One word as to his short stories. He is in these more purely literary than in his novels, presumably because in short stories he has not space enough to get out of hand. A few of them, such as _The Procurator of Judæa_, and one or two of the revolutionary tales in _Mother of Pearl_, are as good as any French short stories, while _Crainquebille_ and _Putois_ reach the highest standard of de Maupassant. Still, there is nothing to say about them here: there is only one thing to do, and that is to read them. There are others, though, worth mentioning because, together with their fine literary facture, they carry the author’s ideas. For instance, in _Les Sept Femmes de la Barbe Bleue_, Anatole France sets to work to rehabilitate Bluebeard, who, he contends, was henpecked and deceived, though a very good fellow. This is Anatole France’s little fling at rumour and misrepresentation. It amuses him to trace rumour to its sources, and I can imagine as good a story as _Putois_, the gardener who was invented and in the end nearly managed to exist, being written round the story of the bombs in the German governess’s bedroom that floated about during the early part of the war. This is half mystical and Anatole France is not a mystic, but he has written several stories, to which I refer a little later on, starting from which it might be contended that if humanity believed strongly enough in the bomb under the bed the House of Commons might eventually be blown up. Most of the short stories, however, are merely novels _in petto_; some are mediæval, many Italian, and, every now and then, they are modern and ironic. Most of them, such as _La Chemise_, where operations become fashionable among the Smart Set and where the professor asks Society, “together a crowd and an élite,” to his five-o’clock operation, “a charming bit of ovariotomy,” to the accompaniment of flowers, pretty frocks, music and ices, are a criticism of life. This story recalls a kind of life we know, for we are told that “the professor’s elegance and grace were marvellous. The operation was taken for the cinema.” All through these stories runs his philosophy: