In "Songs of Achievements across the Sea" D'Annunzio established an incontestable claim to be the great inspiring poet, even the prophet, of his generation in Italy, and he produced work which has not been surpassed, but he was still the poet only, singer of the deeds of others, in which he had no share himself. The contrast between his pretensions and his achievements made the affectations of his early years appear ridiculous to many people, and tended to obscure the true value of his work. He was still seeking and the years that followed in Paris showed that he had discovered no new world to explore, but when Italy joined the Allies he suddenly found himself. All the brooding sense of incomplete achievement of other days vanished in a moment. The speeches and addresses that he delivered between May 4 and 25, 1915, showed that he had been preparing for what he knew would be "The Day" for him. It was widely believed in Italy in 1917 and 1918 that on the evening of May 4, 1915, when D'Annunzio addressed a meeting at Quarto to commemorate an anniversary of Garibaldi's departure with his faithful thousand to deliver Sicily and Naples from the Bourbon yoke, and a few days later when he addressed them in the Costanzi Theatre in Rome and then went with the enormous crowd to ring the bell of the Campidoglio, the signal was given for the declaration of war against Austria and Germany. The last books of D'Annunzio, illustrating his new attitude toward life, are "La Leda senza-cigno" ("Leda without the Swan"), "Per la più grande Italia" ("For Greater Italy"), "La Beffa di Buccari" ("Buccari's Joke"), "La Riscossa" ("The Rescue"), "Bestetti e Tuminelli" ("Italy and Death"), "Contro Uno e contro Tutti" ("Against One and against All"), and a series of volumes under the title of "The Archives of Icarius," which are all concerned with incidents in the Great War. It is too soon to attempt to guess the pedestal that posterity will allot Gabriele D'Annunzio in the gallery of fame. The committee that will do it will estimate his qualifications of lyric poet and Hellenic dramatist--perhaps as warrior. D'Annunzio is a poet who abounds in lyrical ecstacies. His style is the most remarkable thing about him. He describes armor, architecture, archæology like an expert. He knows the dynamic point of view. He knows how to depict dramatic situations. His personages are all living personages. He is concerned with the neurotic, decadent, hectic, temperamental type of human beings. All his characters have a love of beauty. He is the true decadent of the nineteenth-century literature, to whom the decadent French symbolists cannot hold a candle.