At any given moment in history, the number of living writers to whom can
be attributed what a Frenchman would call _mondial eclat_ is
surprisingly few. It was not so many years ago that Rudyard Kipling,
with vigorous, imperialistic note, won for himself the unquestioned
title of militant spokesman for the Anglo-Saxon race. That fame has
suffered eclipse in the passage of time. To-day, Bernard Shaw has a
fame more world-wide than that of any other literary figure in the
British Isles. His dramas are played from Madrid to Helsingfors, from
Buda-Pesth to Stockholm, from Vienna to St Petersburg, from Berlin to
Buenos Ayres. Recently Zola, Ibsen and, Tolstoy constituted the
literary hierarchy of the world--according to popular verdict. Since
Zola and Ibsen have passed from the scene, Tolstoy experts unchallenged
the profoundest influence upon the thought and consciousness of the
world. This is an influence streaming less from his works than from his
life, less from his intellect than from his conscience. The _literati_
bemoan the artist of an epoch prior to 'What is Art?' The whole world
pays tribute to the passionate integrity of Tolstoy's moral aspiration.

[While this book was going through the press, news has come of the
death of Tolstoy.]

Until yesterday, Mark Twain vied with Tolstoy for the place of most
widely read and most genuinely popular author in the world. In a sense
not easily misunderstood, Mark Twain has a place in the minds and hearts
of the great mass of humanity throughout the civilized world, which, if
measured in terms of affection, sympathy, and spontaneous enjoyment, is
without a parallel. The robust nationalism of Kipling challenges the
defiant opposition of foreigners; whilst his reportorial realism offends
many an inviolable canon of European taste. With all his incandescent