Colette Yver and Marcelle Tinayre have left their mark on the psychological novel. The first mentioned has recorded the sentimental deviations caused by the social obligations of the woman. It is permissible to reproach her with a narrow-mindedness of ideas the more culpable at the present time when the question of feminism is not one of discussion but of organization. Charles Henry Hirsch is a satel lite of Zola and an original character. He paid perhaps too much attention to the feuilleton and his books are too long. He is a vigorous and honest writer who has not said his last word. Henri Duvernois is perfect in his light ro mances, resembling those of Hermaht. Claude Farrere is our story teller. He commenced with material obtained from opium dreaming and ended by attaining the precision 'of a Maw passant. This is a pity. His interior vision is more captivating than his observations. This, however, is purely a,personal opinion. His un doubted talent is beyond dispute. Leon Frapie is the friend of the children, Jerome and Jean Theraud are the most promising writers of the coming generation. Their work, at the present moment of a noble, determined, independent, sure style, approaching that of Flaubert, already commands respect and admiration.
ry One of the greatest of names has been reserved for the last — Jules Renard. He is classical, psychological, realist, a poet in the noblest sense of the word. He chooses with subtle and sure art and defines with the precision of a mathematician. The sonority of his words is such that they sink into our mind and enthral us more than poems. His characters Poil de Carotte — distressed youth — Ragotte — old age resigned—are imperishable types of touching humanity depicted with terrible reality. Renard is a lonely soul, a misanthrope, possessing a style of his own. Charles Louis' Philippe re lates in an all too brief work the story of his unhappy life. Jules Dolent, realist, haughty, younger brother of Renard is like him piti lessly ironical. Wrongly understood he will in time affirm himself and his works will play a preponderating role. Aurel is a disciple of Dolent. His complicated style is prejudicial to the harmony of his train of thought. But his mind is so original that it is able to conjure this effort and even to enhance it.
Psychological Critics.— These are four in number, of unequal merit but all strongly im pregnated with the psychological mind. Sarcy may perhaps be considered a little too super ficial; Brunetiere rather too heavy, while Emile Faguet and Rene Doumic are heavy, uni .
Artista.—Another school arose out of Naturalism and more directly from the de Gon courts: this was styled the Artists. A primary homage is due to Peladan whose archaic science and sense of the mysterious has not been suffi ciently recognized. Esthetic artist, erudite, a perfect stylist, his criticisms and novels are of the finest quality. jean Lorrain possessed the dilatory methods and broad mind of a great man of letters. He wrote with delightful har mony d'Ivoire et d'Ivresse.' He showed himself perverse in (Monsieur de Phocas) and terribly realist in his tales. He embellished by the color and rhythm of his style the most impenetrable secrets of our heart.
Pierre Loti has played a large part in litera ture. He has taken but a small note from the
magnificent orchestra of Chiteaubriand, a note morever monotonous, modulated to the infinite on the eternal theme of the tomb. He gives the impression of an ever-swaying mind, or metaphorically speaking as a sailor on the ship of life tossed perpetually on the rough sea. A great and enchanting artist. Pierre Louys is a favorite with the public, a cultured and finished artist. A Greek and Latin scholar in addition to an admirable French litterateur his works are valuable and will assuredly live. For a better understanding those writers have been grouped who have specialized in the description of the sites of France and to whom we are grateful for giving us an insight into such delightful nooks. They are named in the order of ancient to modern: Ferdinand Fabre has given us delightful pictures of the southern Cevennes; Emile Pavillon has depicted the landscape of Languedoc; Andre Theuriet has portrayed for us — in some what puerile fashion — the Champagne and Touraine country; Rene Bazin, Angoumois and Poitou. Anatole de Bras was a lover of Brittany. We must certainly not overlook Jean de Bonnefon, a great artist but unfor tunately somewhat bitter in the use of a mind which does not lackquality. There is finally Colette (Colette Willy), perversely sentimental in her and only sentimentally .so in her other works. Her books make highly diverting and pleasant reading.
Realistic and Psychological Theatre.— These playwrights have been grouped like the writers in order to be better able to distinguish the ideas separating them. As continuation of Emile Angier and Dumas we will cite Emile Fabre, the animator of the proletarian masses, and Brieux with his risky subjects, medical or social, somewhat tardy but vigorous. Alfred Capus, Maurice Donnay, Paul Hervieu, Henri Becque and above all Porto-Riche are merely haunted by the amorous and the sentimental. Francois de Curd complicates his works by a predilection for individualism. He however is responsible for quite original characters which give an interest to his theatre and raise it to a higher level. Henri Bernstein is still more fearless. He attacks, like Fabre but more forcibly so, the terrible scourge of the hour: Money. He presents this scourge in all phases and gives us a terribly realistic vision of incon testable grandeur. The psychological theatre is endowed with two famous names, Courteline and Tristan Bernard. Their keen and un erring spirit of observation, coupled with a sense of the humorous not devoid of gall, have made them writers as well as dramatists, their works classics as well as modern. Their crea tions, drawn to life, are on a level with an Alceste or a Tartuffe and rank perhaps as authoritative. Sacha Guitry follows in ,their footsteps while limiting the scope of his obser vations to the shallow and make believe which were so deplorably prevalent before we were all tried in the fire by the present worldri crisis. Henri Bataille's theatre is a compromise be tween pure art and worldliness in general. He is at times superbly brilliant while at he lapses into quite incomprehensible triviality not to mention commonplace. He beguiles us but not always by touching upon the best traits of our race.