THE COMTESSE MATHIEU DE NOAILLES.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 764, 22 July 1916, Page 7

THE COMTESSE MATHIEU DE NOAILLES.

La Comtesse Mathieo de Noailies has been called by a well-known literary critic the national poet of Prance (states the "Queen"). Her last volume of verse, "Les Yivants et les Moris," has been read and criticised,!by all intellectual France, and her poems since the war are the most beautiful that the country has produced so far. One of them, "Certitude," stands out with star-like radiance as the most eloquent tribute to the youth of Prance which is fighting and dying on the battlefield. "L'Ombre lies Jours," a volume of verse produced in 1902, was crowned by the French Academy, and among her other much read works are "Les Eblouissements," and "La Nouvelle Esperancc." Through all her writing runs a force that is masculine and a tenderness that is very womanly. Her love of nature and her love of life in all its aspects make her works a very human document, for they show the path her mind has travelled as the years passed. From a pagan joy in life she has passed to an absorbing study of death und a mystic belief in the eternal.

In society Mine de Noailies has an almost unique place. Before her marriage with the Comtc Mathieu de Noailies she w r as Princess Anna de Brancoven, being, therefore, by birth of the Faubourg Saint Germain. By her genius and personality she has made for herself a place among the first litterateurs of the land. Painters have painted her, critics have written about her, and those who are privileged to know her personally treasure her opinions as some treasure precious stones.