Much was written of Anatole France during the latter years of his life. His mode of life, methods of work, political, religious and social ideas; his theoretical antinomianism and his practical conformity to convention; and more than all his erudition excited curiosity, and from attempt to satisfy it, there resulted envy in some, dislike in others, admiration in all.
ANATOLE FRANCE
From a miniature
Courtesy of Edward Wassermann
The best interpretation of him and his work in English is by Mr. L. P. Shanks, a graceful writer, a penetrating critic. The works of Anatole France have been translated into English by Mr. Lewis May who published Anatole France, the Man and His Work in the year that preceded his death. It is an agreeable introduction to the great novelist, even though it is such a left handed and inadequate one. The chief reason why Mr. May’s contribution to our knowledge and understanding of Anatole France falls short of its aim, is that the writer has not heeded the difference which exists between a biography and a panegyric. It is a custom sanctified by time that the death of a great contemporary figure should be the signal of a truce as it were; foes lay down their arms for a period of time, friends and admirers join in lauding the man who has gone to his reward. No one takes much stock in an obituary dictated by the emotional reaction engendered by death, and no one looks to such writing for constructive criticism, but when a biography is written during the lifetime of the subject—be he as old as Anatole France was when Mr. May published his—there should be less puffing and more illumination, less heat and more light. Mr. May allowed his personal feeling of friendship and his pleasure and pride of semi-intimacy with Anatole France to colour his estimate of the writer. He admires his versatility, his manysidedness, the rapidity with which he changed his point of view. These are no grounds for unqualified admiration. At most they would be occasion for wonder and amazement, but the biographer should point to the danger of such chameleon-like conduct, the weakness of such a nature. He “played all parts in turn and played them all well,” but this very versatility shows a lack of intimate convictions and standards. A philosophy which consists of having none, a religion which insists on the unsatisfactoriness of all belief—these are destructive and bewildering forms of reasoning; but Anatole France combined these traits with qualities and achievements which amply balanced their influence. What we should have liked Mr. May to do, a thing which we are still waiting for a biographer to do, is to have summed up, after consideration, the contradictions, the theories, the principles and the talent of Anatole France, from which we might obtain clear, critical, impartial, sober judgment of the writer. He was more than any other author the Proteus of modern time, an image and symbol of the constant change in man, and, like Proteus, he could undergo a metamorphosis of ideas and judgments which baffled the world at large, and made his personality a puzzle. However, he did not have the reticence that the Greek hero had, nor the loathing for answering questions; and he was so articulate that his evolution is not difficult to master.
Every one agrees with Mr. May that Anatole France was a stylist of talent, a psychologist of merit and a philosopher of profundity and penetration, of smiling scepticism and amused tolerance; but to say that a fairy bent over his cradle and endowed him with some of the “douceur angevine” sung by Du Bellay, and that his voice is “the voice of all humanity” is disregarding the claims of criticism. That is just what Anatole France lacked most of all—the inspiring, soothing, beneficial, unforgettable smile of a fairy over his cradle. Had he had it, Mr. May’s estimation of Anatole France’s poetry, “that it will endure so long as literature continues to interest mankind,” might find a more responsive acceptation.
Anatole France the man was so closely linked with Anatole France the writer that his biographers have been unable to separate them; and for this we should be thankful. From the best pictures that are presented to us, we gather an idea of the master-writer of the past generation that is complete and convincing; his life was devoted to writing; and his writing was always of life, as it appeared to him through intimacy with ancient masters; through study of history; through contemplation of his time; through deduction and observation of humanity. It is difficult to divorce him from his own personality, and the biographers who have succeeded in painting a picture of him that will endure have all recognised this impossibility.
Of the many authors who have attempted to set down some of the most interesting traits and characteristics of Anatole France, and who have done it when their personal recollections were still fresh and undimmed by time, Jean-Jacques Brousson has been the most successful. He lived in close intimacy with the Master for many years; he is himself endowed with critical faculty, with keen powers of observation and, like Anatole France, he has a leaning toward the aspect of life that puritans call the “unspeakable,” but which the French call “gauloiserie.” If Anatole France Himself is not a tribute of respect and of deference Anatole France’s admirers would wish it to be, at least, it does more than any other book has done to convince us of the flesh-and-bone reality of the savant, to destroy the legend that he was heartless. M. Brousson has written a biography in everyday language, he has Boswellised his Master with fidelity, wit and a certain amount of irony and of mockery which Anatole France would probably have enjoyed and lauded. He has made him appear not only in the flesh, but in the spoken word, so that the reader is able to “listen in” and if he has an imagination vivid enough, he may believe that he is living in the shadow of Anatole France. M. Brousson tells of his first days of work at the Villa Saïd, of the tempers and tolerance of his master, of his simplicity and his sarcasm; of his generosity and his avarice; of his method of work and manner of play. The latter has a large place in this biography, especially the only sort of play in which Anatole France in his declining years could indulge: imagination and ratiocination. We see him at times like a sensuous and pleasure-bent faun; then he becomes the ascetic monk, with one hand raised to an imaginary heaven in which the wisdom of time and the wickedness of the world blend; now he is the writer, the historian, the novelist, intent on his self-imposed task and working with industrious and painstaking love. Then he becomes the child, reprimanded by “Madame” because he refuses to tell a story with which she wishes to impress her audience, or because he procrastinates in writing an article for a Viennese newspaper; in turn he is the lover of antiques and the searcher after old “estampes”; then he is the disillusioned art-collector who finds that what his fancy believed to be genuine does not bear the stamp of antiquity, and who overwhelms his secretary with the objects that have ceased to please—generally in payment of his services. We like him best when he is shown to be a real man, with a heart and a nervous system reacting to emotional disturbance. “If you could only read in my soul,” he said to his secretary one day, “you would be terrified.”
“He takes my hands in his, and his are trembling and feverish. He looks me in the eyes. His are full of tears. His face is haggard. He sighs: 'There is not in all the universe a creature more unhappy than I. People think me happy. I have never been happy for one day, not for a single hour.’”
This reminds one of the text that Mark Twain constructed for his autobiography: