If I were optimistically inclined, I might call this paper “A Ready and Easy Way to Establish Harmony among Metricians.” Being aware, however, that the establishing of such harmony is about as probable as was the establishment of a republic in England on the eve of the Restoration, I shall be content with the more modest course of pointing out certain confusions which mark current controversy, and proposing certain simple remedies for them. Like most compromises suggested by onlookers, this one will doubtless fail to win the approval of extreme partisans on either side; but I hope that it is not wholly destitute of features which may commend it to those of more moderate leanings.

During the last two and a half years France has lost three great writers, Pierre Loti, Anatole France, and Maurice Barrès. Loti, because of his impressionistic novels of the most artistic kind which record his tireless quest of sensations in all countries of the world, France, because of his epicurean philosophy and Voltairean wit expressed in two-score works of the most finished style, and Barrès, because of his triple rôle of author, politician, and leader of traditionalism in France,—all three have left a profound influence on the contemporary literature of their country. Of these three, Barrès, in spite of the conceit of his early egotism, the narrowness of his nationalism, and the occasional arrogance of his confidence in the superiority of French culture, is by far the most highly endowed and representative; and on this account his work will receive more and more attention from serious students of the political, social, and literary movements of the last thirty years in France. He was one of the first to make his voice heard against the extreme naturalism of Zola and his school; he founded a group of enthusiastic young writers striving toward a new order of things; and, after a period of hesitation, he stood forth as the champion of the best traditions of his country. The purpose of this paper is not, however, to make a comparative study of the relative greatness of these three writers, but rather to trace the struggle between the classical and romantic elements in Barrès' composition, and to show that the latter were not only predominant in his first writings but continued to the end of his life as a strong undercurrent in his novels and books of travel.

That René Boylesve is descended in a direct line from Balzac has for years been a commonplace with critics. As long ago as 1906, Henri Gheon styled Boylesve a “fils direct de Balzac.” Jules Bertaut, after pointing out that Boylesve's characters, like himself, are very “sensibles,” and that the provincials among them, having been forced to suppress their individualities, experience violent emotional crises when, for one reason or another, they tear themselves loose, adds this comment: “Le grand Balzac le savait bien, lui qui a dressé ses plus belles figures de grand passionnés dans d'inertes chefs-lieux de canton!” Pierre Lasserre says of la Becquée that it has “de fortes ressemblances avec un chef-d'œuvre balzacien.” Similarly, Winifred Stephens, in her essay on Boylesve, sees in his work “the minuteness of a Balzac,” and Mme Mary Duclaux, compares Boylesve's Touraine novels to the Scènes de la vie de province of the Comédie humaine. Indeed, the work of Boylesve almost inevitably calls up the name of Balzac. It is the purpose of the present paper to determine whether this resemblance is anything more than a superficial one and, if it is not, to see wherein lies the originality of Boylesve.