Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/25

JULES VERNE Chiefly, however, Verne's later life was devoted to his books, and to the civic world of Amiens. He was a member of the town council, an active and earnest member, who won the devoted regard of his fellow townsmen.

He and the grand cathedral of Amiens were the city's twin celebrities, their pictures standing side by side in shop-windows and decorating postal cards. The Verne homestead was on one of the principal boulevards, a handsome house with, at its rear, a tower, the topmost room of which formed a secluded den where the writer worked.

In this tower room, he continued steadily producing his stories. As far back as 1872 he had been a candidate for the celebrated French Academy, with strong chances of election. But the Academy, while it crowned his individual books, refused membership to their author, though after that first candidacy he in the course of his later life watched the entire membership of the Academy pass and be renewed twice over. His friends, especially his Amiens townfolk, declared that his exclusion was due to Parisian jealousy, and that the Academy lost far more honor than the author by ignoring him. "Paris," said one of them, "had nothing worthy of this great man. He sought a place for work; Paris offers its great men only lounging places." xvii