens with these words: -"Altissimi, omnipotente, bon Signore, tue so le
laude la gloria e l'onore et omne benedictione. "]
O
MOST HIGH, Almighty, good Lord God, to thee belong praise,
glory, honor, and all blessing.
Praised be my Lord God, with all his creatures, and
specially our brother the sun, who brings us the day and who
brings us the light; fair is he, and he shines with a very great
splendor. O Lord, he signifies to us thee!
Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon, and for the stars,
the which he has set clear and lovely in heaven.
Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind, and for air and
clouds, calms and all weather, by which thou upholdest life in all
creatures.
Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who is very service-
able to us, and humble and precious and clean.
## p. 5924 (#512) ###########################################
5924
ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI
Praised be my Lord for our brother fire, through whom thou
givest us light in the darkness; and he is bright and pleasant,
and very mighty and strong.
Praised be my Lord for our mother the earth, the which doth
sustain us and keep us, and bringest forth divers fruits, and
flowers of many colors, and grass.
Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon one another for
love's sake, and who endure weakness and tribulation; blessed are
they who peacefully shall endure, for thou, O Most High, wilt
give them a crown.
Praised be my Lord for our sister the death of the body, from
which no man escapeth. Woe to him who dieth in mortal sin.
Blessed are those who die in thy most holy will, for the second
death shall have no power to do them harm. Praise ye and bless
the Lord, and give thanks to him and serve him with great
humility.
[The last stanza, in praise of death, was added to the poem on the
day St. Francis left the world, October 4th, 1225. ]
Translation of Maurice Francis Egan.
## p. 5925 (#513) ###########################################
5925
100
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
(1706-1790)
BY JOHN BIGELOW
HE youngest of the four children of a Boston tallow-chandler
named Franklin was born a subject of Queen Anne of Eng-
land, on the 6th of January, 1706; and on the same day re-
ceived the baptismal name of Benjamin at the Old South Church in
that city. He continued for more than seventy of the eighty-four
years of his life a subject of four successive British monarchs. Dur-
ing that period, neither Anne nor either of the three Georges who
succeeded her had a subject of whom they had more reason to be
proud, nor one whom at his death their people generally supposed
they had more reason to detest. No Englishman of his generation
can now be said to have established a more enduring fame, in any
way, than Franklin established in many ways. As a printer, as a
journalist, as a diplomatist, as a statesman, as a philosopher, he was
easily first among his peers.
On the other hand, it is no disparagement of the services of any
of his contemporaries on either side of the Atlantic, to say that no
one of his generation contributed more effectually to the dissolution
of the bonds which united the principal British-American colonies to
the mother country, and towards conferring upon them independence
and a popular government.
As a practical printer Franklin was reported to have had no supe-
riors; as a journalist he exerted an influence not only unrivaled in his
day, but more potent, on this continent at least, than either of his
sovereigns or their Parliaments. The organization of police, and
later of the militia, for Philadelphia; of companies for extinguishing
fires; making the sweeping and paving of the streets a municipal
function; the formation of the first public library for Philadelphia,
and the establishment of an academy which has matured into the
now famous University of Pennsylvania, were among the conspicuous
reforms which he planted and watered in the columns of the Phila-
delphia Gazette. This journal he founded; upon the earnings of it
he mainly subsisted during a long life, and any sheet of it to-day
would bring a larger price in the open market probably than a single
sheet of any other periodical ever published.
## p. 5926 (#514) ###########################################
5926
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Franklin's Almanack, his crowning work in the sphere of jour-
nalism, published under the pseudonym of Richard Saunders, - better
known since as Poor Richard,—is still one of the marvels of modern
literature. Under one or another of many titles the contents of this
publication, exclusive of its calendars, have been translated into every
tongue having any pretensions to a literature; and have had more
readers, probably, than any other publication in the English or in-
deed in any other language, with the single exception of the Bible.
It was the first issue from an American press that found a popular
welcome in foreign lands, and it still enjoys the special distinction of
being the only almanac ever published that owed its extraordinary
popularity entirely to its literary merit.
What adds to the surprise with which we contemplate the fame
and fortunes of this unpretentious publication, is the fact that its
reputation was established by its first number, and when its author
was only twenty-six years of age. For a period of twenty-six years,
and until Franklin ceased to edit it, this annual was looked forward
to by a larger portion of the colonial population and with more
impatience than now awaits a President's annual message to Congress.
Franklin graduated from journalism into diplomacy as naturally.
as winter glides into spring. This was simply because he was by
common acclaim the fittest man for any kind of public service the
colony possessed, and especially for any duty requiring talents for
persuasion, in which he proved himself to be unquestionably past
master among the diplomatists of his time.
