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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4754c15 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #53849 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53849) diff --git a/old/53849-0.txt b/old/53849-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index c7333cf..0000000 --- a/old/53849-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8489 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's The Symbolist Movement in Literature, by Arthur Symons - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Symbolist Movement in Literature - -Author: Arthur Symons - -Release Date: December 31, 2016 [EBook #53849] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE *** - - - - -Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (online soon -in an extended version, also linking to free sources for -education worldwide ... MOOC's, educational materials,...) -Images generously made available by the Internet Archive. - - - - - - - THE SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE - - BY - - ARTHUR SYMONS - - AUTHOR of - - _"Cities of Italy," "Plays, Acting and Music," "The Romantic - Movement in English Literature," "Studies in Seven - Arts," "Colour Studies in Paris,"_ etc. - - _REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION_ - - - NEW YORK - E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY - 681 FIFTH AVENUE - - 1919 - - - CONTENTS - - INTRODUCTION - BALZAC - PROSPER MÉRIMÉE - GÉRARD DE NERVAL - THÉOPHILE GAUTIER - GUSTAVE FLAUBERT - CHARLES BAUDELAIRE - EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT - VLLLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM - LÉON CLADEL - A NOTE ON ZOLA'S METHOD - STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ - PAUL VERLAINE - JORIS-KARL HUYSMANS - ARTHUR RIMBAUD - JULES LAFORGUE - MAETERLINCK AS A MYSTIC - CONCLUSION - BIBLIOGRAPHY AND NOTES - TRANSLATIONS - - - - -THE SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE - - - - -THE SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT - - -INTRODUCTION - - -"It is in and through Symbols that man, consciously or unconsciously, -lives, works, and has his being: those ages, moreover, are accounted -the noblest which can the best recognise symbolical worth, and prize it -highest." Carlyle - -Without symbolism there can be no literature; indeed, not even -language. What are words themselves but symbols, almost as arbitrary -as the letters which compose them, mere sounds of the voice to which -we have agreed to give certain significations, as we have agreed to -translate these sounds by those combinations of letters? Symbolism -began with the first words uttered by the first man, as he named -every living thing; or before them, in heaven, when God named the -world into being. And we see, in these beginnings, precisely what -Symbolism in literature really is: a form of expression, at the best -but approximate, essentially but arbitrary, until it has obtained -the force of a convention, for an unseen reality apprehended by the -consciousness. It is sometimes permitted to us to hope that our -convention is indeed the reflection rather than merely the sign of that -unseen reality. We have done much if we have found a recognisable sign. - -"A symbol," says Comte Goblet d'Alviella, in his book on _The Migration -of Symbols,_ "might be defined as a representation which does not aim -at being a reproduction." Originally, as he points out, used by the -Greeks to denote "the two halves of the tablet they divided between -themselves as a pledge of hospitality," it came to be used of every -sign, formula, or rite by which those initiated in any mystery made -themselves secretly known to one another. Gradually the word extended -its meaning, until it came to denote every conventional representation -of idea by form, of the unseen by the visible. "In a Symbol," says -Carlyle, "there is concealment and yet revelation: hence, therefore, by -Silence and by Speech acting together, comes a double significance." -And, in that fine chapter of _Sartor Resartus,_ he goes further, -vindicating for the word its full value: "In the Symbol proper, what we -can call a Symbol, there is ever, more or less distinctly and directly, -some embodiment and revelation of the Infinite; the Infinite is made -to blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, and as it were, -attainable there." - -It is in such a sense as this that the word Symbolism has been used to -describe a movement which, during the last generation, has profoundly -influenced the course of French literature. All such words, used -of anything so living, variable, and irresponsible as literature, -are, as symbols themselves must so often be, mere compromises, mere -indications. Symbolism, as seen in the writers of our day, would have -no value if it were not seen also, under one disguise or another, in -every great imaginative writer. What distinguishes the Symbolism of -our day from the Symbolism of the past; is that it has _now_ become -conscious of itself, in a sense in which it was unconscious even -in Gérard de Nerval, to whom I trace the particular origin of the -literature which I call Symbolist. The forces which mould the thought -of men change, or men's resistance to them slackens; with the change -of men's thought comes a change of literature, alike in its inmost -essence and in its outward form: after the world has starved its soul -long enough in the contemplation and the re-arrangement of material -things, comes the turn of the soul; and with it comes the literature of -which I write in this volume, a literature in which the visible world -is no longer a reality, and the unseen world no longer a dream. - -The great epoch in French literature which preceded this epoch was that -of the offshoot of Romanticism which produced Baudelaire, Flaubert, the -Goncourts, Taine, Zola, Leconte de Lisle. Taine was the philosopher -both of what had gone before him and of what came immediately after; -so that he seems to explain at once Flaubert and Zola. It was the -age of Science, the age of material things; and words, with that -facile elasticity which there is in them, did miracles in the exact -representation of everything that visibly existed, exactly as it -existed. Even Baudelaire, in whom the spirit is always an uneasy guest -at the orgie of life, had a certain theory of Realism which tortures -many of his poems into strange, metallic shapes, and fills them with -imitative odours, and disturbs them with a too deliberate rhetoric of -the flesh? Flaubert, the one impeccable novelist who has ever lived, -was resolute to be the novelist of a world in which art, formal art, -was the only escape from the burden of reality, and in which the soul -was of use mainly as the agent of fine literature. The Goncourts -caught at Impressionism to render the fugitive aspects of a world -which existed only as a thing of flat spaces, and angles, and coloured -movement, in which sun and shadow were the artists; as moods, no less -flitting, were the artists of the merely receptive consciousnesses of -men and women. Zola has tried to build in brick and mortar inside the -covers of a book; he is quite sure that the soul is a nervous fluid, -which he is quite sure some man of science is about to catch for us, as -a man of science has bottled the air, a pretty, blue liquid. Leconte -de Lisle turned the world to stone, but saw, beyond the world, only a -pause from misery in a Nirvana never subtilised to the Eastern ecstasy. -And, with all these writers, form aimed above all things at being -precise, at saying rather than suggesting, at saying what they had to -say so completely that nothing remained over, which it might be the -business of the reader to divine. And so they have expressed, finally, -a certain aspect of the world; and some of them have carried style to -a point beyond which the style that says, rather than suggests, cannot -go. The whole of that movement comes to a splendid funeral in M. de -Heredia's sonnets, in which the literature of form says its last word, -and dies. - -Meanwhile, something which is vaguely called Decadence had come into -being. That name, rarely used with any precise meaning, was usually -either hurled as a reproach or hurled back as a defiance. It pleased -some young men in various countries to call themselves Decadents, with -all the thrill of unsatisfied virtue masquerading as uncomprehended -vice. As a matter of fact, the term is in its place only