Abstract

A Master of the Accessible

This article presents information on the books "Conversations with Anatole France," by Nicolas Segur and "Anatole France at Home," by Marcel Le Goff. In these two books the first is written extremely well and the second rather badly, but both contain a number of anecdotes sufficiently characteristic of their subject. Yet neither can be said to add very much to our knowledge of the man, and the reason is less any fault in the reporters than the fact that Anatole France himself defined his mind with almost perfect completeness. His ideas were neither very complicated in themselves nor given to any modifying growth; his garden was early ripe and he himself had paced over every foot of it again and again, leaving no corners unexplored.