Throughout, the claims of literature proper, or of fine writing, have been intimately considered in conjunction with the claims of pure learning, or of information, with the result, it is hoped, that to the authority of the world’s best thinkers is added the picturesqueness of their fine writing.  Plato, Spencer, Newton; Darwin, Haeckel, Virchow; AEschylus, Shelley, Ibsen; Burton, Mandeville, Loti; or Brandes, Matthew Arnold, and Demosthenes—­from old and from modern times they yield up their pearls.

The notion of finality, or of an utter inclusiveness, for such a work as the world’s greatest books may be readily disclaimed.  To set it up even would seem ridiculous to any one acquainted with the enormous range of the subject.  Not so ridiculous, however, may seem the claim to have established a standard and a form of achievement new in the annals of literary production; and one, moreover, whose importance as an educative factor, no less than as a test of the special needs of the era wherein we are living, may be as valid in its own way and in its own time as some of those other contributions which have helped along the revival of learning and of letters, from that first awakening of the Renascence humanists down to our own day.

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EDMOND ABOUT

The King of the Mountains

Edmond About was the son of a grocer at Dieuze, in Lorraine, France, where he was born Feb. 14, 1828.  Even in childhood he displayed the vivacity of mind and the irreverent spirit which were to make him the most entertaining anti-clerical writer of his period.  His tales have the qualities of the best writing of the eighteenth century, enhanced by the modern interest of his own century.  “The King of the Mountains” is the best-known of his novels, as it is also the best.  In 1854 About was working as a poor archaeologist at the French School at Athens, where he noticed there was a curious understanding between the brigands and the police of modern Hellas.  Brigandage was becoming a safe and almost a respectable Greek industry.  “Why not make it quite respectable and regular?” said About.  “Why does not some brigand chief, with a good connection, convert his business into a properly registered joint-stock company?” So he produced, in 1856, one of the most delightful of satirical novels, “The King of the Mountains.”  Edmond About died on January 17, 1885, shortly after his election to the French Academy.

I.—­The Brigand and His Business

I am no coward; still, I have some regard for my life.  It is a present I received from my parents, and I wish to preserve it as long as possible in remembrance of them.  So, on my arrival at Athens, in April, 1856, I refrained from going into the country.