when applied -to style; to that ingenious deformation of the language, in Mallarmé -for instance, which can be compared I with what we are accustomed to -call the Greek and Latin of the Decadence. No doubt perversity of -form and perversity often found together, and, among the lesser men -especially, experiment was carried far, not only in the direction of -style. But a movement which in this sense might be called Decadent -could but have been a straying aside from the main road of literature. -Nothing, not even conventional virtue, is so provincial as conventional -vice and the desire to "bewilder the middle-classes" is itself -middle-class. The interlude, half a mock-interlude, of Decadence, -diverted the attention of the critics while something more serious was -in preparation. That something more serious has crystallised, for the -time, under the form of Symbolism, in which art returns to the one -pathway, leading through beautiful things to the eternal beauty. - -In most of the writers whom I have dealt with as summing up in -themselves all that is best in Symbolism, it will be noticed that the -form is very carefully elaborated, and seems to count for at least -as much as in those writers of whose over-possession by form I have -complained. Here, however, all this elaboration comes from a very -different motive and leads to other ends. There is such a thing as -perfecting form that form may be annihilated. All the art of Verlaine -is in bringing verse to a bird's song, the art of Mallarmé in bringing -verse to the song of an orchestra. In Villiers de l'Isle-Adam drama -becomes an embodiment of spiritual forces, in Maeterlinck not even -their embodiment, but the remote sound of, their voices. It is all -an attempt to spiritualise literature, to evade the old bondage of -rhetoric, the old bondage of exteriority. Description is banished that -beautiful things may be evoked, magically; the regular beat of verse is -broken in order that words may fly, upon subtler wings. Mystery is no -longer feared, as the great mystery in whose midst we are islanded was -feared by those to whom that unknown sea was only a great void. We are -coming closer to nature, as we seem to shrink from it with something -of horror, disdaining to catalogue the trees of the forest. And as we -brush aside the accidents of daily life, in which men and women imagine -that they are alone touching reality, we come closer to humanity, to -everything in humanity that may have begun before the world and may -outlast it. - -Here, then, in this revolt against exteriority, against rhetoric, -against a materialistic tradition; in this endeavour to disengage the -ultimate essence, the soul, of whatever, exists and can be realized by -the consciousness; in this dutiful waiting upon every symbol by which -the soul of things can be made visible, literature, bowed down by so -many burdens, may at last attain liberty, and its authentic speech. -In attaining this liberty, it accepts a heavier burden; for in speaking -to us so intimately, so solemnly, as only religion had hitherto spoken -to us, it becomes itself a kind of religion, with all the duties and -responsibilities of the sacred ritual. - - - - -BALZAC - - -1 - -The first man who has completely understood Balzac is Rodin, and it -has taken Rodin ten years to realise his own conception. France has -refused the statue in which a novelist is represented as a dreamer, -to whom Paris is not so much Paris as Patmos: "the most Parisian of -our novelists," Frenchmen assure you. It is more than a hundred years -since Balzac was born: a hundred years is a long time in which to be -misunderstood with admiration. - -In choosing the name of the _Human Comedy_ for a series of novels in -which, as he says, there is at once "the history and the criticism -of society, the analysis of its evils, and the discussion of its -principles," Balzac proposed to do for the modern world what Dante, -in his _Divine Comedy,_ had done for the world of the Middle Ages. -Condemned to write in prose, and finding his opportunity in that -restriction, he created for himself a form which is perhaps the nearest -equivalent for the epic or the poetic drama, and the only form in -which, at all events, the epic is now possible. The world of Dante was -materially simple compared with the world of the nineteenth century; -the "visible world" had not yet begun to "exist," in its tyrannical -modern sense; the complications of the soul interested only the -Schoolmen, and were a part of theology; poetry could still represent -an age and yet be poetry. But to-day poetry can no longer represent -more than the soul of things; it had taken refuge from the terrible -improvements of civilisation in a divine seclusion, where it sings, -disregarding the many voices of the street. Prose comes offering its -infinite capacity for detail; and it is by the infinity of its detail -that the novel, as Balzac created it, has become the modern epic. - -There had been great novels, indeed, before Balzac, but no great -novelist; and the novels themselves are scarcely what we should to-day -call by that name. The interminable _Astrée_ and its companions form -a link between the _fabliaux_ and the novel, and from them developed -the characteristic eighteenth-century _conte,_ in narrative, letters, -or dialogue, as we see it in Marivaux, Laclos, Crebillon _fils,_ -Crebillon's longer works, including _Le Sopha,_ with their conventional -paraphernalia of Eastern fable, are extremely tedious; but in two -short pieces, _La Nuit et le Moment_ and _Le Hasard du Coin du Feu,_ -he created a model of witty, naughty, deplorably natural comedy, which -to this day is one of the most characteristic French forms of fiction. -Properly, however, it is a form of the drama rather than of the novel. -Laclos, in _Les Liaisons Dangereuses,_ a masterpiece which scandalised -the society that adored Crebillon, because its naked human truth left -no room for sentimental excuses, comes much nearer to prefiguring the -novel (as Stendhal, for instance, is afterward to conceive it), but -still preserves the awkward traditional form of letters. Marivaux had -indeed already seemed to suggest the novel of analysis, but in a style -which has christened a whole manner of writing that precisely which -is least suited to the writing of fiction. Voltaire's _contes, La -Religieuse_ of Diderot, are tracts or satires in which the story is -only an excuse for the purpose. Rousseau, too, has his purpose, even -in _La Nouvelle Héloise,_ but it is a humanising purpose; and with -that book the novel of passion comes into existence, and along with it -the descriptive novel. Yet with Rousseau this result is an accident of -genius; we cannot call him a novelist; and we find him abandoning the -form he has found, for another, more closely personal, which suits him -better. Restif de la Bretonne, who followed Rousseau at a distance, not -altogether wisely, developed the form of half-imaginary autobiography -in _Monsieur Nicolas,_ a book of which the most significant part may be -compared with Hazlitt's _Liber Amoris._ Morbid and even mawkish as it -is, it has a certain uneasy, unwholesome humanity in its confessions, -which may seem to have set a fashion only too scrupulously followed -by modern French novelists. Meanwhile, the Abbé Prévost's one great -story, _Manon Lescaut,_ had brought for once a purely objective study, -of an incomparable simplicity, into the midst of these analyses of -difficult souls; and then we return to the confession, in the works of -others not novelists: Benjamin Constant, Mme. de Staël, Chateaubriand, -in _Adolphe, Corinne, René._ At once we are in the Romantic movement, -a movement which begins lyrically among poets, and at first with a -curious disregard of the more human part of humanity. - -Balzac worked contemporaneously with the Romantic movement, but he -worked outside it, and its influence upon him is felt only in an -occasional pseudo-romanticism, like the episode of the pirate in _La -Femme de Trente Ans._ His vision of humanity was essentially a poetic -vision, but he was a poet whose dreams were facts. Knowing that, as -Mme. Necker has said, "the novel should be the better world," he knew -also that "the novel would be nothing if, in that august lie, it were -not true in details." And in the _Human Comedy_ he proposed to himself -to do for society more than Buffon had done for the animal world. - -"There is but one animal," he declares, in his _Avant-Propos,_ with -a confidence which