For example, the literary clique. In Italian life the individual is strong, the organized group weak; which is a splendid and sane condition of affairs. In Italian literature, as in the other arts, the group flourishes disastrously and frequently submerges the individual. Let a man write a few books that reveal talent, and immediately a group forms about him, with a cult of its hero and a critical estimate of his work to which he will thereafter find himself attempting to conform, thus, hedged about by a wall of literary ideas, growing less and less capable of an individual interpretation of life itself. Or perhaps there are three or four men about whom the group forms, either because they resemble one another in thought or in manner of expression, or perhaps only because they happen to live in the same city. Then the result is even more harmful, since the various individual writers also react upon one another. Witness the young Florentine group--Soffici, Palazzeschi, Papini, etc.--all once writers of promise, all fallen into premature decay. Panzini has suffered perceptibly from this kind of thing; lesser writers have suffered even more. When G. A. Borgese was writing his first novel, _Rubè_, the reverent clique about him heralded the yet unfinished book as a masterpiece, the first genuine synthesis of--I forget what, but the word ‘synthesis’ must certainly have been used. Any one who has read _Rubè_ is aware that it is very far from being a masterpiece. That is not Signor Borgese’s fault. What _is_ his fault, however, and of great detriment to the novel, is his obvious determination throughout to make it a masterpiece. Ah, well, cults exist in other countries than Italy. One recalls the well-known scene in Victor Hugo’s salon, where the Master sat on a kind of pontifical throne, and uttered occasional maxims to the worshippers grouped about his feet. ‘Je crois en Dieu,’ he announced once, after a long silence. Another and reverent silence followed. Then a woman spoke. ‘Chose étrange!’ she murmured. ‘Un dieu qui croit en Dieu.’