When writing about himself he hopes the reader will identify him only with the characters whose thoughts and actions are flattering, but the real man is to be identified with some of the characters whom he desires his public to think fictitious. In one of his short stories he narrates a visit to a world-famed literary man. He describes his trip to the remote city that he may lay the modest wreath plated from the pride of his mind and his heart at the feet of his idol. He finds him a commonplace, almost undifferentiated lump of clay with a more commonplace, slatternly wife and even more hopelessly commonplace children. His repute is dependent wholly upon the skill with which he manipulates a card index and pigeon-holes. Papini fled to escape contemplation of himself and the fragments of the sacred vessel. Signor Papini has been an omnivorous reader along certain lines; he has been a tireless writer, and he is notorious for his neologistic logorrhea, but the possession which stands in closest relation to his literary reputation is his indexed collection of words, phrases, and sentences. This, plus knowing by heart the poetry of Carducci, and his envy of Benedetto Croce for having obtained the repute of being one of the most fertile philosophic minds of his age, and his advocacy of the gospel of strenuousness, is the framework upon which he has ensheathed his house of letters. No study of the man or of his work can neglect one aspect of his career--his constant change of position. He knocks with breathless anxiety at the door of some new world, and no sooner does he secure entrance and see the pleasant valley of Hinnom than he feels the lure of black Gehenna and is seized with an uncontrollable desire to explore it. When he returns he hastens to the public forum and announces his discoveries, preferring to tell of the gewgaws which he discovered than to expatiate on the few jewels which he gathered. His last production augurs well for him, because it indicates that finally he will bathe in the pool of the five porches at Jerusalem, the World War having troubled its water instead of an angel. November 30, 1919, he published in the most widely circulated and influential newspaper of Central Italy, the _Resto del Carlino_, an article entitled "Amore e Morte" ("Love and Death"), which sets forth that he has had that experience which the Christian calls "seeing a great light, knowing a spiritual reincarnation," and which those whom Papini has been supposed to represent call a pitiable defalcation, a spiritual bankruptcy.