Serge Panine | Page 4

ideas before making
an entire meal of them. D.W.]

SERGE PANINE
By GEORGES OHNET
With a General Introduction to the Series by GASTON BOISSIER,
Secretaire Perpetuel de l'academie Francaise.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1905
BY ROBERT ARNOT
The editor-in-chief of the Maison Mazarin--a man of letters who
cherishes an enthusiastic yet discriminating love for the literary and
artistic glories of France--formed within the last two years the great
project of collecting and presenting to the vast numbers of intelligent
readers of whom New World boasts a series of those great and undying
romances which, since 1784, have received the crown of merit awarded
by the French Academy--that coveted assurance of immortality in
letters and in art.
In the presentation of this serious enterprise for the criticism and
official sanction of The Academy, 'en seance', was included a request
that, if possible, the task of writing a preface to the series should be
undertaken by me. Official sanction having been bestowed upon the
plan, I, as the accredited officer of the French Academy, convey to you
its hearty appreciation, endorsement, and sympathy with a project so
nobly artistic. It is also my duty, privilege, and pleasure to point out, at
the request of my brethren, the peculiar importance and lasting value of
this series to all who would know the inner life of a people whose
greatness no turns of fortune have been able to diminish.
In the last hundred years France has experienced the most terrible
vicissitudes, but, vanquished or victorious, triumphant or abased, never
has she lost her peculiar gift of attracting the curiosity of the world. She
interests every living being, and even those who do not love her desire
to know her. To this peculiar attraction which radiates from her, artists
and men of letters can well bear witness, since it is to literature and to
the arts, before all, that France owes such living and lasting power. In
every quarter of the civilized world there are distinguished writers,
painters, and eminent musicians, but in France they exist in greater
numbers than elsewhere. Moreover, it is universally conceded that
French writers and artists have this particular and praiseworthy quality:
they are most accessible to people of other countries. Without losing
their national characteristics, they possess the happy gift of universality.
To speak of letters alone: the books that Frenchmen write are read,
translated, dramatized, and imitated everywhere; so it is not strange that
these books give to foreigners a desire for a nearer and more intimate

acquaintance with France.
Men preserve an almost innate habit of resorting to Paris from almost
every quarter of the globe. For many years American visitors have been
more numerous than others, although the journey from the United
States is long and costly. But I am sure that when for the first time they
see Paris--its palaces, its churches, its museums--and visit Versailles,
Fontainebleau, and Chantilly, they do not regret the travail they have
undergone. Meanwhile, however, I ask myself whether such
sightseeing is all that, in coming hither, they wish to accomplish.
Intelligent travellers--and, as a rule, it is the intelligent class that feels
the need of the educative influence of travel--look at our beautiful
monuments, wander through the streets and squares among the crowds
that fill them, and, observing them, I ask myself again: Do not such
people desire to study at closer range these persons who elbow them as
they pass; do they not wish to enter the houses of which they see but
the facades; do they not wish to know how Parisians live and speak and
act by their firesides? But time, alas! is lacking for the formation of
those intimate friendships which would bring this knowledge within
their grasp. French homes are rarely open to birds of passage, and
visitors leave us with regret that they have not been able to see more
than the surface of our civilization or to recognize by experience the
note of our inner home life.
How, then, shall this void be filled? Speaking in the first person, the
simplest means appears to be to study those whose profession it is to
describe the society of the time, and primarily, therefore, the works of
dramatic writers, who are supposed to draw a faithful picture of it. So
we go to the theatre, and usually derive keen pleasure therefrom. But is
pleasure all that we expect to find? What we should look for above
everything in a comedy or a drama is a representation, exact as possible,
of the manners and characters of the dramatis persona of the play; and
perhaps the conditions under which the play was written do not allow
such representation. The exact and studied portrayal of a character
demands from the author long preparation, and cannot be accomplished
in a few