🧚 Opening, part 22

FLAXIUS, OR LEAVES FROM THE LIFE OF AN IMMORTAL1

BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, F.R.S.L., A.M. (Harvard) &c.2

Published by P. WELLBY, LONDON.3

“It is not so much the spirit of Breitmann which animates these pages as that of Pantagruel.4 From the President of the United States, Roosevelt, he goes to Hamlet and resolves to visit Hades.5 The tale of Flaxius and the Were-wolf is a brilliant narrative....6 Flaxius breaks a lance for Jezebel and also for Herodias with graceful impartiality.7 The chapter on the Bookseller is among the most charming in the work....8 It is quite certain that many readers will welcome Flaxius as a philosopher seeking _la vraie verité_, a philosopher whose sympathy is very human, and who has in spite of all his erudition ... something of the naïve spontaneous pen of his Teutonic rival, Hans Breitmann.”9

Condensed from a review of 150 lines in the _London Academy_.10

“The prose which is nearly all the book is a continued delight and surprise in its humorous ideas, as well as in its more pitiful and thoughtful moods.”11 “The whole is a literary entertainment of a rare and delicate kind.12 Truly it is one of the daintiest, quaintest, most frolicsome, and at the same time most spiritual of _jeux d’esprit_.”--The (London) _Free Lance_.13

“An extremely pleasant and agreeable book....14 No one who cares for curious customs presented in a quaint and entrancing manner will miss ‘Flaxius: Leaves from the Life of an Immortal.’”--_Pall Mall Gazette.15

Transcriber’s Note:16

Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like this_.17 Chapter and Canto headings, printed in gothic font, are surrounded by equal signs, =like this=.18 Letters that have both an accent and macron are shown within brackets, like this: [´ē].19 Words may have inconsistent hyphenation and use of diacriticals.20

Footnotes were renumbered sequentially; except for the Glossary, footnotes were moved to the end of the chapter.21 Partially printed punctuation and diacriticals were completed.22 Misspelled words were not corrected.23 The word ‘a’ was added to ‘... in a pickle ...’24 In the Appendix, the English translation was moved to follow the related section of Native language.25