TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
In the plain text version words in Italics are denoted by _underscores_and text in bold like =this=.
The book cover was modified by the Transcriber and has been added tothe public domain.
A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenatedvariants. For the words with both variants present the one more usedhas been kept.
Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected.
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TWENTIETH CENTURY FRENCH WRITERS
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Frontispiece
TWENTIETH CENTURY FRENCH WRITERS
(REVIEWS AND REMINISCENCES)
BY
MADAME MARY DUCLAUX
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1920
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Printed in Great Britain
PRE-WAR PREFACE
I meant this book to be an image, a reflection, ofthe Twentieth Century in France, so far as it isshown in literature during the first fourteen yearsof its course. But my book is small, the subject isvast: an actual, living movement, a growinggeneration, is a difficult thing to copy—it will notkeep still! And it branches out so wide: thereare so many French writers of the younger sort!I am overcome with remorse when I think of thegifted beings whom I have left out!
I remember that child whom Saint Augustinesaw, trying to gather the sea into his little shell;like him, I see the waters stretching illimitably:I have only brought away a sample. Yet those whotaste it may have some faint idea, if not of thebreadth and the numerousness of the literary movementin France, at least of its savour and its quality.
Given the limits of my little volume, I wascompelled to make a choice; and there is alwayssome injustice in a selection. Why should somebe taken and others left? Why accept Rostandand reject Bataille? Why give Madame de Noaillesand say nothing of Fernand Gregh? Why gatherup Boylesve and André Gide, neglecting Estaunie,and Sageret, and Paul Adam? If I have MarieLenéru, why not Sacha Guitry? Choosing Madame[Pg vi]Colette, what reason have I for eliminating Madamede Régnier or Madame Delarue-Mardrus? I especiallymourn the absence of the Brothers Tharaud, thoseperfect artists, who preserve the tradition ofFlaubert. And there is a great gap in my fabricwhere I should have put the colonial novel (thatflourishing Euphorion, born of the union of Lotiand Kipling). Why have I not a line for HenryDaguerches, for Claude Farrère? All these arenames to remember.
At least I lay this unction to my soul: if I havenot always chosen the most perfe