657316 P4x2254 V.29 This edition of the works of Anatole France in English is published by arrangement with Messrs. John Lane, The Bodley Head, Limited, of London, and Messrs. Dodd, Mead and Company of New York, who are the owners of the copyrights. IMDIVMY OMIA PRESSWORK BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. PRINTED IN U. S. A. PREFACE FERDINAND BRUNETIÈRE,1 of whom I am very fond, is extremely angry with me. He charges me with misunderstanding the very laws of criticism, of having no standard by which to judge the things of the mind, of floating according to my instincts among contradictions, of not emerging from myself, and of being enclosed in my own subjectivity, as in a dark prison. Far from complaining of being thus attacked, I rejoice in this honourable dispute, which is entirely flattering to myself when one considers the merit of my adversary, the severity of a censure which conceals much indulgence, the greatness of the interests concerned, for according to M. Brunetière it is a matter of no less than the intellectual future of our country, and, to conclude, the choice of my accomplices, M. Jules Lemaître and M. Paul Desjardins being denounced along with me as guilty of subjective and personal criticism, and as corrupters of youth. I have an old and ever fresh affection for the wit of M. Lemaître, for his quick intelligence, his winged poetry, and his delightful lucidity. M. Paul Desjardins interests me by reason of the tremulous gleams of his delicate imagination. If I were in the slightest degree cunning, I should be careful to refrain from separating my cause from theirs. * See the Revue des Deux Mondes, 1st January, 1891, La Critique impersonnelle, by M. Ferdinand Brunetière. |