The question of taxing the Penn proprietary estates in Pennsyl-
vania, for the defense of the province from the French and Indians,
had assumed such an acute stage in 1757 that the Assembly decided
to petition the King upon the subject; and selected Franklin, then in
the forty-first year of his age, to visit London and present their peti-
tion. The next forty-one years of his life were practically all spent
in the diplomatic service. He was five years absent on this his first
mission.
Library of the Senate. In December 1896 he was received as
member of the French Academy, succeeding to the chair of Ferdi-
nand de Lesseps, whose eulogy he pronounced with exquisite taste
and grace.
ANATOLE FRANCE
Like Renan, whose disciple he is, this fine artist was formed in
the clerical schools. His perfection of style, clear, distinguished,
scintillating with wit and fancy, furnishes, as a distinguished French
critic remarks, a strong contrast 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 Syl-
vestre Bonnard' (crowned by the Academy) and 'Le Livre de Mon
## p. 5910 (#498) ###########################################
5910
ANATOLE FRANCE
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 charm-
ing writer has fallen short of the standard of these works, though
the versatility of talent he displays is great and admirable.
'Thaïs' he has painted the magnificent Alexandria of the Ptolemies;
in Le Lys Rouge' the Florence of to-day. In 'La Rôtisserie de la
Reine Pedauque' (The Cook-Shop of the Queen Pedauque) and in
'Les Opinions de M. Jérome Coignard,' Gil Blas, Rabelais, Wilhelm
Meister, and Montaigne seem to jostle each other. In 'Le Jardin
d'Épicure (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 Esqui-
maux 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, pro-
posing no remedies for its ills. His literary quality, as M. Jules
Lemaître 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.
T. DROCTOVEUS and the early abbots of Saint-Germain-des-Prés
S have been occupying me for the past forty years; but I do
not know whether I shall be able to write their history be-
fore I go to join them. It is already quite a long time since I
became an old man. One day last year, on the Pont des Arts,
one of my fellow-members at the Institute was lamenting before
me over the ennui of becoming old.
"Still," Sainte-Beuve replied to him, "it is the only way that
has yet been found of living a long time. "
## p. 5911 (#499) ###########################################
ANATOLE FRANCE
5911
I have tried this way, and I know just what it is worth.
The trouble of it is not that one lasts too long, but that one
sees all about him pass away-mother, wife, friends, children.
Nature makes and unmakes all these divine treasures with gloomy
indifference, and at last we find that we have not loved,-- we have
only been embracing shadows. But how sweet some shadows
are! If ever creature glided like a shadow through the life of a
man, it was certainly that young girl whom I fell in love with
when incredible though it now seems-I was myself a youth.
-
A Christian sarcophagus from the catacombs of Rome bears a
formula of imprecation, the whole terrible meaning of which I
only learned with time. It says:-"Whatsoever impious man vio-
lates this sepulchre, may he die the last of his own people! » In
my capacity of archæologist I have opened tombs and disturbed
ashes, in order to collect the shreds of apparel, metal ornaments,
or gems that were mingled with those ashes. But I did it only
through that scientific curiosity which does not exclude the feel-
ings of reverence and of piety. May that malediction graven by
some one of the first followers of the Apostles upon a martyr's
tomb never fall upon me! I ought not to fear to survive my own
people so long as there are men in the world; for there are
always some whom one can love.
But the power of love itself weakens and gradually becomes
lost with age, like all the other energies of man. Example
proves it; and it is this which terrifies me. Am I sure that I
have not myself already suffered this great loss? I should surely
have felt it, but for the happy meeting which has rejuvenated
me. Poets speak of the Fountain of Youth: it does exist; it
gushes up from the earth at every step we take.
And one
passes by without drinking of it!
The young girl I loved, married of her own choice to a rival,
passed, all gray-haired, into the eternal rest. I have found her
daughter-so that my life, which before seemed to me without
utility, now once more finds a purpose and a reason for being.
To-day I "take the sun," as they say in Provence; I take it
on the terrace of the Luxembourg, at the foot of the statue of
Marguerite de Navarre. It is a spring sun, intoxicating as young
wine. I sit and dream. My thoughts escape from my head like
the foam from a bottle of beer. They are light, and their fizzing
amuses me. I dream; such a pastime is certainly permissible to
an old fellow who has published thirty volumes of texts, and
## p. 5912 (#500) ###########################################
5912
ANATOLE FRANCE
contributed to the Journal des Savants for twenty-six years.
have the satisfaction of feeling that I performed my task as well
as it was possible for me, and that I utilized to their fullest
extent these mediocre faculties with which nature endowed me.
My efforts were not all in vain, and I have contributed, in my
own modest way, to that renaissance of historical labors which
will remain the honor of this restless century. I shall certainly
be counted among those ten or twelve who revealed to France
her own literary antiquities. My publication of the poetical
works of Gautier de Coincy inaugurated a judicious system and
made a date. It is in the austere calm of old age that I decree
to myself this deserved credit, and God, who sees my heart,
knows whether pride or vanity have aught to do with this self-
award of justice.
