THE AUTHOR OF "THE SAINT."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13455, 6 April 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE AUTHOR OF "THE SAINT."

| Fkw books last season were more widely discussed than an Italian writer's novel of regeneration and hope; and the interest felt in its cleverness and depth were not confined to Italy and England—"The Saint" | has been translated into Swedish, Dutch, French, and Russian, as well as into English. It is not a first book. Antonio Fogazzaro is not a young writer, but a man with hair already turning iron grey, and already well known in France through his novels " Damile Cortis" and the "Mystery of a I Poet." It is a book which might be called "full of all manner of things," at least, upon the lines of an optimistic Darwinism or evolution. And the book, says a writer in " Les Annates,"' in an article upon the man and his writings, is like its author. i He also is a personality full of all manner ! of hopeful and encouraging things. 'I'll 10 FALL OF PARIS. Earnest as Antonio Fogazzaro's whole temperament is. in person he is the essence of simplicity and cheerfulness. Born ■at Vicenza, his love of his native town is jso intense that he has no desire to live (elsewhere, and is there most of thr. year, .'though ho also possesses a villa on the bake of Uga.no, to which he goes sometimes |during the summer months. Curiously 'enough. Paris has always exercised a great j fascination over him. but chiefly for a reason not likely to appeal to a great number of people. For as a child Fogazzaro read enormously among French authors, of whom Chateaubriand and Victor Hugo stood out for him like gods. It was the desire to I sec the Notre Dame of the famous novel that always kept alive in him the yearning , I to visit the French capital, and that even 'now remains an exquisite and renewed joy (every time he passes from Italy to the crisp smartness of Paris. IIIS RIVAL. Fogazzaro and another great Italian ;novelist, D'Animnzio, lire not the best ot ! friends. The keen sense of rivalry in ;popularity seems to militate against mutual ! understanding and appreciation. A French author one day asked D'Annunzio's opinion of his brother novelist, to receive the cutjting answer, "Oh, he comes from Vicenza." 1 But it is just, this fact that Vicenza is : his birthplace, his home, that he is heir, ■! as it were, to all her past tragic, eventful j history and artistic treasures that is the I pride and joy- of Fogazzaro's heart. And he lives there quite simply and unosten- ! tatiously the life of any other country gentleman in Italy, impassioned of the beautiful country about him, reading, walking, and giving hospitality to an endless stream ■of friends. His workroom is full of books, and has three big windows opening out upon the beautiful hills beyond. Looking out of them one day, a friend remarked laughingly, Don't tell me any more that ;Fogazzaro writes verses! Why it's the country around that breathes them out for him."