“A person’s real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself. All day long, and every day, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, not those other things that are his history. His acts and his words are merely the visible, thin crust of his world with its scattered snow summits and its vacant wastes of water—and they are so trifling a part of his bulk; a mere skin enveloping it. The mass of him is hidden—it and its volcanic fires that toss and boil, and never rest, night nor day.”
Anatole France hid his soul well: his volcano was frequently on the point of eruption, but nearly always he succeeded in smothering it.
Jean-Jacques Brousson has written a valuable exposition of Anatole France’s personality, of the home and the semi-public life of his hero, and his intention to bring him as close and make him as familiar to us as he could is evident in the French title of Anatole France Himself, Anatole France en Pantoufles. This is the way in which we remember him most vividly, with his felt slippers lined with purple, and his multicoloured skull cap.
Another of his admirers is Paul Gsell, who was a frequent and faithful visitor at the morning meetings at the Villa Saïd. Introduction to these famous “audiences” was not difficult to get—the difficulty was to get there a second time if the Master found the visitor a bore or a fool. He could suffer neither, unless they were hidden in the pulchritudinous envelope of an attractive woman—then everything was allowed and overlooked to leave place for admiration and gallantry. Paul Gsell has written Anatole France and His Circle, and his book reads like a court report, or a newspaper interview, withal it is full of the charm of the conversation of Anatole France, and of his unforeseen and original reactions to ideas and beliefs. Among a great many anecdotes and conversations which are interesting and instructive, the episode of Mr. Brown, the Australian “stout, robust man of florid complexion with close-shaven lips and chin,” who wore gold-rimmed spectacles and who showed in his Anglo-Saxon elegance his assiduity to golf and polo, and who came to see Anatole France in search of the mystery ... the secret of literary genius, is one of the most diverting. He may have found what he wanted, but his visit resulted, at all events, in a disclosure of literary geniuses of the past as studied by Anatole France which is remarkable in its scope and in its truth.
Paul Gsell’s book has had imitators and it has given an incentive to assiduous followers of Anatole France to set down for posterity, some of the memorable conversations and discussions at which they were present. The most successful has been Marcel Le Goff, who, in the last ten years of the Master’s life, saw him at his country home near Tours, frequently and with increasing interest and admiration. He has recorded his talks, but fortunately, he could not resist the temptation of allowing us to peep into the intimacy of Anatole France, and into his life at “La Béchellerie.” His tastes, and the trivialities which form part of every life, have been divulged and even though M. Le Goff is one of France’s admirers, he has avoided Mr. Lewis May’s pitfall and has not allowed his personal feeling to blind him absolutely:
“Perhaps M. France has had weaknesses; it would be sad to lay too much stress on them, to reveal them and to find pleasure in their recital. One might better see in him, the illustrious and permanent witness of the beauty of our language and of the genius of our people.”
But the best biography of Anatole France is still the one he wrote himself, under guise of four novels, Le Petit Pierre, Le Livre de Mon Ami, Pierre Nozière and La Vie En Fleur. They reveal the formation of the clever novelist, of the profound thinker, of the cultured critic, of the great stylist. Style was his obsession and perfect expression of thought was his constant care; he reached the heart of his subject as few younger authors have done, and never left it until he had obtained all he could from it; surveying it from one angle, then from another, he saw its shades and meanings, and this explains some of his contradictions. Anatole France, partial as he was as a man, was impartial when he wrote of universally interesting and profoundly significant events.
By his allegiance to the teachings of the past, he deserved to be called the last of the classicists; by his fidelity in maintaining the traditions of novels, he is entitled to be called “romantic”; by his love for the perfect phrase, for purity of form and loftiness of sentiments, he proved himself a true son of the ancient masters; and by his keen appreciation of intelligence, analysis and objectivity, he made a definite place for himself in the modern school. His mind has been influenced by the greatest minds of history and of literature. He adopted their thoughts, and adapted their interpretation of life to his own style, and he had neither scruples nor shyness in copying what had already been said: “When a thing has been said, and well said, have no scruples, take it. Give references? What for? Either your readers know where you have gathered the passage and the reference is useless, or else they do not know it, and you humiliate them by giving it.” That was one tenet of his creed and many have said he lived up to it. He did, indeed, and for that reason posterity is likely to rate him as an interpreter more than as a creator, and to set him below men of real creative genius, such as Ibsen, Dostoievsky, or Chekhov.
We do not need Jean-Jacques Brousson to point out to us France’s principal fault in his literary work. It is evident in all his books. He lacked a formulated plan, and had he had one, he probably would not have pursued it with the energy, determination and single-mindedness that Dostoievsky or Ibsen displayed. It was not his versatility that shortened his reach for the crown of glory, it was his distractibility. He could be diverted from a determination by whim, fancy, sentiment or appeal, and most of all by the bigotries, stupidities, vanities and selfishness of his people. He must hold them up to ridicule, lash them with stinging words, scorch them with scorn and sting them with sarcasm, before he could find peace in his “objets d’art,” satisfaction in his bibelots, and contentment in contemplation of concrete beauty.