A glance at the great books of the world will suffice to show that in all countries and at all times the great writers have been objective writers. We could not well afford to miss our lyric poets, our young men of vague emotions who look into their own hearts and write; but not one of them, solely on his merits as a subjective writer, has reached the supreme plane in letters. Nay, more; a stressing of the lyric note, an intrusion of the ego, would, we feel safe in maintaining, lessen existing reputations. Make Theocritus more subjective, and you rob him of his subtlest charm; insist that Horace sing only of Horace and not of the decay of pulchritude nor about the Sabine farm, and you give us an attenuated Horace; demand that Keats, even, confine himself to a strictly lyrical theme and a rigidly subjective treatment, and you force us to share the sentiments of the rude Blackwood's reviewer who sent the young man back to his "plasters, pills and ointment boxes."

The reason for this is not hard to find. The subjective writer so seldom becomes a world writer, not necessarily because his vision of life is straitened, but essentially because his estimate of himself is untrue. He may not, probably does not, know himself as he is; that seems to be the difficulty with even unliterary men-Benvenuto Cellini, for instance, and Sir Hiram Maxim-when they try to tell the story of their lives. But even should he succeed in the rare achievement of knowing himself, he still faces-and ultimately falls before the more difficult necessity of telling what he knows. Hence, we have so very few autobiographies that rank as literature, and even those, few and great, have pages that strike a false note, passages that savor of affectation, lack of proportion, unconscious insincerity. How our estimate of the Decline and Fall dwindles when we read Gibbon's Autobiography! And how the Memoires d'outre-tombe disclose Chateaubriand's feet of clay!

It is, perhaps, an unlooked for fact that one of the surpassing autobiographies of the world was written by a Carmelite nun, by the greatest woman writer the world has known, St. Teresa. And it is a delightful coincidence that the most remarkable and most truly and deeply literary autobiography of our own day should be written by another Carmelite nun, Sister Thérèse, fondly known throughout the Catholic world as "The Little Flower of Jesus."

Quite properly, most of the absorbed and edified readers of the Little Flower's Histoire d'une Ame have paid no heed to its literary character at all; and quite possibly a few of them, possessed of a vague idea that literature has something to do with fustian

and figures of speech, might even resent having so devotional a book discussed from the literary point of view. They are wont to see no common ground in books they label "sacred" and "profane," and writers must be either white sheep or black goats. But not even devout readers can well alter facts; and the fact here is that when little Sister Thérèse, in conformity with the will of her superiors, told the story of her life, she wrote not only a singularly winsome devotional volume, but likewise made a genuine contribution to the literature of France and of the world.

The Histoire d'une Ame is set off from most other spiritual autobiographies by its refreshing absence of self-consciousness. There is in it no pose, not even the possibly pardonable pose of reluctance to talk about one's self. Little Sister Thérèse knows that she is a sinner, that she is far from corresponding with all the graces of God and responding to all the kindnesses of men; but so well does she know it that she accepts it as a matter of course and takes up very little space to tell us about it. She is very unlike those good religious who make a sanctimonious fuss when obedience sends them to the photographer. She is told to draw her own picture, and smilingly and unresistingly she complies. She stands off from herself and marks her significant features; these she records simply and directly; then she looks up, for all the world like a little child at a drawing lesson, and sweetly asks: "Is that what you wanted me to draw?" Her concern was, not her own feelings and inclinations, but the will of her superiors; her aim was to abandon her own point of view and adopt the point of view of those who rightfully commanded her. This, truly, is the perfection of religious obedience; and it is likewise the perfection of literary self-analysis.

But that alone does not suffice to account for the literary value of the Little Flower's book. In the complete and hearty identification of her own will with that of her superior, Sister Thérèse is not alone. Many a religious has reached that degree of detachment and active zeal. But many a religious, charged with a similar task, would follow a different selective principle. Many a religious would resolutely repel the recollections of a beautiful and innocent childhood as condemnable worldly thoughts. Many a religious would crush the memories of fond relatives and familiar playmates as human attachments. Many a religious would suppress all mention of the humors of convent life, for are not humors essentially trivial and conducive to evil?

The advent of divine love did not drive human love from the heart of little Sister Thérèse. And so it is that she never tires of telling us of her dear mother and of her wise and saintly father— truly one of the noblest portraits ever painted. And so it is that she recounts with obvious relish numerous seemingly trivial incidents in her family life and in her school career. And how she revels, as girl like she should, in that pilgrimage to Rome! Nor does she omit to mention that, when seeking the bishop's permission to enter Carmel, she put up her hair for the first time in her life in order to impress his lordship with a sense of her maturity. She does not even overlook the narration-which surely must have irritated some members of her community-of her trials with the cranky old nun who couldn't do anything without assistance, and who never failed to complain of the assistance rendered.

