Doubtless this daily observation of the current trend gave birth to a new man, for now Anatole France is no longer the satirical and lightly ironical dilettante making excursions into the field of speculation, but a robust devotee of the rights of the people. His powerful arraignments of the social and political condition of the French common-people are not the only proofs of a new birth in M. France. Trenchant, witty, and apostolic as are his social sermons--for now and then a sermon may ring true to its word-origin and be _a thrust_--they were not so amazing and, happily, not so significant, as his brave championship of the cause of Captain Dreyfus when there were few who dared to lift voice against rampant militarism and a prejudiced, Jew-baiting military tribunal. From this courageous stand it was only a single step to a propagandum to abolish the many abuses which he feels weigh heavily upon the masses--war, plutocracy, clericalism, militarism. I have said that it was only a single step, yet it represents a long journey for the son of a monarchist, a boy educated by priests, the smiling literary experimenter, the speculative pupil of Rénan, to have mounted the Socialistic rostrum and produced anti-military and anti-clerical papers of no doubtful sound. Such is M. France to-day; and though he still fails not in his literary appeal to the intellectuals, the cry that deeply stirs his being is that of the proletariat in need of intelligent, vigorous leadership. Whether or not one agrees with his propagandum, one cannot ignore its significance. Anatole France has attained distinction in several literary forms. His early poems are not of sufficient merit to make him famous, but they consist of a piquant combination--humor, history, and philosophy. His critical introductions to delightful editions of famous books are charmingly done and sufficiently discriminating. His tractates on questions of the times are earnest, direct, and vigorous. But it is to his novels and stories that we must look to find his most characteristic writings.