The name of Edmond Jaloux (nothing seems to have happened to the writers of Pastoral novels), reminds me that all our brilliant writers are not dead. He has certainly increased in value during the last five years. Two novels, published in 1918, but written on the eve of the war, _L’Incertaine_ and _Fumées dans la Campagne_, prove him in full possession of his gift. His novels are exquisite impressions that somehow hauntingly convey the sense of something round the corner that might please us even more were it not just out of sight. _Fumées dans la Campagne_, especially, is a fine piece of work, subtle, tender, sad. Since _Le Reste est Silence_, M. Edmond Jaloux’s art, while no less brilliant, has gained in depth and refinement. No writer on our list has in a higher degree the æsthetic sense. His landscapes breathe the very spirit of the South. The figures in them are gracious, cultivated beings, whose psychology is full of delicate sentimental complications.... But his voice is the voice of yesterday--or at the latest of this morning: what will the morrow bring forth? The violent realism of Barbusse? the dithyrambs of Claudel? the infinitely delicate divagations of Marcel Proust? or something wholly different and unforeseen? With the signing of Peace we now enter a new era, and there will be new writers, doubtless, to greet the twentieth year of the Twentieth Century. Ultima Cumæi venit jam carminis ætas Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo. Now dawns the last age of the Sybil’s sooth. And lo! the world, transformed, renews its youth! MARY DUCLAUX. PARIS, _April, 1919_. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. MAURICE BARRÈS 1 II. ROMAIN ROLLAND 34 III. EDMOND ROSTAND 51 IV. PAUL CLAUDEL 68 V. FRANCIS JAMMES 98 VI. RENÉ BOYLESVE 115 VII. ANDRÉ GIDE 126 VIII. CHARLES PÉGUY 135 IX. ERNEST PSICHARI 155 X. ÉMILE NOLLY 164 XI. HENRI BARBUSSE 169 XII. GEORGES DUHAMEL 175 XIII. THE COUNTESS DE NOAILLES 178 XIV. MADAME COLETTE 193 XV. MADAME TINAYRE 199 XVI. MADEMOISELLE MARIE LENÉRU 214 XVII. THE PASTORAL NOVEL 223 XVIII. THE NOVEL OF CHILDHOOD 243