But I am tired; my eyes are dim; my hand trembles, and I
see an image of myself in those old men of Homer, whose weak-
ness excluded them from the battle, and who, seated upon the
ramparts, lifted up their voices like crickets among the leaves.
So my thoughts were wandering, when three young men seated
themselves near me. I do not know whether each one of them
had come in three boats, like the monkey of La Fontaine, but the
three certainly displayed themselves over the space of twelve
chairs. I took pleasure in watching them, not because they had
anything very extraordinary about them, but because I discerned
in them that brave joyous manner which is natural to youth.
They were from the schools. I was less assured of it by the
books they were carrying than by the character of their physiog-
nomy. For all who busy themselves with the things of the mind
can be at once recognized by an indescribable something which
is common to all of them. I am very fond of young people; and
these pleased me, in spite of a certain provoking wild manner
which recalled to me my own college days with marvelous vivid-
ness. But they did not wear velvet doublets and long hair, as
we used to do; they did not walk about, as we used to do, with
a death's-head; they did not cry out, as we used to do, "Hell
and malediction! " They were quite properly dressed, and neither
their costume nor their language had anything suggestive of the
Middle Ages. I must also add that they paid considerable atten-
tion to the women passing on the terrace, and expressed their
admiration of some of them in very animated language. But
their reflections, even on this subject, were not of a character to
## p. 5913 (#501) ###########################################
ANATOLE FRANCE
5913
oblige me to flee from my seat. Besides, so long as youth is
studious, I think it has a right to its gayeties.
One of them having made some gallant pleasantry which I
forget, the smallest and darkest of the three exclaimed, with a
slight Gascon accent:
-
"What a thing to say! Only physiologists like us have any
right to occupy ourselves about living matter. As for you, Gélis,
who only live in the past,-like all your fellow archivists and
paleographers,-you will do better to confine yourself to those
stone women over there, who are your contemporaries. "
And he pointed to the statues of the Ladies of Ancient France
which towered up, all white, in a half-circle under the trees of
the terrace. This joke, though in itself trifling, enabled me to
know that the young man called Gélis was a student at the École
des Chartes. From the conversation which followed I was able
to learn that his neighbor, blond and wan almost to diaphaneity,
taciturn and sarcastic, was Boulmier, a fellow-student. Gélis and
the future doctor (I hope he will become one some day) dis-
coursed together with much fantasy and spirit. In the midst of
the loftiest speculations they would play upon words, and make
jokes after the peculiar fashion of really witty persons- that is
to say, in a style of enormous absurdity. I need hardly say, I
suppose, that they only deigned to maintain the most monstrous
kind of paradoxes. They employed all their powers of imagina-
tion to make themselves as ludicrous as possible, and all their
powers of reasoning to assert the contrary of common-sense.
All the better for them! I do not like to see young folks too
rational.
The student of medicine, after glancing at the title of the
book that Boulmier held in his hand, exclaimed:-
—
"What! - you read Michelet -
you? »
"Yes," replied Boulmier very gravely.
"I like novels. "
Gélis, who dominated both by his fine stature, imperious ges-
tures, and ready wit, took the book, turned over a few pages
rapidly, and said:-
"Michelet always had a great propensity to emotional tender-
ness. He wept sweet tears over Maillard, that nice little man
who introduced la paperasserie into the September massacres.
But as emotional tenderness leads to fury, he becomes all at once
furious against the victims. There is no help for it. It is the
sentimentality of the age. The assassin is pitied, but the victim.
## p. 5914 (#502) ###########################################
ANATOLE FRANCE
5914
is considered quite unpardonable. In his later manner Miche-
let is more Michelet than ever before. There is no common-
sense in it; it is simply wonderful! Neither art nor science,
neither criticism nor narrative; only furies and fainting spells
and epileptic fits over matters which he never deigns to explain.
Childish outcries-envies de femme grosse! -and a style, my
friends! not a single finished phrase! It is astounding! "
And he handed the book back to his comrade.
"This is
amusing madness," I thought to myself, "and not quite so devoid
of common-sense as it appears. This young man, though only
playing, has sharply touched the defect in the cuirass. "
But the Provençal student declared that history was a thor-
oughly despicable exercise of rhetoric. According to him, the
only true history was the natural history of man. Michelet was
in the right path when he came in contact with the fistula of
Louis XIV. , but he fell back into the old rut almost immediately
afterwards.
