Translation of Dr. Samuel W. Duffield.

EDMOND ABOUT

(1828-1885)

Early in the reign of Louis Napoleon, a serial story called ‘Tolla,’ a vivid study of social life in Rome, delighted the readers of the Revue des Deux Mondes.  When published in book form in 1855 it drew a storm of opprobrium upon its young author, who was accused of offering as his own creation a translation of the Italian work ‘Vittoria Savorelli.’  This charge, undoubtedly unjust, he indignantly refuted.  It served at least to make his name well known.  Another book, ‘La Question Romaine,’ a brilliant if somewhat superficial argument against the temporal power of pope and priests, was a philosophic employment of the same material.  Appearing in 1860, about the epoch of the French invasion of Austrian Italy, its tone agreed with popular sentiment and it was favorably received.

[Illustration:  Edmond about]

Edmond Francois Valentin About had a freakish, evasive, many-sided personality, a nature drawn in too many directions to achieve in any one of these the success his talents warranted.  He was born in Dreuze, and like most French boys of literary ambition, soon found his way to Paris, where he studied at the Lycee Charlemagne.  Here he won the honor prize; and in 1851 was sent to Athens to study archaeology at the Ecole Francaise.  He loved change and out-of-the-way experiences, and two studies resulted from this trip:  ‘La Grece Contemporaine,’ a book of charming philosophic description; and the delightful story ’Le Roi des Montagnes’ (The King of the Mountains).  This tale of the long-limbed German student, enveloped in the smoke from his porcelain pipe as he recounts a series of impossible adventures,—­those of himself and two Englishwomen, captured for ransom by Hadgi Stavros, brigand king in the Grecian mountains,—­is especially characteristic of About in the humorous atmosphere of every situation.

About wrote stories so easily and well that his early desertion of fiction is surprising.  His mocking spirit has often suggested comparison with Voltaire, whom he studied and admired.  He too is a skeptic and an idol-breaker; but his is a kindlier irony, a less incisive philosophy.  Perhaps, however, this influence led to lack of faith in his own work, to his loss of an ideal, which Zola thinks the real secret of his sudden change from novelist to journalist.  Voltaire taught him to scoff and disbelieve, to demand “a quoi bon?” and that took the heart out of him.  He was rather fond of exposing abuses, a habit that appears in those witty letters to the Gaulois which in 1878 obliged him to suspend that journal.  His was a positive mind, interested in political affairs, and with something always ready to say upon them.  In 1872 he founded a radical newspaper, Le XIXme Siecle (The Nineteenth Century), in association with another aggressive spirit, that of Francisque Sarcey.  For many years he proved his ability as editor, business man, and keen polemist.