Darwin has not yet come to justify. But "there -exists, there will always exist, social species, as there are -zoological species." "Thus the work to be done will have a triple -form: men, women, and things; that is to say, human beings and the -material representation which they give to their thought; in short, -man and life." And, studying after nature, "French society will be the -historian, I shall need to be no more than the secretary." Thus will be -written "the history forgotten by so many historians, the history of -manners." But that is not all, for "passion is the whole of humanity." -"In realizing clearly the drift of the composition, it will be seen -that I assign to facts, constant, daily, open, or secret, to the acts -of individual life, to their causes and principles, as much importance -as historians had formerly attached to the events of the public life -of nations." "Facts gathered together and painted as they are, with -passion for element," is one of his definitions of the task he has -undertaken. And in a letter to Mme. de Hanska, he summarises every -detail of his scheme. - -"The _Études des Mœurs_ will represent social effects, without a -single situation of life, or a physiognomy, or a character of man or -woman, or a manner of life, or a profession, or a social zone, or a -district of France, or anything pertaining to childhood, old age, or -maturity, politics, justice, or war, having been forgotten. - -"That laid down, the history of the human heart traced link by link, -the history of society made in all its details, we have the base.... - -"Then, the second stage is the _Études philosophiques,_ for after the -_effects_ come the _causes._ In the _Études des Mœurs_ I shall have -painted the sentiments and their action, life and the fashion of life. -In the _Études philosophiques_ I shall say _why the sentiments, on what -the life...._ - -"Then, after the _effects_ and the _causes,_ come the _Études -analytiques,_ to which the _Physiologie du mariage_ belongs, for, after -the _effects_ and the _causes,_ one should seek the _principles...._ - -"After having done the poetry, the demonstration, of a whole system, I -shall do the science in the _Essai sur les forces humaines._ And, on -the bases of this palace I shall have traced the immense arabesque of -the _Cent Contes drolatiques_!" - -Quite all that, as we know, was not carried out; but there, in its -intention, is the plan; and after twenty years' work the main part of -it, certainly, was carried out. Stated with this precise detail, it -has something of a scientific air, as of a too deliberate attempt upon -the sources of life by one of those systematic French minds which are -so much more logical than facts. But there is one little phrase to be -noted: "La passion est toute l'humanité." All Balzac is in that phrase. - -Another French novelist, following, as he thought, the example of the -_Human Comedy,_ has endeavoured to build up a history of his own time -with even greater minuteness. But _Les Rougon-Macquart_ is no more -than system; Zola has never understood that detail without life is the -wardrobe without the man. Trying to outdo Balzac on his own ground, -he has made the fatal mistake of taking him only on his systematic -side, which in Balzac is subordinate to a great creative intellect, -an incessant, burning thought about men and women, a passionate human -curiosity for which even his own system has no limits. "The misfortunes -of the _Birotteaus,_ the priest and the perfumer," he says, in his -_Avant-Propos,_ taking an example at random, "are, for me, those of -humanity." To Balzac manners are but the vestment of life; it is -life that he seeks; and life, to him (it is his own word) is but the -vestment of thought. Thought is at the root of all his work, a whole -system of thought, in which philosophy is but another form of poetry; -and it is from this root of idea that the _Human Comedy_ springs. - - -2 - -The two books into which Balzac has put his deepest thought, the two -books which he himself cared for the most, are _Séraphita_ and _Louis -Lambert._ Of _Louis Lambert_ he said: "I write it for myself and a few -others"; of _Séraphita:_ "My life is in it." "One could write _Goriot_ -any day," he adds; "_Séraphita only once_ in a lifetime." I have never -been able to feel that _Séraphita_ is altogether a success. It lacks -the breadth of life; it is glacial. True, he aimed at producing very -much such an effect; and it is, indeed, full of a strange, glittering -beauty, the beauty of its own snows. But I find in it at the same time -something a little factitious, a sort of romanesque, not altogether -unlike the sentimental romanesque of Novalis; it has not done the -impossible, in humanising abstract speculation, in fusing mysticism and -the novel. But for the student of Balzac it has extraordinary interest; -for it is at once the base and the summit of the _Human Comedy._ In a -letter to Mme. de Hanska, written in 1837, four years after _Séraphita_ -had been begun, he writes: "I am not orthodox, and I do not believe in -the Roman Church. Swedenborgianism, which is but a repetition, in the -Christian sense, of ancient ideas, is my religion, with this addition: -that I believe in the incomprehensibility of God." _Séraphita_ is a -prose poem in which the most abstract part of that mystical system, -which Swedenborg perhaps materialised too crudely, is presented in a -white light, under a single, superhuman image. In _Louis Lambert_ the -same fundamental conceptions are worked out in the study of a perfectly -human intellect, "an intelligent gulf," as he truly calls it; a sober -and concise history of ideas in their devouring action upon a feeble -physical nature. In these two books we see directly, and not through -the coloured veil of human life, the mind in the abstract of a thinker -whose power over humanity was the power of abstract thought. They show -this novelist, who has invented the description of society, by whom -the visible world has been more powerfully felt than by any other -novelist, striving to penetrate the correspondences which exist between -the human and the celestial existence. He would pursue the soul to its -last resting-place before it takes flight from the body; further, on -its disembodied flight; he would find out God, as he comes nearer and -nearer to finding out the secret of life. And realising, as he does -so profoundly, that there is but one substance, but one ever-changing -principle of life, "one vegetable, one animal, but a continual -intercourse," the world is alive with meaning for him, a more intimate -meaning than it has for others. "The least flower is a thought, a life -which corresponds to some lineaments of the great whole, of which he -has the constant intuition." And so, in his concerns with the world, he -will find spirit everywhere; nothing for him will be inert matter, -everything will have its particle of the universal life. One of those -divine spies, for whom the world has no secrets, he will be neither -pessimist nor optimist; he will accept the world as a man accepts the -woman whom he loves, as much, for her defects as for her virtues. -Loving the world for its own sake, he will find it always beautiful, -equally beautiful in all its parts. Now let us look at the programme -which he traced for the _Human Comedy,_ let us realise it in the light -of this philosophy, and we are at the beginning of a conception of what -the _Human Comedy_ really is. - - -3 - -This visionary, then, who had apprehended for himself an idea of God, -set himself to interpret human life more elaborately than any one else. -He has been praised for his patient observation; people have thought -they praised him in calling him a realist; it has been discussed how -far his imitation of life was the literal truth of the photograph. -But to Balzac the word realism was an insult. Writing his novels at -the rate of eighteen hours a day, in a feverish solitude, he never had -the time to observe patiently. It is humanity seen in a mirror, the -humanity which comes to the great dreamers, the great poets, humanity -as Shakespeare saw it. And so in him, as in all the great artists, -there is something more than nature, a divine excess. This something -more than nature should be the aim of the artist, not merely the -accident which happens to him against his will. We require of him a -world like our own, but a world infinitely more vigorous, interesting, -profound; more beautiful with that kind of beauty which nature