Alphonse Daudet somewhere makes a distinction between creative novelists and essayist novelists. The distinction is very just. We lack to-day creative novelists, but we have a number of essayist novelists. Our contemporary novelists are very intelligent persons, who are often admirable in their knowledge of human nature, but who rarely succeed in making it live. It is nevertheless probable that there is nothing to be gained by retracing our steps. We shall no doubt reach something new by continuing to the end this exercise of the intellect, by applying it to an increasingly profound and refined psychological analysis. If we take examples from the English novel, the sign-post of our French novel of to-day would not be such a name as that of Dickens or of Eliot or of Kipling but rather that of Meredith. This is what is indicated by the great success now enjoyed by two complex and delicate writers, M. Marcel Prevost and M. Jean Girandoux. _A l'Ombre de Jeunes Filles en Fleur_ and _Simon le Pathétique_ are both novels of rich and fugitive personalities, who are absorbed in the contemplation of themselves, and who thus find a real world of inward adventures. It seems that the French novel is now moving by choice in this direction, and that the public is assisting the movement. This should not be astonishing in a country which has always regarded psychological analysis as the supreme goal of literature. ALBERT THIBAUDET LEARNED SOCIETIES, ETC. SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES Stonehenge was formally handed over to the nation on October 26th, 1918, and H.M. Office of Works at once made plans to secure some of the standing stones in danger of cracking, and to excavate the entire area without disturbing the monument. The archæological supervision of the work was entrusted to the Society of Antiquaries, and the programme was to have a season of about three months for several consecutive years on the same lines as in 1901, when the great leaning stone was raised with interesting results. Professor Gowland's health, however, prevented his participation in the scheme, and his successor, Lieut.-Colonel Hawley, unfortunately met with an accident, which, with a strike among the contractor's men, prevented any but preliminary work being carried out on the site this year. If funds are available--and the opportunity of solving the riddle of Stonehenge must appeal to all interested in antiquity--there is a good prospect of starting in earnest next summer, without prejudice, it is hoped, to the society's enterprises at Old Sarum and Wroxeter, the Roman town near Shrewsbury, on both of which sites considerable progress had been made before the outbreak of war. The recent death of Professor Haverfield is one of many severe losses incurred by the society during the past summer. SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF ANCIENT BUILDINGS