―
After this judicious expression of opinion, the young physiol-
ogist went to join a party of passing friends. The two archi-
vists, less well acquainted in the neighborhood of a garden so
far from the Rue Paradis-aux-Marais, remained together, and
began to chat about their studies. Gélis, who had completed his
third class-year, was preparing a thesis, on the subject of which
he expatiated with youthful enthusiasm. Indeed, I thought the
subject a very good one, particularly because I had recently
thought myself called upon to treat a notable part of it. It was
the 'Monasticum Gallicanum. ' The young erudite (I give him the
name as a presage) wants to describe all the engravings made
about 1690 for the work which Dom Michel Germain would have
had printed, but for the one irremediable hindrance which is
rarely foreseen and never avoided. Dom Michel Germain left
his manuscript complete, however, and in good order when he
died. Shall I be able to do as much with mine? - but that is
not the present question. So far as I am able to understand,
M. Gélis intends to devote a brief archæological notice to each
of the abbeys pictured by the humble engravers of Dom Michel
Germain.
His friend asked him whether he was acquainted with all the
manuscripts and printed documents relating to the subject. It
was then that I pricked up my ears. They spoke at first of ori-
ginal sources; and I must confess they did so in a satisfactory
## p. 5915 (#503) ###########################################
ANATOLE FRANCE
5915
Then
manner, despite their innumerable and detestable puns.
they began to speak about contemporary studies on the subject.
"Have you read," asked Boulmier, "the notice of Courajod? »
"Good! " I thought to myself.
"Yes," replied Gélis; "it is accurate. "
"Have you read," said Boulmier, "the article by Tamisey de
Larroque in the Revue des Questions Historiques? "
"Good! " I thought to myself, for the second time.
"Yes," replied Gélis, "it is full of things. "
"Have you read," said Boulmier, "the "Tableau des Abbayes
Bénédictines en 1600,' by Sylvestre Bonnard? »
"Good! " I said to myself, for the third time.
"Ma foi! no! " replied Gélis.
Turning my head, I perceived that the shadow had reached
the place where I was sitting. It was growing chilly, and I
thought to myself what a fool I was to have remained sitting
there, at the risk of getting the rheumatism, just to listen to the
impertinence of those two young fellows!
"Let this prat-
"Well! well! " I said to myself as I got up.
tling fledgeling write his thesis, and sustain it! He will find my
colleague Quicherat, or some other professor at the school, to
show him what an ignoramus he is. I consider him neither more
nor less than a rascal; and really, now that I come to think of
it, what he said about Michelet awhile ago was quite insufferable,
outrageous! To talk in that way about an old master replete with
genius! It was simply abominable! "
"Bonnard is an idiot! "
CHILD-LIFE
From The Book of My Friend'
Ε΄
It was
VERYTHING in immortal nature is a miracle to the little child.
I was happy. A thousand things at once familiar and
mysterious filled my imagination, a thousand things which
were nothing in themselves, but which made my life.
very small, that life of mine; but it was a life—which is to say,
the centre of all things, the kernel of the world. Do not smile
at what I say,—or smile only in sympathy, and reflect: whoever
lives, be it only a dog, is at the centre of all things.
Deciding to be a hermit and a saint, and to resign the good
things of this world, I threw my toys out of the window.
## p. 5916 (#504) ###########################################
5916
ANATOLE FRANCE
"The child is a fool! " cried my father, closing the window.
I felt anger and shame at hearing myself thus judged. But im-
mediately I considered that my father, not being so holy as I,
could never share with me the glory of the blessed, and this
thought was for me a great consolation.
Every Saturday we were taken to confession. If any one will
tell me why, he will greatly oblige me. The practice inspired me
with both respect and weariness. I hardly think it probable that
M. le Curé took a lively interest in hearing my sins; but it was
certainly disagreeable to me to cite them to him. The first diffi-
culty was to find them. You can perhaps believe me, when I
declare that at ten years of age I did not possess the psychic
qualities and the methods of analysis which would have made it
possible rationally to explore my inmost conscience.
less it was necessary to have sins: for no sins, no confession.
I had been given, it is true, a little book which contained them
all: I had only to choose. But the choice itself was difficult.
There was so much obscurely said of "larceny, simony, prevari-
cation"! I read in the little book, "I accuse myself of having
despaired; I accuse myself of having listened to evil conversa-
tions. " Even this furnished little wherewith to burden my con-
science. Therefore ordinarily I confined myself to "distractions. "
Distractions during mass, distractions during meals, distractions.
in "religious assemblies,"I avowed all; yet the deplorable
emptiness of my conscience filled me with deep shame.
I was
humiliated at having no sins.
I will tell you what, each year, the stormy skies of autumn,
the first dinners by lamplight, the yellowing leaves on the shiver-
ing trees, bring to my mind; I will tell you what I see as I
cross the Luxembourg garden in the early October days - those
sad and beautiful days when the leaves fall, one by one, on the
white shoulders of the statues there.
.
-
What I see then is a little fellow who with his hands in his
pockets is going to school, hopping along like a sparrow. I see him
in thought only, for he is but a shadow, a shadow of the "me"
as I was twenty-five years ago. Really, he interests me,- this
little fellow. When he was living I gave him but little thought,
but now that he is no more, I love him well. He was worth alto-
gether more than the rest of the "me's" that I have been since.