finds -of itself for art. It is the quality of great creative art to give -us so much life that we are almost overpowered by it, as by an air -almost too vigorous to breathe: the exuberance of creation which makes -the Sibyl of Michelangelo something more than human, which makes -Lear something more than human, in one kind or another of divinity. - -Balzac's novels are full of strange problems and great passions turned -aside from nothing which presented itself in nature; and his mind was -always turbulent with the magnificent contrasts and caprices of fate. -A devouring passion of thought burned on all the situations by which -humanity expresses itself, in its flight from the horror of immobility. -To say that the situations which he chose are often romantic is but -to say that he followed the soul and the senses faithfully on their -strangest errands. Our probable novelists of to-day are afraid of -whatever emotion might be misinterpreted in a gentleman. Believing, as -we do now, in nerves and a fatalistic heredity, we have left but little -room for the dignity and disturbance of violent emotion. To Balzac, -humanity had not changed since the days when Œdipus was blind and -Philoctetes cried in the cave; and equally great miseries were still -possible to mortals, though they were French and of the nineteenth -century. - -And thus he creates, like the poets, a humanity more logical than -average life; more typical, more sub-divided among the passions, and -having in its veins an energy almost more than human. He realised, as -the Greeks did, that human life is made up of elemental passions and -necessity; but he was the first to realise that in the modern world -the pseudonym of necessity is money. Money and the passions rule the -world of his _Human Comedy._ - -And, at the root of the passions, determining their action, he saw -"those nervous fluids, or that unknown substance which, in default of -another term, we must call the will." No word returns oftener to his -pen. For him the problem is invariable. Man has a given quantity of -energy; each man a different quantity: how will he spend it? A novel -is the determination in action of that problem. And he is equally -interested in every form of energy, in every egoism, so long as it -is fiercely itself. This pre-occupation with the force, rather than -with any of its manifestations, gives him his singular impartiality, -his absolute lack of prejudice; for it gives him the advantage of an -abstract point of view, the unchanging fulcrum for a lever which turns -in every direction; and as nothing once set vividly in motion by any -form of human activity is without interest for him, he makes every -point of his vast chronicle of human affairs equally interesting to his -readers. - -Baudelaire has observed profoundly that every character in the _Human -Comedy_ has something of Balzac, has genius. To himself, his own genius -was entirely expressed in that word "will." It recurs constantly in his -letters. "Men of will are rare!" he cries. And, at a time when he had -turned night into day for his labour: "I rise every night with a keener -will than that of yesterday." "Nothing wearies me," he says, "neither -waiting nor happiness." He exhausts the printers, whose fingers can -hardly keep pace with his brain; they call him, he reports proudly, "a -man-slayer." And he tries to express himself: "I have always had in me -something, I know not what, which made me do differently from others; -and, with me, fidelity is perhaps no more than pride. Having only -myself to rely upon, I have had to strengthen, to build up that self." -There is a scene in _La Cousine Bette_ which gives precisely Balzac's -own sentiment of the supreme value of energy. The Baron Hulot, ruined -on every side, and by his own fault, goes to Josépha, a mistress who -had cast him off in the time of his prosperity, and asks her to lodge -him for a few days in a garret. She laughs, pities, and then questions -him. - -"'Est-ce vrai, vieux,' reprit-elle, 'que tu as tué ton frère et ton -oncle, ruiné ta famille, surhypothéqué la maison de tes enfants et -mangé la grenouille du gouvernement en Afrique avec la princesse?' - -"Le Baron inclina tristement la tête. - -"'Eh bien, j'aime cela!' s'écria Josépha, qui se leva pleine -d'enthousiasme. 'C'est un _brûlage_ général! c'est sardanapale! c'est -grand! c'est complet! On est une canaille, mais on a du cœur.'" - -The cry is Balzac's, and it is a characteristic part of his genius to -have given it that ironical force by uttering it through the mouth -of a Josépha. The joy of the human organism at its highest point of -activity: that is what interests him supremely. How passionate, how -moving he becomes whenever he has to speak of a real passion, a mania, -whether of a lover for his mistress, of a philosopher for his idea, -of a miser for his gold, of a Jew dealer for masterpieces! His style -clarifies, his words become flesh and blood; he is the lyric poet. And -for him every idealism is equal: the gourmandise of Pons is not less -serious, nor less sympathetic, not less perfectly realised, than the -search of Claës after the Absolute. "The great and terrible clamour of -egoism" is the voice to which he is always attentive; "those eloquent -faces, proclaiming a soul abandoned to an idea as to a remorse," are -the faces with whose history he concerns himself. He drags to light the -hidden joys of the _amateur,_ and with especial delight those that are -hidden deepest, under the most deceptive coverings. He deifies them -for their energy, he fashions the world of his _Human Comedy_ in their -service, as the real world exists, all but passive, to be the pasture -of these supreme egoists. - - -4 - -In all that he writes of life, Balzac seeks the soul; but it is the -soul as nervous fluid, the executive soul, not the contemplative soul, -that, with rare exceptions, he seeks. He would surprise the motive -force of life: that is his _recherche de l'Absolu;_ he figures it to -himself as almost a substance, and he is the alchemist on its track. -"Can man by thinking find out God?" Or life, he would have added; and -he would have answered the question with at least a Perhaps. - -And of this visionary, this abstract thinker, it must be said that his -thought translates itself always into terms of life. Pose before him -a purely mental problem, and he will resolve it by a scene in which -the problem literally works itself out. It is the quality proper to -the novelist, but no novelist ever employed this quality with such -persistent activity, and at the same time subordinated faction so -constantly to the idea. With him action has always a mental basis, is -never suffered to intrude for its own sake. He prefers that an episode -should seem in itself tedious rather than it should have an illogical -interest. - -It may be, for he is a Frenchman, that his episodes are sometimes too -logical. There are moments when he becomes unreal because he wishes to -be too systematic, that is, to be real by measure. He would never have -understood the method of Tolstoi, a very stealthy method of surprising -life. To Tolstoi life is always the cunning enemy whom one must lull -asleep, or noose by an unexpected lasso. He brings in little detail -after little detail, seeming to insist on the insignificance of each, -in order that it may pass almost unobserved, and be realised only after -it has passed. It is his way of disarming the suspiciousness of life. - -But Balzac will make no circuit, aims at an open and an unconditional -triumph over nature. Thus, when he triumphs, he triumphs signally; and -action, in his books, is perpetually crystallising into some phrase, -like the single lines of Dante, or some brief scene, in which a whole -entanglement comes sharply and suddenly to a luminous point. I will -give no instance, for I should have to quote from every volume. I -wish rather to remind myself that there are times when the last fine -shade of a situation seems to have escaped. Even then, the failure is -often more apparent than real, a slight bungling in the machinery of -illusion. Look through the phrase, and you will find the truth there, -perfectly explicit on the other side of it. - -For it cannot be denied, Balzac's style, as style, is imperfect. It -has life, and it has an idea, and it has variety; there are moments -when it attains a rare and perfectly individual beauty; as when, in _Le -Cousin Pons,_ we read of "cette prédisposition aux recherches qui fait -faire à un savant germanique cent