a Sybarite, in an inaccessible castle; and that he derives his usual means of sustenance from theft, blackmail, and highway robbery. We may add, though it is scarcely necessary, that his favorite food is the flesh of fools and his favorite drink is warm, steaming human blood.
It is a matter of common knowledge that this creature is the worst of all the churls and boors that feed on Italian soil: rumor has it that he has sworn a Carthaginian hatred against every past or future treatise on good behavior. This shameful rascal goes even so far as to say what he actually thinks. Worse still, he has the audacity to turn on the critics when they annoy him:
Cet animal est très méchant:
Quand on l’attaque il se défend!
This Giovanni Papini, this sinister chameleon of the zoölogy of the spirit, has just published a new book, a thick book, an abominable book. If our eyes were not veiled by that natural kindliness which always dominates a well-bred soul, and if our severest words were not shut deep down in our throat and our ink-well by the practical necessity of defending a colleague, we should be tempted to say that not even in the most decadent and vituperative periods of our literature has any one ever applied such a boundless flow of ribald and perfidious terms to men who in spite of their moments of weakness (due,