He was a happy-hearted boy as he crossed the Luxembourg gar-
den in the fresh air of the morning. All that he saw then I see
## p. 5917 (#505) ###########################################
ANATOLE FRANCE
5917
to-day.
It is the same sky, and the same earth; the same soul
of things is here as before, that soul that still makes me gay,
or sad, or troubled: only he is no more! He was heedless enough,
but he was not wicked; and in justice to him I must declare
that he has not left me a single harsh memory. He was an
innocent child that I have lost. It is natural that I should
regret him; it is natural that I should see him in thought, and
delight in recalling him to memory.
Nothing is of more value for giving a child a knowledge of
the great social machine than the life of the streets. He should
see in the morning the milkwomen, the water carriers, the char-
coal men; he should look in the shop windows of the grocer, the
pork vender, and the wine-seller; he should watch the regiments
pass, with the music of the band. In short, he should suck in
the air of the streets, that he may learn that the law of labor is
Divine, and that each man has his work to do in the world.
Oh! ye sordid old Jews of the Rue Cherche-Midi, and you
my masters, simple sellers of old books on the quays, what
gratitude do I owe you!
More and better than university pro-
fessors, have you contributed to my intellectual life! You dis-
played before my ravished eyes the mysterious forms of the life
of the past, and every sort of monument of precious human
thought. In ferreting among your shelves, in contemplating
your dusty display laden with the pathetic relics of our fathers
and their noble thoughts, I have been penetrated with the most
wholesome of philosophies. In studying the worm-eaten volumes,
the rusty iron-work, the worn carvings of your stock, I expe-
rienced, child as I was, a profound realization of the fluent,
changing nature of things and the nothingness of all, and I have
been always since inclined to sadness, to gentleness, and pity.
The open-air school taught me, as you see, great lessons; but
the home school was more profitable still. The family repast, so
charming when the glasses are clear, the cloth white, and the
faces tranquil,-the dinner of each day with its familiar talk,-
gives to the child the taste for the humble and holy things of
life, the love of loving. He eats day by day that blessed bread
which the spiritual Father broke and gave to the pilgrims in the
inn at Emmaus, and says, like them, "My heart is warmed
within me. " Ah! how good a school is the school of home! . .
The little fellow of whom I spoke but just now to you, with a
sympathy for which you pardon me, perhaps, reflecting that it is
-
•
## p. 5918 (#506) ###########################################
5918
ANATOLE FRANCE
not egotistic but is addressed only to a shadow, the little fellow
who crossed the Luxembourg garden, hopping like a sparrow,-
became later an enthusiastic humanist.
---
I studied Homer. I saw Thetis rise like a white mist over
the sea, I saw Nausicaa and her companions, and the palm-tree
of Delos, and the sky, and the earth, and the sea, and the tear-
ful smile of Andromache. I comprehended, I felt. For six
months I lived in the Odyssey. This was the cause of numerous
punishments: but what to me were pensums? I was with Ulys-
ses on his violet sea. Alcestis and Antigone gave me more noble
dreams than ever child had before. With my head swallowed up
in the dictionary on my ink-stained desk, I saw divine forms,-
ivory arms falling on white tunics,- and heard voices sweeter
than the sweetest music, lamenting harmoniously.
This again cost me fresh punishments. They were just; I was
"busying" myself "with things foreign to the class. " Alas! the
habit remains with me still. In whatever class in life I am put
for the rest of my days, I fear yet, old as I am, to encounter
again the reproach of my old professor: "Monsieur Pierre No-
zièrre, you busy yourself with things foreign to the class. "
But the evening falls over the plane-trees of the Luxembourg,
and the little phantom which I have evoked disappears in the
shadow. Adieu! little
Adieu! little "me" whom I have lost, whom I should
forever regret, had I not found thee again, beautified, in my son!
Translated for A Library of the World's Best Literature. '
FROM THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS ›
IN
RONY and pity are two good counselors: the one, who smiles,
makes life amiable; the other, who weeps, makes it sacred.
The Irony that I invoke is not cruel. She mocks neither
love nor beauty. She is gentle and benevolent. Her smile calms
anger, and it is she who teaches us to laugh at fools and sinners
whom, but for her, we might be weak enough to hate.
## p. 5919 (#507) ###########################################
5919
ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI
(1182-1225)
BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN
RANCIS D'ASSISI was at first called Francis Bernardone. His
father Pietro was a merchant of Assisi, much given to the
pomps and vanities of the world, a lover of France and of
everything French. It was after a visit to France in 1182 that, re-
joining his beloved wife Pica in the vale of Umbria, he found that
God had given to him a little son. Pica called the boy John, in
honor of the playmate of the little Christ; but Pietro commanded
that he should be named Francis, because of the bright land from
whence he drew the rich silks and thick velvets he liked to handle
and to sell.