lieues dans ses guêtres pour trouver -une vérité qui le regard en riant, assise à la marge du puits, sous le -jasmin de la cour." But I am far less sure that a student of Balzac -would recognise him in this sentence than that he would recognise the -writer of this other: "Des larmes de pudeur, qui roulèrent entre les -beaux cils de Madame Hulot, arrêtèrent net le garde national." It is -in such passages that the failure in style is equivalent to a failure -in psychology. That his style should lack symmetry, subordination, the -formal virtues of form, is, in my eyes, a less serious fault. I have -often considered whether, in the novel, perfect form is a good, or even -a possible thing, if the novel is to be what Balzac made it, history -added to poetry. A novelist with style will not look at life with an -entirely naked vision. He sees through coloured glasses. Human life -and human manners are too various, too moving, to be brought into the -fixity of a quite formal order. There will come a moment, constantly, -when style must suffer, or the closeness and clearness of narration -must be sacrificed, some minute exception of action or psychology must -lose its natural place, or its full emphasis. Balzac, with his rapid -and accumulating mind, without the patience oft selection, and without -the desire to select where selection means leaving out something -good in itself, if not good in its place, never hesitates, and his -parenthesis comes in. And often it is into these parentheses that he -puts the profoundest part of his thought. - -Yet, ready as Balzac is to neglect the story for the philosophy, -whenever it seems to him necessary to do so, he would never have -admitted that a form of the novel is possible in which the story shall -be no more than an excuse for the philosophy. That was because he was -a great creator, and not merely a philosophical thinker; because he -dealt in flesh and blood, and knew that the passions in action can -teach more to the philosopher, and can justify the artist more fully, -than all the unacting intellect in the world. He knew that though life -without thought was no more than the portion of a dog, yet thoughtful -life was more than lifeless thought, and the dramatist more than -the commentator. And I cannot help feeling assured that the latest -novelists without a story, whatever other merits they certainly have, -are lacking in the power to create characters, to express a philosophy -in action; and that the form which they have found, however valuable it -may be, is the result of this failure, and not either a great refusal -or a new vision. - - -5 - -The novel as Balzac conceived it has created the modern novel, but no -modern novelist has followed, for none has been able to follow, Balzac -on his own lines. Even those who have tried to follow him most closely -have, sooner or later, branched off in one direction or another, most -in the direction indicated by Stendhal. Stendhal has written one book -which is a masterpiece, unique in its kind, _Le Rouge et le Noir;_ a -second, which is full of admirable things, _Le Chartreuse de Parme;_ -a book of profound criticism, _Racine et Shakspeare;_ and a cold and -penetrating study of the physiology of love, _De l'Amour,_ by the side -of which Balzac's _Physiologie du Mariage_ is a mere _jeu d'esprit._ -He discovered for himself, and for others after him, a method of -unemotional, minute, slightly ironical analysis, which has fascinated -modern minds, partly because it has seemed to dispense with those -difficulties of creation, of creation in the block, which the triumphs -of Balzac have only accentuated. Goriot, Valérie Marneffe, Pons, -Grandet, Madame de Mortsauf even, are called up before us after the -same manner as Othello or Don Quixote; their actions express them so -significantly that they seem to be independent of their creator; Balzac -stakes all upon each creation, and leaves us no choice but to accept or -reject each as a whole, precisely as we should a human being. We do not -know all the secrets of their consciousness, any more than we know all -the secrets of the consciousness of our friends. But we have only so -say "Valérie!" and the woman is before us. Stendhal, on the contrary, -undresses Julien's soul in public with a deliberate and fascinating -effrontery. There is not a vein of which he does not trace the course, -not a wrinkle to which he does not point, not a nerve which he does -not touch to the quick. We know everything that passed through his -mind, to result probably in some significant inaction. And at the end -of the book we know as much about that particular intelligence as the -anatomist knows about the body which he has dissected. But mean-while -the life has gone out of the body; and have we, after all, captured a -living soul? - -I should be the last to say that Julien Sorel is not a creation, but -he is not a creation after the order of Balzac; it is a difference -of kind; and if we look carefully at Frédéric Moreau, and Madame -Gervaisais, and the Abbé Mouret, we shall see that these also, -profoundly different as Flaubert and Goncourt and Zola are from -Stendhal, are yet more profoundly, more radically, different from the -creations of Balzac. Balzac takes a primary passion, puts it into a -human body, and sets it to work itself out in visible action. But since -Stendhal, novelists have persuaded themselves that the primary passions -are a little common, or noisy, or a little heavy to handle, and they -have concerned themselves with passions tempered by reflection, and the -sensations of elaborate brains. It was Stendhal who substituted the -brain for the heart, as the battle-place of the novel; not the brain -as Balzac conceived it, a motive-force of action, the mainspring of -passion, the force by which a nature directs its accumulated energy; -but a sterile sort of brain, set at a great distance from the heart, -whose rhythm is too faint to disturb it. We have been intellectualising -upon Stendhal ever since, until the persons of the modern novel have -come to resemble those diaphanous jelly-fish, with balloon-like heads -and the merest tufts of bodies, which float up and down in the Aquarium -at Naples. - -Thus, coming closer, as it seems, to what is called reality, in this -banishment of great emotions, and this attention upon the sensations, -modern analytic novelists are really getting further and further from -that life which is the one certain thing in the world. Balzac employs -all his detail to call up a tangible world about his men and women, -not, perhaps, understanding the full power of detail as psychology, as -Flaubert is to understand it; but, after all, his detail is only the -background of the picture; and there, stepping out of the canvas, as -the sombre people of Velazquez step out of their canvases at the Prado, -is the living figure, looking into your eyes with eyes that respond to -you like a mirror. - -The novels of Balzac are full of electric fluid. To take up one of -them is to feel the shock of life, as one feels it on touching certain -magnetic hands. To turn over volume after volume is like wandering -through the streets of a great city, at that hour of the night when -human activity is at its full. There is a particular kind of excitement -inherent in the very aspect of a modern city, of London or Paris; in -the mere sensation of being in its midst, in the sight of all those -active and fatigued faces which pass so rapidly; of those long and -endless streets, full of houses, each of which is like the body of a -multiform soul, looking out through the eyes of many windows. There is -something intoxicating in the lights, the movement of shadows under the -lights, the vast and billowy sound of that shadowy movement. And there -is something more than this mere unconscious action upon the nerves. -Every step in a great city is a step into an unknown world. A new -future is possible at every street corner. I never know, when I go out -into one of those crowded streets, but that the whole course of my life -may be changed before I return to the house I have quitted. - -I am writing these lines in Madrid, to which I have come suddenly, -after a long quiet in Andalusia; and I feel already a new pulse in my -blood, a keener consciousness of life, and a sharper human curiosity. -Even in Seville I, knew that I should see to-morrow, in the same -streets, hardly changed since the Middle Ages, the same people that I -had seen to-day. But here there are new possibilities, all the exciting -accidents of the modern world, of a population always changing, of -a city into which civilisation has brought all its unrest. And as -I walk in these broad, windy streets and see these people, whom I -hardly recognise for Spaniards, so awake and so hybrid are they, I -have felt the sense of Balzac coming back into my veins. At Cordova he -was unthinkable; at Cadiz I could realise only his large, universal -outlines, vague as the murmur of the sea; here I feel him, he speaks -the language I am talking, he sums up the life in whose midst I find -myself. - -For Balzac is the equivalent of great cities. He is bad reading for -solitude, for he fills the mind with the nostalgia of cities. When a -man speaks to me familiarly of Balzac I know already something of the -man with whom I have to do. "The physiognomy of women does not begin -before the age of thirty," he has said; and perhaps before that age no -one can really understand Balzac. Few young people care for him, for -there is nothing in him that appeals to the senses except through the -intellect. Not many women care for him supremely, for it is part of -his method to express sentiments through facts, and not facts through -sentiments. But it is natural that he should be the favourite reading -of men of the world, of those men of the world who have the distinction -of their kind; for he supplies the key of the enigma which they are -studying. - - -6 - -The life of Balzac was one long labour, in which time, money, and -circumstances were all against him. In 1835 he writes: "I have lately -spent twenty-six days in my study without leaving it. I took the air -only at that window which dominates Paris, which I mean to dominate." -And he exults in the labour: "If there is any glory in that, I alone -could accomplish such a feat." He symbolises the course of his life -in comparing it to the sea beating against a rock: "To-day one flood, -to-morrow another, bears me along with it. I am dashed against a rock, -I recover myself and go on to another reef." "Sometimes it seems to me -that my brain is on fire. I shall die in the trenches of the intellect." - -Balzac, like Scott, died under the weight of his debts; and it would -seem, if one took him at his word, that the whole of the _Human Comedy_ -was written for money. In the modern world, as he himself realised more -clearly than any one, money is more often a symbol than an entity, and -it can be the symbol of every desire. For Balzac money was the key -of his earthly paradise. It meant leisure to visit the woman whom he -loved, and at the end it meant the possibility of marrying her. - -There were only two women in Balzac's life: one, a woman much older -than himself, of whom he wrote, on her death, to the other: "She was -a mother, a friend, a family, a companion, a counsel, she made the -writer, she consoled the young man, she formed his taste, she wept like -a sister, she laughed, she came every day, like a healing slumber, to -put sorrow to sleep." The other was Mme. de Hanska, whom he married in -1850, three months before his death. He had loved her for twenty years; -she was married, and lived in Poland; it was only at rare intervals -that he was able to see her, and then very briefly; but his letters to -her, published since his death, are a simple, perfectly individual, -daily record of a great passion. For twenty years he existed on a -divine certainty without a future, and almost without a present. But we -see the force of that sentiment passing into his work; _Séraphita_ is -its ecstasy, everywhere is its human shadow; it refines his strength, -it gives him surprising intuitions, it gives him all that was wanting -to his genius. Mme. de Hanska is the heroine of the _Human Comedy,_ as -Beatrice is the heroine of the _Divine Comedy._ - -A great lover, to whom love, as well as every other passion and the -whole visible world, was an idea, a flaming spiritual perception, -Balzac enjoyed the vast happiness of the idealist. Contentedly, -joyously, he sacrificed every petty enjoyment to the idea of love, the -idea of fame, and to that need of the organism to exercise its forces, -which is the only definition of genius. I do not know, among the lives -of men of letters, a life better filled, or more appropriate. A young -man who, for a short time, was his secretary, declared: "I would not -live your life for the fame of Napoleon and of Byron combined!" The -Comte de Gramont did not realise, as the world in general does not -realise, that, to the man of creative energy, creation is at once a -necessity and a joy, and to the lover, hope in absence is the elixir -of life. Balzac tasted more than all earthly pleasures as he sat there -in his attic, creating the world over again, that he might lay it at -the feet of a woman. Certainly to him there was no tedium in life, for -there was no hour without its vivid employment, and no moment in which -to perceive the most desolate of all certainties, that hope is in the -past. His death was as fortunate as his life; he died at the height of -his powers, at the height of his fame, at the moment of the fulfilment -of his happiness, and perhaps of the too sudden relief of that delicate -burden. - -1899. - - - - -PROSPER MÉRIMÉE - - -1 - - -Stendhal has left us a picture of Mérimée as "a young man in a grey -frock-coat, very ugly, and with a turned-up nose.... This young man -had something insolent and extremely unpleasant about him. His eyes, -small and without expression, had always the same look, and this look -was ill-natured.... Such was my first impression of the best of my -present friends. I am not too sure of his heart, but I am sure of his -talents. It is M. le Comte Gazul, now so well known; a letter from him, -which came to me last week, made me happy for two days. His mother has -a good deal of French wit and a superior intelligence. Like her son, -it seems to me that she might give way to emotion once a year." There, -painted by a clear-sighted and disinterested friend, is a picture of -Mérimée almost from his own point of view, or at least as he would -himself have painted the picture. How far is it, in its insistence on -the _attendrissement une fois par an,_ on the subordination of natural -feelings to a somewhat disdainful aloofness, the real Mérimée? - -Early in life, Mérimée adopted his theory, fixed his attitude, and to -the end of his life he seemed, to those about him, to have walked along -the path he had chosen, almost without a deviation. He went to England -at the age of twenty-three, to Spain four years later, and might seem -to have been drawn naturally to those two countries, to which he was -to return so often, by natural affinities of temper and manner. It -was the English manner that he liked, that came naturally to him; the -correct, unmoved exterior, which is a kind of positive strength, not to -be broken by any onslaught of events or emotions; and in Spain he found -an equally positive animal acceptance of things as they are, which -satisfied his profound, restrained, really Pagan senusality, Pagan -in the hard, eighteenth-century sense. From the beginning he was a -student, of art, of history, of human nature, and we find him enjoying, -in his deliberate, keen way, the studied diversions of the student; -body and soul each kept exactly in its place, each provided for without -partiality. He entered upon literature by a mystification, _Le Théâtre -de Clara Gazul,_ a book of plays supposed to be translated from a -living Spanish dramatist; and he followed it by _La Guzla,_ another -mystification, a book of prose ballads supposed to be translated -from the Illyrian. And these mystifications, like the forgeries of -Chatterton, contain perhaps the most sincere, the most undisguised -emotion which he ever permitted himself to express; so secure did he -feel of the heart behind the pearl necklace of the _décolletée_ Spanish -actress, who travesties his own face in the frontispiece to the one, -and so remote from himself did he feel the bearded gentleman to be, who -sits cross-legged on the ground, holding his lyre or _guzla,_ in the -frontispiece to the other. Then came a historical novel, the _Chronique -du Règne de Charles IX.,_ before he discovered, as if by accident, -precisely what it was he was meant to do: the short story. Then he -drifted into history, became Inspector of Ancient Monuments, and helped -to save Vézelay, among other good deeds toward art, done in his cold, -systematic, after all satisfactory manner. He travelled at almost -regular