No one can examine closely the writings of Signor Papini without recognizing that he has shown himself incapable of selecting from that which he has written and thought and of setting it forth as a statement of his philosophy or as an Apologia pro Sua Vita. Constant republication of the same statements and the same ideas dressed up with different synonyms is a charge that can be brought with justice. It can be substantiated not only by his books but by _La Vraie Italie_, an organ of intellectual liaison between Italy and other countries directed by Signor Papini, which had a brief existence in 1919, a considerable portion of which was taken up with republication of the old writings of the director. Even the most intemperate of his admirers would scarcely contend that he merits being called original, judged by his own standards. At one time in his life Nietzsche was undoubtedly his idol, and I can think of the juvenile Papini No. 3 suggesting that he model himself after the Teutonic descendant of Pasiphae and the bull of Poseidon. Thus did he appease his morbid sensitiveness and soothe his pathological erethism by enveloping himself in an armor made up of rude and uncouth words, of sentiment and of disparagement; of raillery against piety, reverence, and faith; of contempt for tradition. In fact, he seemed equipped with a special apparatus for pulling roots founded in the tender emotions. He would pretend that he is superior to the ordinary mortal to whom love in its various display, sentiment in its manifold presentations, dependence upon others in its countless aspects are as essential to happiness as the breath of the nostrils is essential to life. In secret, however, he is not only dependent upon it, he is beholden to it. When he assumes his most callous and indifferent air, when he is least cognizant of the sensitiveness of others, when in brief he is speaking of his fellow countrymen, Signore D'Annunzio, Mazzoni, Bertacchi, Croce, and up until recently when he speaks of God or religion, he reminds me of that extraordinary and inexplicable type of individual whom we have had "in our midst" since time immemorial, but who had greater vogue in the time of Petronius than he has to-day. Although the majority of these persons are _au fond_ proud of their endowment, the world at large scoffs at them; and in primitive countries such as our own it kicks at them; therefore they are quick to see the advantage of assuming an air of crass indifference and, with the swagger of the social corsair, to express a brutal insensitiveness to the æsthetic and the hedonistic to which in reality they vibrate. They never deceive themselves, and Signor Papini does not deceive himself. He knows his limitations, and the greatest of them are that he is timid, lacking in imagination, in sense of humor, and in originality. He is as dependent upon love as a baby is upon its bottle.