The New York herald., 1921-02-20
Whitney Warren Writes to Paris of Gen. Nvelle

has turned aside or wearied that first
impulse my heart and the hearts of
all who knew him are filled with an
infinite gratitude.
l love to recall the figure Of that
man with his high forehead, his Clear
visage, alert eyes; and with hands al
ways so generously extended And
these lines in LIntrdnstoednt, come
from so far, across the wide ocean,
are like the living echo of his ever
faithful care for us.
Nothing here which calculates upon
an effect none of those fine phrases
that seem to demand reading aloud In
an eloquent tone and are like the har-
monious reverberations of words.
merely pleasant to the ear that when
they are read leave nothing in the
mind.
No. Whitney Warren has touched
our hearts because he writes with his
own heart.
Telling you of Nine. de Noailles, last
week l spoke OF the early age at
which her fame arrived. She is ex-
ceptional i'm this. j. II. Rosny of the
Academic Goncourt has been recalling
in CoptGdid the number of great men
who had left youth or even past mid
die age before their achievements won
public recognition.
OF course we must begin every list
of this kind with a Greek name. No
serious inquiry into literary question
would be quite respectable unless it
Ha
prefer the Egyptians, Ca meSt eOdI.
Acschylus was 40 years old when he
first won the prize for tragedy, fifty
eight when he produced his great
"Seven Against Thebes."
Coming down to the Italians we find
Dante beginning his Divine Comedy
at thirty-six and working on it for
years. Michelangelo did his best work
between the ages of thirty-four and
fifty-nine.
In French literature. Moliere created
"Tartuffe" and lie Misanthrope' at
forty-two and forty-four Racine gave
"Phedre" TO the world at thirty-seven.
"Athalie" at fifty-two. The work of
Balzac would lose it's most impressive
elements If the books which came from
his pen between thirty-five and forty
seven were destroyed. Stendhal lived
more than half century before he
was prepared to write Ia Chartreuse
de Parme" And it was another half
century before the world fully recogr
nized the power Of the great psycholo-
gist
F1aubert had n late Towering OF
genius. and after Madame Bovary"
the gorgeous "Salammbo" and the
penetrating Education Sentimentale"
came only at long intervals. Flau-
bert's full glory was accorded only
after his death. Victor Hugo. how
ever precocious. attained the heights
at maturity and did some of his best
work as he approached old age.
Tolstoi devoted FIVE years to the
composition Of War and Peace" fin
ishing IL at forty-one. Anna Kare-
nina" was written at forty-eight,
Resurrection In old age.
It is true that Raphael and Mozart
died at thirty-seven and thirty-five.
leaving masterpieces as near to per-
fection in their way MS mortals ever
create. Among the English writer's,
Keats and SheIleysfailed to attain the
age of thirty-but tho gods saved
them from the failure OF their divine
art our own Rimbaud was perhaps,
II we except Chatterton, the most
original Of adolescents. for he ceased
10 write at nineteen years.
After all it is not the age but the
continuance OF growth which matters.
When the mind ceases TO grow the
man is dead The true spirit of the
creator Is illustrated in the words Of
the indomltable old Japanese artist
HolSusai. Of whom De Goncourt wrote
one Of the earliest Western biog-
raphies. Hokusai was ifty-two when
n complete revolution in his art oc-