intervals, not only in Spain and England, but in Corsica, -in Greece and Asia Minor, in Italy, in Hungary, in Bohemia, usually -with a definite, scholarly object, and always with an alert attention -to everything that came in his way, to the manners of people, their -national characters, their differences from one another. An intimate -friend of the Countess de Montijo, the mother of the Empress Eugénie, -he was a friend, not a courtier, at the court of the Third Empire. -He was elected to the Academy, mainly for his _Études sur l'Histoire -Romaine,_ a piece of dry history, and immediately scandalised his -supporters by publishing a story, _Arsène Guillot,_ which was taken for -a veiled attack on religion and on morals. Soon after, his imagination -seemed to flag; he abandoned himself, perhaps a little wearily, more -and more to facts, to the facts of history and learning; learned -Russian, and translated Poushkin and Tourguenieff; and died in 1870, -at Cannes, perhaps less satisfied with himself than most men who have -done, in their lives, far less exactly what they have intended to do. - -"I have theories about the very smallest things--gloves, boots, and the -like," says Mérimée in one of his letters; _des idées très-arrêtées,_ -as he adds with emphasis in another. Precise opinions lead easily to -prejudices, and Mérimée, who prided himself on the really very logical -quality of his mind, put himself somewhat deliberately into the hands -of his prejudices. Thus he hated religion, distrusted priests, would -not let himself be carried away by any instinct of admiration, would -not let himself do the things which he had the power to do, because -his other, critical self came mockingly behind him, suggesting that -very few things were altogether worth doing. "There is nothing that I -despise and even detest so much as humanity in general," he confesses -in a letter; and it is with a certain self-complacency that he defines -the only kind of society in which he found himself at home: "(1) -With unpretentious people whom I have known a long time; (2) in a -Spanish _venta,_ with muleteers and peasant women of Andalusia." One -day, as he finds himself in a pensive mood, dreaming of a woman, -he translates for her some lines of Sophocles, into verse, "English -verse, you understand, for I abhor French verse." The carefulness with -which he avoids received opinions shows a certain consciousness of -those opinions, which in a more imaginatively independent mind would -scarcely have found a place. It is not only for an effect, but more and -more genuinely, that he sets his acquirements as a scholar above his -accomplishments as an artist. Clearing away, as it seemed to him, every -illusion from before his eyes, he forgot the last illusion of positive -people: the possibility that one's eyes may be short-sighted. - -Mérimée realises a type which we are accustomed to associate almost -exclusively with the eighteenth century, but of which our own time can -offer us many obscure examples. It is the type of the _esprit fort:_ -the learned man, the choice, narrow artist, who is at the same time the -cultivated sensualist. To such a man the pursuit of women is part of -his constant pursuit of human experience, and of the document, which -is the summing up of human experience. To Mérimée history itself was -a matter of detail. "In history, I care only for anecdotes," he says -in the preface to the _Chronique du Règne de Charles IX._ And he adds: -"It is not a very noble taste; but I confess to my shame, I would -willingly give Thucydides for the authentic memoirs of Aspasia or of -a slave of Pericles; for only memoirs, which are the familiar talk -of an author with his reader, afford those portraits of _man_ which -amuse and interest me." This curiosity of mankind above all things, -and of mankind at home, or in private actions, not necessarily of any -import to the general course of the world, leads the curious searcher -naturally to the more privately interesting and the less publicly -important half of mankind. Not scrupulous in arriving at any end by the -most adaptable means, not disturbed by any illusions as to the physical -facts of the universe, a sincere and grateful lover of variety, -doubtless an amusing companion with those who amused him, Mérimée -found much of his entertainments and instruction, at all events in his -younger years, in that "half world" which he tells us he frequented -"very much out of curiosity, living in it always as in a foreign -country." Here, as elsewhere, Mérimée played the part of the amateur. -He liked anecdotes, not great events, in his history; and he was -careful to avoid any too serious passions in his search for sensations. -There, no doubt, for the sensualist, is happiness, if he can resign -himself to it. It is only serious passions which make anybody -unhappy; and Mérimée was carefully on the lookout against a possible -unhappiness. I can imagine him ending every day with satisfaction, and -beginning every fresh day with just enough expectancy to be agreeable, -at that period of his life when he was writing the finest of his -stories, and dividing the rest of his leisure between the drawing-rooms -and the pursuit of uneventful adventures. - -Only, though we are _automates autant qu'-esprit,_ as Pascal tells us, -it is useless to expect that what is automatic in us should remain -invariable and unconditioned. If life could be lived on a plan, and -for such men on such a plan, if first impulses and profound passions -could be kept entirely out of one's own experience, and studied only -at a safe distance, then, no doubt, one could go on being happy, in -a not too heroic way. But, with Mérimée as with all the rest of the -world, the scheme breaks down one day, just when a reasonable solution -to things seems to have been arrived at. Mérimée had already entered -on a peaceable enough _liaison_ when the first letter came to him from -the _Inconnue_ to whom he was to write so many letters, for nine years -without seeing her, and then for thirty years more after he had met -her, the last letter being written but two hours before his death. -These letters, which we can now read in two volumes, have a delicately -insincere sincerity which makes every letter a work of art, not because -he tried to make it so, but because he could not help seeing the form -simultaneously with the feeling, and writing genuine love-letters with -an excellence almost as impersonal as that of his stories. He begins -with curiosity, which passes with singular rapidity into a kind of -self-willed passion; already in the eighth letter, long before he has -seen her, he is speculating which of the two will know best how to -torture the other: that is, as he views it, love best. "We shall never -love one another really," he tells her, as he begins to hope for the -contrary. Then he discovers, for the first time, and without practical -result, "that it is better to have illusions than to have none at all." -He confesses himself to her, sometimes reminding her: "You will never -know either all the good or all the evil that I have in me. I have -spent my life in being praised for qualities which I do not possess, -and calumniated for defects which are not mine." And, with a strange, -weary humility, which is the other side of his contempt for most things -and people, he admits: "To you I am like an old opera, which you are -obliged to forget, in order to see it again with any pleasure." He, who -has always distrusted first impulses, finds himself telling her (was -she really so like him, or was he arguing with himself?): "You always -fear first impulses; do not you see that they are the only ones which -are worth anything and which always succeed?" Does he realise, unable -to change the temperament which he has partly made for himself, that -just there has been his own failure? - -Perhaps of all love-letters, these of Mérimée show us love triumphing -over the most carefully guarded personality. Here the obstacle is -not duty, nor circumstance, nor a rival; but (on her side as on his, -it would seem) a carefully trained natural coldness, in which action, -and even for the most part feeling, are relinquished to the control -of second thoughts. A habit of repressive irony goes deep: Mérimée -might well have thought himself secure against the outbreak of an -unconditional passion. Yet here we find passion betraying itself, -often only by bitterness, together with a shy, surprising tenderness, -in this curious lovers' itinerary, marked out