The vale of Umbria is the place for poets; it should be visited in
the summer, when the roses bloom on the trellises which the early
Italian painters put as backgrounds to their mothers and children.
Florence is not far away; and near is the birthplace of one of the
fathers of the sonnet, Fra Guittone, and of another poet, Propertius.
Francis's childhood, boyhood, and later youth were happy. His
father denied him no luxury in his power to give; he was sent to the
priests of the church of St. George. They taught him some Latin
and much of the Provençal tongue, - for at that time there was no
Italian language; there were only dialects, and the Provençal was
used by the elegant, those who loved poetry. Francis Bernardone
was one of these; he sang the popular Provençal songs of the day to
the lute, for he had learned music. And so passionately did he long
for "excess of it," that, the legend says, he stayed up all one night
singing a duet with a nightingale. The bird conquered; and later,
Francis made a poem glorifying the Creator who had given such a
thrilling voice to it.
Up to the age of twenty-four Francis had been one of the lightest
hearted and the lightest headed of the rich young men of Assisi.
His father openly rejoiced in his extravagance, and admired the
graceful manner with which he wore gay clothes cut in latest fashions
of France. Madonna Picā, his mother, trembled for his future, while
she adored him and in spite of herself believed in him. Her neigh-.
bors reproached her: "Your son throws money away; he is the son
of a prince! " And Picā, troubled, answered, "He whom you call the
child of a prince will one day be a child of God. "
## p. 5920 (#508) ###########################################
5920
ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI
Pietro was delighted to see his son lead in all the sports of the
corti of Assisi. The corti were associations of young men addicted to
Provençal poetry and music and all sorts of gayety. Folgore da San
Gemiano gives, in a series of sonnets, well translated by Dante Ga-
briel Rossetti, descriptions of their sports arranged according to the
months. March was the season for
«-lamprey, salmon, eel, and trout,
Dental and dolphin, sturgeon, all the rout
Of fish in all the streams that fill the seas. "
In April are dances:
"And through hollow brass
A sound of German music on the air. »
When summer came, Folgore says the corti had other things:-
"For July, in Siena by the willow-tree
I give you barrels of white Tuscan wine,
In ice far down your cellars stored supine;
And morn and eve to eat, in company,
Of those vast jellies dear to you and me;
Of partridges and youngling pheasants sweet,
Boiled capons, sovereign kids; and let their treat
Be veal and garlic, with whom these agree. »
___
Francis was permeated with the ideas of chivalry, and his language
was its phraseology. So much was he in love with chivalry that he
became the founder of a new order, whose patroness should be the
Lady Poverty. Never had there been a time in Europe since the de-
cay of the Roman empire, when poverty was more derided. Princes,
merchants, even many prelates and priests, neglected and contemned
the poor.
The voices of the outcasts and the leper went up to God,
and he sent their terrible echoes to awaken the heart of Francis.
In Sicily, Frederick II. -the Julian of the time-lived among
fountains and orange blossoms and gorgeous pomegranate arches,— a
type of the arrogant voluptuousness of the time, a voluptuousness
which Dante symbolized later as the leopard. Against this luxury
Francis put the lady of his love, Poverty. In the 'Poètes Francis-
canis, Frederick Ozanam says:-
"He thus designated what had become for him the ideal of all
perfection, the type of all moral beauty. He loved to personify
Poverty as the symbolic genius of his time; he imagined her as the
daughter of Heaven; and he called her by turns the lady of his
thoughts, his affianced, and his bride. "
The towns of Italy were continually at war, in 1206 and thereabout.
Francis was taken prisoner in a battle of his native townsmen with
the Perugians. Restless and depressed, unsatisfied by the revelry of
## p. 5921 (#509) ###########################################
ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI
5921
his comrades, he threw himself into the train of the Count de Brienne,
who was making war on the German Emperor for the two Sicilies.
About this time, he was moved to give his fine military clothes to a
shivering soldier. At Spoleto, after this act of charity, he dreamed
that the voice of God asked what he valued most in life. "Earthly
fame," he said. —“But which of two is better for you,-the Master, or
the servant? And why will you forsake the Master for the servant,
the Lord for the slave ? »-«O Lord, what shall I do? " asked Fran-
cis. -"Return unto the city," said the voice, "and there it will be
told you what you shall do and how you may interpret this vision. "
He obeyed; he left the army; his old companions were glad to see
him, and again he joined the corti. But he was paler and more silent.
"You are in love! " his companions said, laughingly.
"I am in truth thinking of a bride more noble, more richly dow-
ered, and more beautiful than the world has ever seen. "
Pietro was away from home, and his son made donations to the
poor. He grew more tranquil, though the Voice had not explained
its message. He knelt at the foot of the crucifix one day in the old
chapel of St. Damian, and waited. Then the revelation came:-
"Francis, go to rebuild my house, which is falling into ruin! "
Francis took this command, which seemed to have come from the
lips of his crucified Redeemer, literally. It meant that he should re-
pair the chapel of St. Damian. Later, he accepted it in a broader
sense. More important things than the walls of St. Damian were
falling into ruin.