Such things indicate that the Little Flower possessed the rare literary gift of recognizing the drama-now comedy, now tragedy, now even boisterous farce-that is forever being played on the stage of life. A primrose by the river's brim was more than a simple primrose to her; it was, as in truth it is, a microcosm. She was able to recognize the deep significances of even the seemingly inconsequential events of workaday life, and she was able, in spite of or because of her childlike simplicity, to estimate them at their true value. Progress in spirituality did not dull her perception of the incongruities of men and things; rather it seemed to broaden her horizon and sharpen her vision.

Her brief narrations, her passing comments, her vivid and pointed descriptions serve to give to her autobiography, considered from the literary point of view, the valuable qualities of symmetry and proportion. She looks upon what life she sees with eyes unprejudiced and unafraid. She has no special pleading to indulge in, she has no foul and barren spots to hide. Her little book gives the reader an impression of completeness; and the æsthetic not less than the spiritual effect is satisfying. Because she was so delightfully free from self-consciousness, the Little Flower succeeded in writing an autobiography at once true, candid and technically complete.

The Histoire d'une Ame has a wide and ever-increasing circle of readers. Why? We should, naturally enough, expect the followers of a devout life to take to the volume for the all-sufficient reason that it is the life story of a servant of God. The devout, in many cases at least, are not wont to worry themselves over anything

in a book except its spiritual pabulum and its incentives to edification; a book may be very bad indeed from an æsthetic viewpoint and yet be a truly good book to them; and even those who possess some degree of literary appreciation have schooled themselves by long practice-may I venture to say, also, through dire necessity?— to follow the advice of Thomas à Kempis and regard not so much the manner as the matter of what they read. Since, even did the Little Flower's autobiography possess but negligible literary merit, devout readers would give it their attention, it is certainly not surprising that they should turn to it as it stands. Artistry, save when it grows obtrusive, most of them simply ignore; the number of devout readers who consider literary merit in a spiritual book as a scandal, a distraction, an affectation or a crime is happily small. But devout readers are not the only readers of the Histoire d'une Ame. Men and women who sweepingly and illogically condemn the lives of the saints as dry, dismal, brain-fagging stuff, have confessed themselves enchanted with the beautiful soul revelations of little Sister Thérèse. There is no need to dwell on the fact; but there is need to explain it. What is in this book to attract readers whom its purely devotional flavor would fail to attract?

Plainly, I think, the human personality that stands out so gloriously from its pages. Sister Thérèse is a consecrated spirit, a saintly Carmelite nun; but she is also a conceivable, an actual human being. Her holiness, as we see it in her story, has not the unconvincing proportions of a stained-glass saint. We recognize her as sweetly and winsomely human-more than human, if you will; yet with human nature not barbarously crushed and strangled, but, in the light of God's all-pervading, gracious influence, sweetly elevated, purified, ennobled.

Now that human touch, which makes the whole world kin, which makes for sympathy and unselfishness and even sacrifice, is invariably found in literature. It is, indeed, an essential— should we not say the essential?-of every book truly great. It is the soul of art. And this it is which comes to us with little Sister Thérèse's story of her life, making her spiritual message all the clearer and her shining example all the more persuasive.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN POLAND?

BY T. J. BRENNAN, S.T.L.

T is now almost two decades more than a century since the last partition of Poland, which at one time reached within eighty miles of Berlin. There is still a Polish question to be reckoned with. There is not a meeting of the Reichstag in which the subject

does not arise in some form."1

These words were written over a year before the outbreak of the present war; they were written by a student of Polish history and Polish conditions; and they testify to the belief that one of the multitudinous questions that will arise for both the victor and the vanquished after the present conflict will be the solution of the Polish problem. What and why there is such a problem; as well as both the expediency and the difficulty of its solution, are questions that worry European statesmen to-day, even in the midst of their many other cares; and, while the mastery of Europe is being contended for by the opposing hosts, it may be of interest to turn aside for a moment and get at least the main outlines of the problem.

The first point to be determined is where is Poland; or rather how much do you include under the name? This may seem easy to answer, but, in reality, it is one of the greatest difficulties to be overcome in the solution of the Polish question. For in drawing your lines you are sure to be halted by one or the other of the great powers among which ancient Poland is now partitioned. We can best understand this by a brief historical summary. If you go back about seventy years you will find that a portion of the once powerful kingdom of Poland still existed, namely, "the free, independent and neutral city of Cracow," under the protection of Russia, Austria and Prussia. It was, however, incorporated with Austria in 1846; and thus disappeared the last vestige of the very much partitioned kingdom of Poland. Go back to 1795 and you will find the operation of partition continuing on a larger scale. In that year Russia appropriated 45,000 square miles with 1,200,000 inhabitants; Prussia 21,000 square miles with 1,000,000 inhabitants; and Austria 18,000 square miles with 1,000,000 inhabitants.

Go back two years earlier, and you will find the carving 'Poland of To-Day and Yesterday. By Nevin O. Winter. Chap. xiii.