The sun., 1919-05-18

drawn by Ingres, David or Honore de
Balzac in his Human Comedy. (See for
instance Uncle Hyacinthe, "who had
spent all his virtue in one day and did
not find enough Of ii left TO live up TO that
heroic performance.) In fact, Anatole
France brings very close to US those by
gone days. The French have a striking
way Of expressing the dotage of senility.
They call it. "tomber en- enhance" Read
ing Petit Pierre, one cannot help wonder
ing at seeing Anatole France, that apostle
of progress and preacher Of the socialist
gospel, taking refuge against modernity
in the age of Louis Philippe and ready
to give up his twentieth century knowl-
edge for the simple instincts of little
child
The miracle of regeneration might well
be possible if the goddess Nemesis al
lowed. But this is not the case. Monks
who enter the convent after stormy
life cannot compete for ''naIvete" with
white cowled and white souIed nov
ices There is a limit of age for a
disillusioned fakir to enter the Jungle
before be has tasted too much of the Bit
ter-sweet of life. Terribly old is little
Pierre. His "naivete" does not deceive
the present day reader. That child rea-
sons in 1874 as if he had already written
Sylrestre Bonnard, ThGis, The Epicmean
Garden and The Isle Of Penquims.
Anatole France had already twice re-
vived little Pierre, in The BocS of Ny
Friend, and IN Pierre Noziere. As France
gets older Petit Pierre seems to grow
younger He was 10 or II in Pierre
NoziSre. He has just been born in Paris
in the new autobiography.
III.
That Petit Pierre, as Anatole France
certifes, was born in a "chaudron de
eonfture," makes US smile, but hardly
surprises US. Where else could he have
taken his sugar coated epieureanism and
that drop of honey at the tip of his pen?
When A. France calls Petit Pierre "pessi-
mistic and joyous" just like himself, We
thank him for that definition which fits
so well his future metamorphosis from
SylueStre Bonndrd to The Gods Are
Thirsty, through The Opinions Of J6r6me
Coignard.
Reading Petit Pierre makes us wish for
a double life, one for experience, the other
one for reflection. To be at the same
time a living being and a philosopher
has unfortunately been denied to US NOR
tabs by a jealous Providence. Why not
then have first a childhood and adde's
cence to act, to love, to succeed or fail,
then a second existence to draw the moral
lesson of the former, and third life to
begin all over again9 One part of our
life for experience, another part for edu-
cation-was not this the dream of that
Petit Pierre of New England, our own
Henry Adamsi In the absence of any
thing better, AnatoIe France has solved
he problem in giving TO that little boy
of seventy-fve years ago his own modern
soul and philosophy. France, in fact,
hardly recognizes that little fellow who
used to be himself. There is something
pathetic in seeing that old sage trying
to bring back TO life that younger part of
himself, the little bsy who, he tells US,
probably died long time ago. He re-
wives him, indeed, but makes him older
than his age by giving him the philosophy
of cynie of 1919, and this is another ele-
ment of pathos.
Henceforward little Pierre will not
even be able to suck a piece of candy
without weighing the significance of his
act. Anatole France plays with Petit
Pierre the part of Mephistophelcs with
Faust. One night, for instance, NJ. No
ziere enters the room, and to lure the child
TO sleep, tells him that he will give him
the most cunning little COW in the world.
That is enough 10 make the child happy
and set him a-dreaming. But it is not
enough for France, who draws from the