will go to any extreme rather than confess that we
have never even heard of Hegesippe Simon. Luckily, Hegesippe Simon
happens to be a person who can trip our pretentiousness up. But the
senators and deputies who were willing to celebrate the precursor's
centenary were probably not humbugs to any greater degree than if they
had consented to celebrate the anniversary of Diderot or Rousseau or
Alfred de Musset. It is utter imposture, this practice of doing honour
to great names which mean less to one than a lump of sugar; and if an
end could be put to centenary celebrations in all countries, no great
harm would be done to public honesty. On the other hand, most public
rejoicings over men of genius would be exceedingly small if all the
speeches and applause had to come from the heart without any addition
from those who merely like to be in the latest movement. Perhaps the
adherents of Hegesippe Simon are necessary in order to make it
profitable to be a man of genius at all. They are not only a useful
claque, but they pay. That is why even if William Shakespeare, Anatole
France, and Bergson are only other and better known names for
Hegesippe, it would be madness to destroy such enthusiasm as has
gathered round them. M. Berault, by his light-hearted hoax on his
political opponents, has struck at the very roots of popular homage to
men of genius.

XXIV

ANATOLE FRANCE

There does not at first glance seem to be any great similarity between
Mr Thomas Hardy and M. Anatole France, the latter of whom has come to
London to see how enthusiastically Englishmen can dine when they wish
to express their feelings about literature. Yet both writers are
extraordinarily alike. Each of them is an incarnation of the spirit of
pity, of the spirit of irony. Mr Hardy may have more pity than irony
and Anatole France may have more irony than pity. I might put it
another way and say that Mr Hardy has the tragic spirit of pity while
Anatole France has the comic spirit of pity. But each of them is, in
his own way, the last word of the nineteenth century on the
universe--the century that extinguished the noon of faith and gave us
the little star of pity to light up the darkness instead. Each of them
is, therefore, a pessimist--Mr Hardy typically British, Anatole France
typically French, in his distress. It is as though Mr Hardy spoke out
of a rain-cloud; Anatole France out of a cloud of irresponsible
lightnings. There, perhaps, you have an