Anatole

“ As for Anatole, he was as lugubrious as a funeral mute, and the Doctor’s cynical animation at table completely mystified him.
When once the fumes of punch had abated, poor Anatole saw his mad engagement in quite [Pg 85] a novel light. The thought of that pistol held by his own hand to his own brains drove him to panic. He looked wan with fear, and fierce from desire to conceal his fear. He was a coward in both senses: without courage to stand out against a foolish engagement, and equally without courage to face death. ”

“ PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN Like many agnostics, Anatole France is more interested in religion than is many a believer. Like those old encyclopædists of the eighteenth century, he is always crushing the infamous one, which the faithful generally support because assured that the so-called infamous one cannot be crushed. ”

“ All this feeling is in The Revolt of the74 Angels, the most remarkable of Anatole France’s theological books, as Penguin Island is his principal political book. It is an amusing story, this idea that the angels, as knowledge and thought spread among them, should one by one desert the heavenly choir, come to earth to live among men, to love them, and attempt to overthrow Him who has stood in the way of every science and of every art. ”

“ Blasphemy need not be ignorant; indeed, true blasphemy is possible only in the enlightened: the unenlightened find it easier to believe; it is so difficult to believe when one does not know. Now Anatole France does not know, and he is, so far as that goes, in the position of St Francis, but where he differs from St Francis is that he does not believe that which he does not know. (I am assuming that St Francis did believe, that he did more than want to believe.) For Anatole France understands perfectly well the Catholic attitude and its Christian variations ”

“ Anatole was sitting upright in the classic pose of military dandies, the lower part of his face hidden by his beaver collar and his head slightly bent. His face was fresh and rosy, his white-plumed hat, tilted to one side, disclosed his curled and pomaded hair besprinkled with powdery snow.
“Yes, indeed, that's a true sage,” thought Pierre. “He sees nothing beyond the pleasure of the moment, nothing troubles him and so he is always cheerful, satisfied, and serene. What wouldn't I give to be like him!” ”

“ When the lovers meet in the beautiful Florentine pavilion one is never sure that theirs is a love feast: at any moment it may turn into an essay on the glazes of Botticelli. Anatole France must at one time have been conscious of this, for in one of his books, Histoire Comique, he made a great effort to tell the story of a little actress who threw over her actor lover for a young diplomat, and found after the suicide of the actor that never more could she come together with her new lover because in their tenderest moments she was haunted by the bloody spectre of the dead man. ”

“ Those who have come under the spell of Anatole France and are conscious of his peculiar charm, know instinctively that, when his voice is hushed, such accents will never fall upon their ears again. There will doubtless be born other writers whose work will be no less illumined by grace and beauty, but it will be a different grace, a different beauty. ”

“ OR nearly half a century the name of Anatole France has stood in the estimation of the world for all that the most exquisite and most refined in the French language; he has exerted over the minds of his own and succeeding generations an intellectual influence second to none, and he has enjoyed a prestige comparable only to that of Voltaire. He is a devoted lover of the Muses, and if he professes no philosophy, no creed, it is because he has tried them all and discovered none that will unravel the master-knot of human fate. ”

“ The human garden cannot, for it is all pervaded, with the first sowing; yet Anatole, I hope that true love may keep a constant watch and pluck out the degenerate weeds as they appear, for I want, with all my soul, our child to be your own. ”

“ She was a woman in ten thousand, Anatole thought, so robust and hardy, a veritable comrade in daring and endurance. He was the man of the moment to her, who was able to surmount the difficulties of their position, scale the cliffs with fearless grip, snare the birds, capture the eggs, spear the seals, sea-elephants, sea-leopards and sea-lions. There was no fear of starving with such a hunter and fisher as Anatole, no fear of weariness with such a cook as Eugene.
They had discovered coal on the island, and peat mosses, and laid in a store against winter. ”

