As for the man he thinks he is, he has written a long autobiography with plentiful data, from which it may be deduced that he is a man with great possibilities and a great mission, to wit, to precipitate in Italy a spiritual revolution, to bring to his countrymen the gospel that it is time to be up and doing and that intoxication with past successes will not condone present inertness. He has been chosen to teach men that the best of life is to be found in purposeful action regardless of inconsistencies, contradictions, and imperfections; that the ego should be guided peripherally not centrically; that introspection is the stepping-stone to mental involution. In reality, he is but one of many who are proclaiming those tidings in Italy. The distinction between what he would like to be and what he thinks he is, is not so marked as in more timid and less articulate souls. Substantially, it is this same calling of prophecy which is his aim. As for the man he is, time and his own accomplishments alone will show. Now, at the zenith of his creative power, he is still a man of promise, a carrier-pigeon freighted with an important message who, instead of delivering it, exhausts himself beating his wings in a luminous void. In Giovanni Papini these four aspects stand out very distinctly. Let us take them up in inverse order, since what others think of a man is soon stated and what he really is is a vague goal, to be approached only distantly, even at the end of this paper. Mr. Reginald Turner says: "Papini is by far the most interesting and most important living writer of Italy. 'L'Uomo Finito' has become a classic in Italy; it is written in the most distinguished Italian; it can be read again and again with increasing profit and interest ... its Italian is impeccable and clear. Mr. J. S. Barnes calls him the most notable personality on the stage of Italian letters to-day," and Signor G. Prezzolini writes: "His mind is so vast, so human, that it will win its way into the intellectual patrimony of Europe." I cannot go all the way with these adherents of Signor Papini. I have talked with scores of cultured Italians about his writings and I have heard it said, "He has acquired an enviable mastery of the Italian language," but I have never once heard praise of his "impeccable and clear Italian"; nor do I hold with Mr. Barnes that he is unquestionably the most notable personality save D'Annunzio on the stage of Italian letters to-day. We would scarcely call Mr. Shaw the most notable personality on the stage of English letters to-day. Surely it would be an injustice to Mr. Kipling, Mr. Wells, and Mr. Conrad. It might be unjust to Mr. Swinnerton.