Were he a genius and at the same time had the industry that he has displayed, he would be the equal of H. G. Wells, possibly the peer of Bernard Shaw, but he is neither. He is simply a clever, industrious, versatile, sensitive, emotional man of forty, whose mental juvenility tends to cling to him. He has so long habituated himself to overestimation and his admiring friends have been so injudicious in praising his productions for qualities which they do not possess and neglecting praiseworthy qualities which they do possess, that he is like an object under a magnifying-glass out of focus. But, as Papini himself says, he has not finished. He is still comparatively a young man and the world awaits his accomplishment. If the function he has chosen is that of agitation rather than construction, of preparation rather than of building, he cannot be totally condemned for that. His environment is in a condition where much destruction is necessary before anything real can be evolved. And as the apostle of this destruction Papini must be accepted. He stands as a prophet, "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Prepare ye the way--'"; and the generations will show whether it is indeed a highway he has opened. CHAPTER VI TWO NOISY ITALIAN SCHOOLMASTERS The most diverting and conspicuous figures in the literary world of Italy to-day are two old school-teachers, Alfredo Panzini, humanist, and Luigi Pirandello, satirist. Both of them have earned a permanent fame and their fecundity seems to be increasing with age. Alfredo Panzini, a pedagogue by profession, is a writer by dint of long training. Born in Senigaglia, a small town in the Province of Ancona, in 1863, he called Carducci master. After serving a long literary apprenticeship compiling grammars, readers, dictionaries, anthologies, his name began to appear in journals and magazines, and gradually he has forged his way to the front rank as an episodist, an interpreter of the feelings and sentiments of the average man and woman and their spokesman, and as a master of prose. In appearance he is a typical lower middle-class Italian, short, stout, and ruddy, a kindly, benevolent face, with contented eyes that look at you uninquiringly from behind gold-rimmed spectacles. One might gather from looking at him that he had asked but little from the world and got more than he asked.