But it is not only our education which is at fault. Our whole spiritual atmosphere is alien and antagonistic to the spiritual atmosphere of Remy de Gourmont. He is serious where we are flippant, and we are serious where he is ironical. Any young person among us who imbibed the mental and moral attitude of Remy de Gourmont would cause dismay and consternation in the hearts of his friends. He would probably have a library. He might even read Paul Claudel. I speak lightly enough, but the point at issue is not a light one. It is indeed nothing less than a parting of the ways between two civilisations, or, shall we say, between a civilisation which has not lost touch with Athens and Rome and a commercial barbarism buttressed up with "modern improvements." Remy de Gourmont's genius is in its essence an aristocratic one. He has the reserve of the aristocrat; the aristocratic contempt for the judgment of the common herd; the aristocrat's haughty indifference to public opinion. Writing easily, urbanely, plausibly upon every aspect of human life, he continues the great literary tradition of the beautifully and appropriately named _"humanism"_ of the "Revival of Letters." As Mr. Parker hints, he is one of those who refuse to bow to the intolerable mandate of the dry and sapless spirit of "specialisation." He refuses to leave art to the artist, science to the scientist, religion to the theologian, or the delicate art of natural casuistry to the professional moralist. In the true humanistic temper he claims the right to deal with all these matters, and to deal with them lightly, freely, unscrupulously, irresponsibly, and with no "arrière pensée" but the simple pleasure of the discussion. He makes us forget Herbert Spencer and makes us think of Plato. He is the wise sophist of our own age, unspoiled by any Socratic "conceptualism," and ready, like Protagoras, to show us how man is the measure of all things and how the individual is the measure of man. The ardour of his intellectual curiosity burns with a clear smokeless flame. He brings back to the touchstone of a sort of distinguished common sense, free from every species of superstition, all those great metaphysical and moral problems which have been too often monopolised by the acrid and technical pedantry of the schools.