and deeds, are lumbering higgledy piggledy across each other. The poet or artist, who is truest to reality, is untruest to poetry and art. At all times the attempt at realism in art has landed where has the attempt at materialism in philosophy—in impotence. Historic novels, if very historic, as are these of Kemény, must thus necessarily benumb the creative power of the poet. And so they have. Had Kemény, instead of the past, embraced the present; had he followed in the wake of Balzac in fetching from the depth of Hungarian humanity some of the arch-types of European humanity, as was done by the author of “_Père Goriot_” with regard to French humanity, Kemény would stand out as one of the greatest writers of European literature. As it is, he is only one of the great writers of Hungarian Literature. What is perhaps more astonishing still in that choice of the historic novel by Kemény, is the fact that he was for years engaged in a profession than which very few can attach us more intently to actual, present life. Kemény was one of the most influential and hardest-worked political journalists of his time. In the columns of the “_Pesti Napló_” he poured out, in astounding profusion, leading articles about all the great events and persons of his time. In these articles he showed profound knowledge of the very pulse and heart of his age; and such was his power of exposition, analysis and appreciation of the fleeting occurrences of the day, that his political articles have been a matter of admiration both to his contemporaries and subsequent historians. As a rule, great politicians do not write historic novels. They are too much imbued with the spirit of their own age, in the direction of which they have had no small share, to be inclined, or even able, to familiarise themselves with the spirit of ages bygone. Kemény is an exception, and while this certainly testifies to the comprehensiveness of his mind, it renders the strategic mistake above mentioned more marked still.