“ Anatole France obtains his by bringing out the essential incongruity of life: funerals passing under the windows of the Ritz where there is a smart luncheon-party, sermons bidding us love our enemies while newsboys shout casualty lists; life is full of it. That is why the archdeacon and another cleric hold, in the midst of a theological crisis, that earnest argument about52 omelettes. Life and people are like that, and there is nothing at all distorted in the diplomatic, furry, soft-spoken priests who ... ”

“ He is too great to be merely clever, too wise to be dogmatic. He is indulgent to all men, save the fanatics. Fanatics he detests, because they are the sworn enemies of Beauty, and in his eyes the only unpardonable sins are the sins against Beauty.
Anatole France sees life steadily, and sees it whole. With the insight of genius he can enter into the state of mind and speak with the tongue appropriate to all his characters, from the highest to the lowest—scholar, politician, priest, soldier, voluptuary, wanton, all the motley dramatis personæ that move across the stage of life. ”

“ The Angel, not deigning to hear, continued in his melodious voice: "I have delved deep into Oriental antiquities and also into those of Greece [88] and Rome. I have devoured the works of theologians, philosophers, physicists, geologists, and naturalists. I have learnt. I have thought. I have lost my faith."
"What? You no longer believe in God?"
"I believe in Him, since my existence depends on His, and if He should fail to exist, I myself should fall into nothingness. I believe in Him, even as the Satyrs and the Mænads believed in Dionysus and for the same reason. ”

“ Gods and goddesses who hover in the highest heights of Heaven! The blind old man, the long-wandering beggar-king, led by Antigone, has now been buried with holy rites; and his daughter, fair as the fairest dream ever conceived by human soul, resists the will of the tyrant and gives pious sepulture to her brother. ”

“ He will present tragic happenings consequent on the little follies, meannesses and passions of mankind with an emotionlessness which would be called delicate cruelty were the view point that of one of the sons of earth, but ceases to be so when the presenting hands are calm and immortal; and yet shining through all is the man himself, loving and merciful, tender and warm.... In most men similarly endowed there has been a conflict between the twin souls which has generally ended in the strangling of the artist; but in the case of Anatole France they have worked together in bewildering harmony. ”

“ So far as I am concerned, I am inclined to believe that god is in reality, not the one you have conceived, but indeed the matter he discovered on a certain day, and which the Greeks have styled chaos. You are mistaken in your belief that matter is inert. It is ever in motion, and its perpetual activity keeps life a-going throughout the universe."
Thus spake the philosopher Apollodorus. Gallio, who had listened to his speech with some degree of impatience, denied that he had fallen a victim to the mistakes and contradictions with which the Greek charged him. ”

“ Who does not know that the poets are prophets, and that nothing is hidden from them? Being a poet myself, and crowned with Apollo’s laurel, I will make known to all the last incarnation of Eunoia. The eternal Helen is close to us; she is looking at us, and we are looking at her. You see that woman reclining on the cushions of her couch—so beautiful and so contemplative—whose eyes shed tears, and whose lips abound with kisses! It is she! Lovely as in the time of Priam and the halcyon days of Asia, Eunoia is now called Thais.
PHILINA. What do you say, Callicrates? ”

“ The physician, understanding what was in Félicie's mind, quickly replied:
"My dear little Nanteuil, believe what I tell [Pg 135] you. The phantoms of the dead have no more reality than the phantoms of the living." ”

“ If nothing remained of these women except a bone, one would find in that bone the charm of their exquisite structure. Sundays, at church, they form laughing groups, agitated, with hips a little pointed, elegant necks, flowery smiles, and inflaming glances. ”

“ Annaeus Mela, followed by his three friends, had reached the top of the basilica's steps. Alike heedless of the noise and stir of the idle multitude, he was imparting information to Cassius in regard to the future renovation of the universe.
"On a day determined by the gods," he said, "the things existing to-day, whose order and disposition claim our attention, will be destroyed. Stars will clash with stars, all matters composing the earth, the air, and the waters will be consumed in one conflagration. ”

“ In retired corners, young men played dice or other games, and old men followed prostitutes. Above all these rose the solitary, unchanging column; the head with the cow’s horns gazed into the shadow, and above it Paphnutius watched between heaven and earth. All at once the moon rose over the Nile, like the bare shoulder of a goddess. The hills gleamed with blue light, and Paphnutius thought he saw the body of Thais shinning in the glimmer of the waters amidst the sapphire night. ”

“ And the nymphs fled away from them, while beneath their racing steps there sprang up flowery meadows and brooks of water. Each time a goat-foot put out his hand to seize one of them, a sallow would shoot up suddenly to hide the nymph in its hollow trunk as in a cave, and the grey leaves shivered with light murmurings and spurts of mocking laughter.
When all the women were hidden in the sallows, their goat-footed lovers, sitting on the grass of the new-come meadows, breathed in their flutes of reeds and drew from them sounds to destroy the peace of any creature of the earth. ”

“ Thus the old man spoke. As everywhere throughout nature voice calls to voice, as all which breathes in the light of day loves alternate strains, these penguins answered the old man by the sounds of their throats. ”

“ The shock of the hurtling metal was mingled with indescribable roars and death rattles. Profiting by the terror of the survivors, and fearing that Balkis might be injured, he seized her in his arms and fled with her through the silence and darkness of the lonely byways. The stillness of night enveloped the earth, and the fugitives heard the clamour of the women and the carousers, who pursued them at haphazard, die away in the darkness. Soon they heard nothing more than the sound of dripping blood as it fell from the brow of Balthasar on the breast of Balkis. ”

“ Honey-Bee lay with folded hands on her little mossy bed and watched the light of the first stars tremble in the pale sky; then her eyes half closed, and yet it seemed to her as if overhead she saw a little dwarf mounted on a raven. ”

“ I thought I loved you when you were only a phantom. Now, you are the being in whose hands I have put my soul. It is true that you are mine! What have I done to obtain the greatest, the only, good of this world? And those men with whom the earth is covered think they are living! I alone live! ”

“ For Évariste, she bent with an air of painstaking absorption over her scarf, for she wanted to stir a sentiment of serious affection in his heart.
Élodie was neither very young nor very pretty. She might have been deemed plain at the first glance. She was a brunette, with an olive complexion; under the broad white kerchief knotted carelessly about her head, from which the dark lustrous ringlets escaped, her eyes of fire gleamed as if they would burn their orbits. ”

“ He apprehends the infinite forms of creation; they all display to him symbols of Julie; he hears the unnumbered voices of nature; they all murmur in his ear the name of Julie. He plunges his gaze rapturously into the inmost heart of the daylight, with the thought that that fortunate light bathes also the countenance of Julie, and casts as it were a divine caress on the loveliest of human forms. This evening the earliest stars will thrill his being; he will say: ‘Perhaps at this very moment she too is gazing on them.’ He inhales her in all the odours borne on the air. ”

“ The while I was attempting to decipher them, the shadows of the countless machines cleaving the air flitted across my vision. Once more did I gaze upwards, and in this sky altered beyond recognition, more densely populated than the earth, cloven by rudders and threshed by screws, towards which a circle of smoke rose from the horizon, I perceived the sun. ”

“ A fragrance of myrrh and aromatic perfumes which emanated from her seemed to intoxicate me with languor and longing, as if at once all the odours of the mystic East had penetrated my quivering nostrils. No, this was certainly not a natural woman, for nothing human seemed to emanate from her. ”

“ Their strength inspired them with audacity to war with the gods, therein following the example of the Giants, Jupiter, unable to brook such insolence——"
"Michon, doesn't my petticoat hang too low on the left?" asked Nanteuil.
"Resolved," continued the doctor, "to render them less strong and less daring. He divided each into two, so that they had now but two arms, two legs, and one head apiece, and thenceforward the human race became what it is to-day. Consequently, each of us is only the half of a human being, divided from the other half, just as one divides a sole into two portions. ”