Excerpt from The Red Lily Criticism appears to Anatole France the most recent and possibly the ultimate evolution of literary expres sion, admirably suited to a highly civilized society, rich in souvenirs and old traditions. It proceeds, in his opinion, from philosophy and history, and demands for its development an absolute intellectual liberty It is the last in date of all literary forms, and it will end by absorbing them all. To be perfectly frank the critic should say: 'gentlemen, I propose to enlarge upon my own thoughts concerning Shakespeare, Racine, Pascal, Goethe, or any other writer. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.