The author of "La
Bete Humaine" fails as completely as the visionary A Kempis. Neither
realism nor romance alone will ever with its small plummet sound to
its depths the human heart or its mystery; yet from the union of the
two much perhaps might come.
We believe that just here lies the value of the novels of Henryk
Sienkiewicz. He has worked out the problem of the modern novel so as
to satisfy the most ardent realist, but he has worked it out upon
great and broadly human lines. For him facts are facts indeed; but
facts have souls as well as bodies. His genius is analytic, but also
imaginative and constructive; it is not forever going upon botanizing
excursions. He paints things and thoughts human.
The greatest genius assimilates unconsciously the best with which
it comes in contact, and by a subtle chemistry of its own makes new
combinations. Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe, and the realists, as well as
all the forces of nature, have helped to make Henryk Sienkiewicz; yet
he is not any one of them. He is never merely imitative. Originality
and imaginative fire, a style vivid and strong, large humor, a
profound pathos, a strong feeling for nature, and a deep reverence
for the forms and the spirit of religion, the breath of the true
cosmopolitan united with the intense patriotism of the Pole, a great
creative genius,--these are the most striking qualities of the work of
this modern novelist, who has married Romance to Realism.
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