Francis was a man of action, and one who took life literally. He
went to his father's shop, chose some precious stuffs, and sold them
with his horse at Foliquo, for much below their value. Pietro had
brought Francis up in a princely fashion: why should he not behave
as a prince? And surely the father who had not grudged the richest
of his stuffs for the celebrations of the corti, would not object to their
sacrifice at the command of the Voice for the repairing of St. Damian!
Pietro, who had not heard the Voice, vowed vengeance on his son for
his foolishness. The priest at St. Damian's had refused the money;
but Francis threw it into the window, and Pietro, finding it, went
away swearing that his son had kept some of it. Francis wandered
about begging stones for the rebuilding of St. Damian's. Pietro,
maddened by the foolishness of his son, appealed to a magistrate.
Francis cast off all his garments, and gave them to his father. The
Bishop of Assisi covered his nakedness with his own mantle until the
gown of a poor laborer was brought to him. Dipping his right hand
in a pile of mortar, Francis drew a rough cross upon his breast:
"Pietro Bernardone," he said, "until now I have called you my father;
henceforth I can truly say, 'Our Father who art in heaven,' for he
is my wealth, and in him do I place all my hope. "
X-371
## p. 5922 (#510) ###########################################
ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI
5922
Francis went away, to build his chapel and sing in the Provençal
speech hymns in honor of God and of love for his greatness. In
June 1208 he began to preach. He converted two men, one rich and
of rank, the other a priest. They gave all to the poor, and took up
their abode near a hospital for lepers. They had no home but the
chapel of the Angels, near the Portiuncula. This was the beginning
of the great order of the Friars Minors, the Franciscans.
Francis was the first poet to use the Italian speech
a poet who
was inspired to change the fate of Europe. "He would never," the
author of a recent monograph on St. Francis says, destroy or tread
on a written page. If it were Christian writing, it might contain
the name of God; even if it were the work of a pagan, it contained
the letters that make up the sacred name. When St. Francis, of the
people and singing for the people, wrote in the vernacular, he asked
Fra Pacifico, who had been a great poet in the world, to reduce his
verses to the rules of metre. "
«<
-
St. Bonaventura, Jacomino di Verona, and Jacopone di Todi, the
author of the Stabat Mater,' were Franciscans who followed in his
footsteps. "The Crusades were," to quote again, "defensive as well
as offensive. The Sultan, whom St. Francis visited and filled with
respect, was not far from Christendom. " Frederick of Sicily, with
his Saracens, menaced Assisi itself. Hideous doctrines and practices
were rife; and the thirty thousand friars who soon enrolled them-
selves in the band of Francis gained the love of the people, preached
Christianity anew, symbolized it rudely for folk that could not read,
and, as St. Francis had done, they appealed to the imagination. The
legends of St. Francis-one can find them in the 'Little Flowers,' of
which there are at least two good English translations - became the
tenderest poems of the poor.
If St. Francis had been less of a poet, he would have been less of
a saint. He died a poet, on October 4, 1225: he asked to be buried
on the Infernal Hill of Assisi, where the crusaders were laid to rest;
"and," he said, "sing my Canticle of the Sun,' so that I may add a
song in praise of my sister Death. The lines," he added, "will be
found at the end of the 'Cantico del Sole. '»
(
Paul Sabatier's 'Life of St. Francis,' and Mrs. Oliphant's, are best
known to English-speaking readers. The most exhaustive Life' is
by the Abbé Leon Le Monnier, in two volumes. It has lately been
translated into English.
manni Francis Egan
## p. 5923 (#511) ###########################################
ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI
5923
ORDER
[Our Lord Speaks]
A
ND though I fill thy heart with hottest love,
Yet in true order must thy heart love me,
For without order can no virtue be;
By thine own virtue, then, I from above
Stand in thy soul; and so, most earnestly,
Must love from turmoil be kept wholly free:
The life of fruitful trees, the seasons of
The circling year move gently as a dove:
I measured all the things upon the earth;
Love ordered them, and order kept them fair,
And love to order must be truly wed.
O soul, why all this heat of little worth?
Why cast out order with no thought of care?
For by love's heat must love be governèd ?
Translation of Maurice Francis Egan.
THE CANTICLE OF THE SUN
[The title is Incipiunt Laudes Creaturarum quas fecit Franciscus ad Lau-
dem et Honorem Dei cum esset Infirmus ad Sanctum Damianum. ' It is
sometimes called the Canticle of the Creatures. › It is in Italian, and it
opens with these words: -"Altissimi, omnipotente, bon Signore, tue so le
laude la gloria e l'onore et omne benedictione. "]
O
MOST HIGH, Almighty, good Lord God, to thee belong praise,
glory, honor, and all blessing.
