Émile-Antoine BOURDELLE (1861-1929). L.A.S., Paris June 5, 1916, "to Maître Anatole France"; 2 pages in-4. Beautiful declaration of admiration for Anatole France. Despite his work and worries at the studio, he has read La Révolte des Anges: "Beneath my crude frame of dust, plaster and mud, your strength as a writer has managed to reach out and distract my tenacious, laboring soul from its own toil; and I have followed you, Nectaire-Anatole-France, through many a Time. The sound of your flute [...] evokes in me a sparkling dew, a kind of thoughtful dew that sings, like the one that seemed to spring from the soft bundle of wood of my grandfather the goatherd. [...] In your accents, I thought I had found my flocks of yesteryear" and the song of his grandfather's flute: "Everything rose when he blew in it; the waves of the Tarn, the sudden, blushing dawn and my whole spirit torn apart by the pure cries of the leader's whistle. [...] If my old man were here, after hearing you, he would have offered you, in admiration, the bound rushes of his latest cheeses. I, who am only a goatherd of forms, assemble all these words in great confusion with my hand, which was stiff under the clay and which bends and breaks to grasp the stylus that honors you here".