Complete Works

”L’ÎLE DES PINGOUINS”
     
    M. Anatole France, historian and adventurer, has given us many profitable histories of saints and sinners, of Roman procurators and of officials of the Third Republic, of grandes dames and of dames not so very grand, of ornate Latinists and of inarticulate street hawkers, of priests and generals — in fact, the history of all humanity as it appears to his penetrating eye, serving a mind marvellously incisive in its scepticism, and a heart that, of all contemporary hearts gifted with a voice, contains the greatest treasure of charitable irony.  As to M. Anatole France’s adventures, these are well-known.  They lie open to this prodigal world in the four volumes of the Vie Littéraire , describing the adventures of a choice soul amongst masterpieces.  For such is the romantic view M. Anatole France takes of the life of a literary critic.  History and adventure, then, seem to be the chosen fields for the magnificent evolutions of M. Anatole France’s prose; but no material limits can stand in the way of a genius.  The latest book from his pen — which may be called golden, as the lips of an eloquent saint once upon a time were acclaimed golden by the faithful — this latest book is, up to a certain point, a book of travel.
    I would not mislead a public whose confidence I court.  The book is not a record of globe-trotting.  I regret it.  It would have been a joy to watch M. Anatole France pouring the clear elixir compounded of his Pyrrhonic philosophy, his Benedictine erudition, his gentle wit and most humane irony into such an unpromising and opaque vessel.  He would have attempted it in a spirit of benevolence towards his fellow men and of compassion for that life of the earth which is but a vain and transitory illusion.  M. Anatole France is a great magician, yet there seem to be tasks which he dare not face.  For he is also a sage.
    It is a book of ocean travel — not, however, as understood by Herr Ballin of Hamburg, the Machiavel of the Atlantic.  It is a book of exploration and discovery — not, however, as conceived by an enterprising journal and a shrewdly philanthropic king of the nineteenth century.  It is nothing so recent as that.  It dates much further back; long, long before the dark age when Krupp of Essen wrought at his steel plates and a German Emperor condescendingly suggested the last improvements in ships’ dining-tables.  The best idea of the inconceivable antiquity of that enterprise I can give you is by stating the nature of the explorer’s ship.  It was a trough of stone, a vessel of hollowed granite.
    The explorer was St. Maël, a saint of Armorica.  I had never heard of him before, but I believe now in his arduous existence with a faith which is a tribute to M. Anatole France’s pious earnestness and delicate irony.  St. Maël existed.  It is distinctly stated of him that his life was a progress in virtue.  Thus it seems that there may be saints that are not progressively virtuous.  St. Maël was not of that kind.  He was industrious.  He evangelised the heathen.  He erected two hundred and eighteen chapels and seventy-four abbeys.  Indefatigable navigator of the faith, he drifted casually in the miraculous trough of stone from coast to coast and from island to island along the northern seas.  At the age of eighty-four his high stature was bowed by his long labours, but his sinewy arms preserved their vigour and his rude eloquence had lost nothing of its force.
    A nautical devil tempting him by the worldly suggestion of fitting out his desultory, miraculous trough with mast, sail, and rudder for swifter progression (the idea of haste has sprung from the pride of Satan), the simple old saint lent his ear to the subtle arguments of the progressive enemy of mankind.
    The venerable St. Maël fell away from grace by not perceiving at once that a gift of heaven cannot be improved by the contrivances of human ingenuity.  His punishment was adequate.  A terrific tempest snatched the rigged ship of stone in its whirlwinds, and, to be brief, the dazed St. Maël was stranded violently on the Island of Penguins.
    The saint wandered away from the shore.  It was a flat, round island whence rose in the centre a conical mountain capped with clouds.  The rain was falling incessantly — a gentle, soft rain which caused the simple saint to exclaim in great delight: “This is the island of tears, the island of contrition!”
    Meantime the