HENRI BERGSON.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1198, 5 August 1911, Page 15

HENRI BERGSON.

A LEADER OF MODERN THOUGHT. The "New York Independent" has an article on Henri Bergson, in a series written by Dr. Edwin Sios£on, on "Twelve Alajor Prophets of To-day." Ho describes a lecture by Bergson at the College de France. "A cosmopolitan crowd it is that on Wednesdays awaits the Iccturer. The polyglot audience is silent as 11. Bergson ascends the rostrum, and begins to talk, in slow, smooth tones, accentuated by nervous gestures of his .slender hands. His figure is slight, and his face thin and 'pointed, almost ecclesiastical in appearance. His hair is slightly grey, but his closc-eropped moustache is brown. The eyes are deep, dark, and penetrating, the eyes of seer aud scientist together. I suppose all professors are given nicknames by their students. Bergsou's students call him' 'the lark, because 'the higher he llies the sweeter he sings.' Bergson was born at Paris in 1850, ami was made Professor of Philosophy in 1681 in the lycco of Angers. He was appointed to the College de France in 1000, and in the following year was elected to the Institute. His residence is the Villa Montmorcney in Auaeuil, a quiet quarter of Parii, lying between (lie Heine and the Bois de Boulogne. In summer he goes to Switzerland for greater seclusion ami the stimulus of a higher altitude upon his thought. His Swiss homo is the Villa Montmorency in Auteuil, £1 quiet Swiss Jura."

Tho writer says the Villa Eois-gentil, where he spent an afternoon last summer, wits found in the middle of a meadow, backed by a forest of firs. It is a square, two-story house, simply furnished, but with 110 affectation of rusticity as is common in American country , homes. There is a glorious view of Mont Blanc, with tho long blue crescent of Like Geneva curving around the ramparts of its base. But, .as with many another Swiss view, the eil'ect is marred by the prosenco of a big box of a hotel in the immediate foreground. There Bergson spends his holidays with his wife and daughter, taking long walks on the steep mountain and through the winding roads in the woods. His conversation lias tho charm of his books.