38. PAUL BOURGET. LE DISCIPLE.
"Le Disciple" is perhaps the best work of this voluminous and
interesting writer. Devoid of irony, deficient in humor, lacking any
large imaginative power, Paul Bourget holds, all the same, an
unassailable place among French writers. Though a devoted adherent of
Goethe and Stendhal, Bourget represents, along with Bordeaux, the
conservative ethical reaction. He upholds Catholicism and the
sacredness of the "home." He is a master in plot and has a clear,
vigorous and appealing style. A gravely portentous sentiment sometimes
spoils his tragic effects; but every lover of Paris will enjoy the
unctuous elaboration of the "backgrounds" of his stories, touched
often with the most delicate and mellow evocations of that City's
atmosphere.
39. ROMAIN ROLLAND. JEAN CHRISTOPHE. _Translated by Gilbert Cannan_.
Rolland's "Christophe" is without doubt the most remarkable book that
has appeared in Europe since Nietzsche's "Ecce Homo."
It is a profoundly suggestive treatise upon the relations between art
and life. It contains a deep and heroic philosophy--the philosophy of
the worship of the mysterious life-force as God; and of the reaching
out beyond the turmoil of good and evil towards some vast and dimly
articulated reconciliation.
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