Praised be my Lord God, with all his creatures, and
specially our brother the sun, who brings us the day and who
brings us the light; fair is he, and he shines with a very great
splendor. O Lord, he signifies to us thee!
Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon, and for the stars,
the which he has set clear and lovely in heaven.
Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind, and for air and
clouds, calms and all weather, by which thou upholdest life in all
creatures.
Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who is very service-
able to us, and humble and precious and clean.
## p. 5924 (#512) ###########################################
5924
ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI
Praised be my Lord for our brother fire, through whom thou
givest us light in the darkness; and he is bright and pleasant,
and very mighty and strong.
Praised be my Lord for our mother the earth, the which doth
sustain us and keep us, and bringest forth divers fruits, and
flowers of many colors, and grass.
Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon one another for
love's sake, and who endure weakness and tribulation; blessed are
they who peacefully shall endure, for thou, O Most High, wilt
give them a crown.
Praised be my Lord for our sister the death of the body, from
which no man escapeth. Woe to him who dieth in mortal sin.
Blessed are those who die in thy most holy will, for the second
death shall have no power to do them harm. Praise ye and bless
the Lord, and give thanks to him and serve him with great
humility.
[The last stanza, in praise of death, was added to the poem on the
day St. Francis left the world, October 4th, 1225. ]
Translation of Maurice Francis Egan.
## p. 5925 (#513) ###########################################
5925
100
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
(1706-1790)
BY JOHN BIGELOW
HE youngest of the four children of a Boston tallow-chandler
named Franklin was born a subject of Queen Anne of Eng-
land, on the 6th of January, 1706; and on the same day re-
ceived the baptismal name of Benjamin at the Old South Church in
that city. He continued for more than seventy of the eighty-four
years of his life a subject of four successive British monarchs. Dur-
ing that period, neither Anne nor either of the three Georges who
succeeded her had a subject of whom they had more reason to be
proud, nor one whom at his death their people generally supposed
they had more reason to detest. No Englishman of his generation
can now be said to have established a more enduring fame, in any
way, than Franklin established in many ways. As a printer, as a
journalist, as a diplomatist, as a statesman, as a philosopher, he was
easily first among his peers.
On the other hand, it is no disparagement of the services of any
of his contemporaries on either side of the Atlantic, to say that no
one of his generation contributed more effectually to the dissolution
of the bonds which united the principal British-American colonies to
the mother country, and towards conferring upon them independence
and a popular government.
As a practical printer Franklin was reported to have had no supe-
riors; as a journalist he exerted an influence not only unrivaled in his
day, but more potent, on this continent at least, than either of his
sovereigns or their Parliaments. The organization of police, and
later of the militia, for Philadelphia; of companies for extinguishing
fires; making the sweeping and paving of the streets a municipal
function; the formation of the first public library for Philadelphia,
and the establishment of an academy which has matured into the
now famous University of Pennsylvania, were among the conspicuous
reforms which he planted and watered in the columns of the Phila-
delphia Gazette. This journal he founded; upon the earnings of it
he mainly subsisted during a long life, and any sheet of it to-day
would bring a larger price in the open market probably than a single
sheet of any other periodical ever published.
## p. 5926 (#514) ###########################################
5926
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Franklin's Almanack, his crowning work in the sphere of jour-
nalism, published under the pseudonym of Richard Saunders, - better
known since as Poor Richard,—is still one of the marvels of modern
literature. Under one or another of many titles the contents of this
publication, exclusive of its calendars, have been translated into every
tongue having any pretensions to a literature; and have had more
readers, probably, than any other publication in the English or in-
deed in any other language, with the single exception of the Bible.
It was the first issue from an American press that found a popular
welcome in foreign lands, and it still enjoys the special distinction of
being the only almanac ever published that owed its extraordinary
popularity entirely to its literary merit.
What adds to the surprise with which we contemplate the fame
and fortunes of this unpretentious publication, is the fact that its
reputation was established by its first number, and when its author
was only twenty-six years of age. For a period of twenty-six years,
and until Franklin ceased to edit it, this annual was looked forward
to by a larger portion of the colonial population and with more
impatience than now awaits a President's annual message to Congress.
Franklin graduated from journalism into diplomacy as naturally.
as winter glides into spring. This was simply because he was by
common acclaim the fittest man for any kind of public service the
colony possessed, and especially for any duty requiring talents for
persuasion, in which he proved himself to be unquestionably past
master among the diplomatists of his time.
The question of taxing the Penn proprietary estates in Pennsyl-
vania, for the defense of the province from the French and Indians,
had assumed such an acute stage in 1757 that the Assembly decided
to petition the King upon the subject; and selected Franklin, then in
the forty-first year of his age, to visit London and present their peti-
tion. The next forty-one years of his life were practically all spent
in the diplomatic service. He was five years absent on this his first
mission.
