The complete works of Remy de Gourmont cover almost every form of intellectual activity. He seems equally at home in criticism, in creative effort, "novel, play, poem," philosophy (Nietzsche owes much to him for his intellectual acclimatization in France), in the transvaluation of moral values, in social criticism, in certain aspects of science, in philology, in the renovation of rhetoric. "In his divers attitudes and in his varied researches," says Dumur, "he was the expression of our instable epoch.... When the most distant posterity shall wish to form an idea of what we were between the years of yesterday's estheticism and tomorrow's neo-classic realism, of what our immense literary production was, of what the generation was which bridged the conflict of 1870 and the great war which began in 1914, the page it will have to read will be signed Remy de Gourmont." The importance of this writer, however, cannot be limited to France; by token of his broad, tolerant humanism and his dynamic method he belongs to the literature that abolishes boundaries and epochs. HELVÉTIUS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF HAPPINESS "M. Helvétius, in his youth," says Chamfort, "was as handsome as love itself. One evening, as he was seated very peacefully before an open fire, at the side of Mile. Gaussin, a renowned financier came and whispered into this actress's ear, loud enough for Helvétius to hear: 'Mademoiselle, would it be agreeable to you to accept six hundred louis in exchange for a few favors?'--'Monsieur,' she replied, loud enough to be heard by Helvétius, and pointing to him at the same time, 'I'll give you two hundred of them if you will kindly call on me tomorrow morning with that fellow over there.'" Helvétius was not content with being very handsome. He was also exceedingly wise, very rich, and very happy. No mortal, perhaps, received so many gifts from the gods, the rarest of which was Mme. Helvétius, one of the most charming and gifted women of the eighteenth century. Like her husband, she was very beautiful,--so beautiful that persons paused, struck with admiration, to look at her. There is, in this connection,--quoting again from Chamfort, a very pretty anecdote: "M. de Fontenelle, aged ninety-seven, having just uttered to Mme. Helvétius, young, beautiful and newly wed, a thousand amiable and gallant remarks, passed by her to take his place at table, without raising his eyes to her. 'You can see,' said Mme. Helvétius, 'how much stock I may take in your compliments; you pass me by without so much as looking at me.' 'Madame,' replied the old man, 'if I had looked at you, I would not have passed by.'"