204 FRENCH LITERATURE 



we open a book by M. Gide. Of all of them the best is La Porte Etroite (1909), the story 

 of a rare soul drawn into the abyss of the mystical life " as waters are by whirlpools 

 suck'd and drawn," through a mistrust of the excess, the vulgarity, the transitoriness of 

 mortal happiness. There are natures which need the liberty, the solitude, the rapt 

 interminable progression and ideal refuge of the inner life. They are, as Sainte-Beuve 

 put it, marked with " la griffe de 1'archange." Alissa has only to stretch out her hand to 

 take her happiness. A sort of disgust of reality, a dread of disenchantment, paralyses 

 her: 



"Enough, no more . . . 

 "Tis not so sweet now as it was before!" 



Alissa was one of those Jansenists whom Ninon de 1'Enclos mocked as " les precieuses 

 de 1'amour." M. Andre Gide, like M. Maeterlinck, like M. Barres, like M. Boylesve, 

 like most of the considerable writers of his generation, has entered religion through the 

 gate of symbolism. He is a mystic rather than a dogmatist, a well-wisher to religion 

 rather than a believer. Their last word is not said. The current which has borne them 

 already so far from their starting point may land them within a chosen fold, but so far 

 they are champions of the faith (M. Maeterlinck is an avowed materialist, M. Gide of 

 Protestant origin, but M. Boylesve and M. Barres are formidable Catholic champions) 

 " jusqu'a la foi, exclusivement," like those pious improfessi, those God-fearing metuentes. 

 who in the primitive Church, though neither Jew nor Christian, ran the risks and fought 

 the battles of Paul and Peter. 



There is a vast difference between their novels even between a book so avowedly 

 orthodox as Madeleine, jeunefemme and the real thoroughgoing religious novel written 

 out of a fervour of faith, with the imagination of an apostle, perhaps the rarest and 

 most difficult form of art. The last two years, however, have brought us several even 

 of these; and we speak of real works of art, not merely tracts for the times. Of these 

 the noblest is by a poet, Charles de Pomairols (b. 1848), who has been called the Words- 

 worth of contemporary France. Ascension (1910) has all the defects of a poet's prose, 

 but also a natural idealism, an air of noble reverie, a dreamy wandering grace, singularly 

 poignant and fresh. Often in reading the volume we lay it down and think: how Pater, 

 how Turgenieff, how Meredith would have appreciated this penetrating langour. But 

 it is certain that the ordinary novel reader would be bored. (A second novel of M. de 

 Pomairols, Le Rcpentir, 1912, does not reach quite this high level.) There is more fire, 

 more force, more grip in an extraordinary book of a young writer, M. Emile Baumann 

 (Ulmmole, 1909). We may also mention La Barriere, by M. Rene Bazin (1910), Leur 

 Royaume, by M. Robert Vallery-Radot (1910), and La Cite des Lampes by "Claude 

 Silve " (1912). The last name veils the identity of Mademoiselle de Levis-Mirepoix, 

 the daughter of the Duke. 



We have shown that the principal trend of French literature in 1910-12 has been 

 towards a Renascence of idealism and indeed in great part toward a Catholic Revival, 

 but this is not saying that the writers of yesterday have abandoned their positions or 

 that they have ceased to produce; one of them indeed has produced a masterpiece. But 

 we have preferred to indicate the present state of things and the promise of to-morrow, and 

 to draw attention to the new writers who, with every season, arc coming to the front. 



And having performed our duty towards literary history, we may own that, for inter- 

 est and charm, few of these newer books can compete with certain productions of the 

 old stagers. Pierre Loti (see E. B. xvii, 19) has seldom written a finer page than the 

 concluding passage of Le Pelerin d' Angkor (1912). M. Jules Lemaitre (see E. B. xvi, 

 408), resuming the role of critic, has given us, following his Rousseau (1907), a Racine 

 (1908), a Fenelon (1910), a Chateaubriand (1912). All of these are interesting and 

 valuable, and the Racine especially is full of charm. In describing Rousseau, Fenelon 

 and Chateaubriand (the three great Romantics avant la Icttrc), the critic's habit is 

 piquant. He sets his author on a pillory, vituperates him, attributes to his evil influence 

 the degeneracy of France, then softens, as he tells his story; discovers him to be charm- 

 ing after all; crowns him with new plucked laurels, till, on the last page, author and critic 