with all the customary -sign-posts, and leading, for all its wilful deviations, along the -inevitable road. - -It is commonly supposed that the artist, by the habit of his -profession, has made for himself a sort of cuirass of phrases against -the direct attack of emotion, and so will suffer less than most people -if he should fall into love, and things should not go altogether -well with him. Rather, he is the more laid open to attack, the more -helplessly entangled when once the net has been cast over him. He lives -through every passionate trouble, not merely with the daily emotions of -the crowd, but with the whole of his imagination. Pain is multiplied -to him by the force of that faculty by which he conceives delight. What -is most torturing in every not quite fortunate love is memory, and the -artist becomes an artist by his intensification of memory. Mérimée has -himself defined art as exaggeration _à propos._ Well, to the artist his -own life is an exaggeration not _à propos,_ and every hour dramatises -for him its own pain and pleasure, in a tragic comedy of which he is -the author and actor and spectator. The practice of art is a sharpening -of the sensations, and, the knife once sharpened, does it cut into -one's hand less deeply because one is in the act of using it to carve -wood? - -And so we find Mérimée, the most impersonal of artists, and one of -those most critical of the caprices and violences of fate, giving in to -an almost obvious temptation, an anonymous correspondence, a mysterious -unknown woman, and passing from stage to stage of a finally very -genuine love-affair, which kept him in a fluttering agitation for more -than thirty years. It is curious to note that the little which we know -of this _Inconnue_ seems to mark her out as the realisation of a type -which had always been Mérimée's type of woman. She has the "wicked -eyes" of all his heroines, from the Mariquita of his first attempt in -literature, who haunts the Inquisitor with "her great black eyes, like -the eyes of a young cat, soft and wicked at once." He finds her at the -end of his life, in a novel of Tourguenieff, "one of those diabolical -creatures whose coquetry is the more dangerous because it is capable -of passion." Like so many artists, he has invented his ideal before he -meets it, and must have seemed almost to have fallen in love with his -own creation. It is one of the privileges of art to create nature, as, -according to a certain mystical doctrine, you can actualise, by sheer -fixity of contemplation, your mental image of a thing into the thing -itself. The _Inconnue_ was one of a series, the rest imaginary; and -her power over Mérimée, we can hardly doubt, came not only from her -queer likeness of temperament to his, but from the singular, flattering -pleasure which it must have given him to find that he had invented with -so much truth to nature. - - -2 - -Mérimée as a writer belongs to the race of Laclos and of Stendhal, -a race essentially French; and we find him representing, a little -coldly, as it seemed, the claims of mere unimpassioned intellect, at -work on passionate problems, among those people of the Romantic period -to whom emotion, evident emotion, was everything. In his subjects he -is as "Romantic" as Victor Hugo or Gautier; he adds, even, a peculiar -flavour of cruelty to the Romantic ingredients. But he distinguishes -sharply, as French writers before him had so well known how to do, -between the passion one is recounting and the moved or unmoved way -in which one chooses to tell it. To Mérimée art was a very formal -thing, almost a part of learning; it was a thing to be done with a -clear head, reflectively, with a calm mastery of even the most vivid -material. While others, at that time, were intoxicating themselves -with strange sensations, hoping that "nature would take the pen out -of their hands and write," just at the moment when their own thoughts -became least coherent, Mérimée went quietly to work over something a -little abnormal which he had found in nature, with as disinterested, as -scholarly, as mentally reserved an interest as if it were one of those -Gothic monuments which he inspected to such good purpose, and, as it -has seemed to his biographer, with so little sympathy. His own emotion, -so far as it is roused, seems to him an extraneous thing, a thing to be -concealed, if not a little ashamed of. It is the thing itself he wishes -to give you, not his feelings about it; and his theory is that if the -thing itself can only be made to stand and speak before the reader, the -reader will supply for himself all the feeling that is needed, all the -feeling that would be called out in nature by a perfectly clear sight -of just such passions in action. It seems to him bad art to paint the -picture, and to write a description of the picture as well. - -And his method serves him wonderfully up to a certain point, and then -leaves him, without his being well aware of it, at the moment even when -he has convinced himself that he has realised the utmost of his aim. At -a time when he had come to consider scholarly dexterity as the most -important part of art, Mérimée tells us that _La Vénus d'Ille_ seemed -to him the best story he had ever written. He has often been taken at -his word, but to take him at his word is to do him an injustice. _La -Vénus d'Ille_ is a modern setting of the old story of the Ring given to -Venus, and Mérimée has been praised for the ingenuity with which he has -obtained an effect of supernatural terror, while leaving the way open -for a material explanation of the supernatural. What he has really done -is to materialise a myth, by accepting in it precisely what might be a -mere superstition, the form of the thing, and leaving out the spiritual -meaning of which that form was no more than a temporary expression. The -ring which the bridegroom sets on the finger of Venus, and which the -statue's finger closes upon, accepting it, symbolises the pact between -love and sensuality, the lover's abdication of all but the physical -part of love; and the statue taking its place between husband and wife -on the marriage-night, and crushing life out of him in an inexorable -embrace, symbolises the merely natural destruction which that granted -prayer brings with it, as a merely human Messalina takes her lover on -his own terms, in his abandonment of all to Venus. Mérimée sees a cruel -and fantastic superstition, which he is afraid of seeming to take too -seriously, which he prefers to leave as a story of ghosts or bogies, -a thing at which we are to shiver as at a mere twitch on the nerves, -while our mental confidence in the impossibility of what we cannot -explain is preserved for us by a hint at a muleteer's vengeance. "Have -I frightened you?" says the man of the world, with a reassuring smile. -"Think about it no more; I really meant nothing." - -And yet, does he after all mean nothing? The devil, the old pagan -gods, the spirits of evil incarnated under every form, fascinated him; -it gave him a malign pleasure to set them at their evil work among -men, while, all the time, he mocks them and the men who believed in -them. He is a materialist, and yet he believes in at least a something -evil, outside the world, or in the heart of it, which sets humanity -at its strange games, relentlessly. Even then he will not surrender -his doubts, his ironies, his negations. Is he, perhaps, at times, -the atheist who fears that, after all, God may exist, or at least who -realises how much he would fear him if he did exist? - -Mérimée had always delighted in mystifications; he was always on his -guard against being mystified himself, either by nature or by his -fellow-creatures. In the early "Romantic" days he had had a genuine -passion for various things: "local colour," for instance. But even then -he had invented it by a kind of trick, and, later on, he explains what -a poor thing "local colour" is, since it can so easily be invented -without leaving one's study. He is full of curiosity, and will go far -to satisfy it, regretting "the decadence," in our times, "of energetic -passions, in favour of tranquillity and perhaps of happiness." These -energetic passions he will find, indeed, in our own times, in Corsica, -in Spain, in Lithuania, really in the midst of a very genuine and -profoundly studied "local colour," and also, under many disguises, in -Parisian drawing-rooms. Mérimée prized happiness, material comfort, the -satisfaction of one's immediate desires, very highly, and it was his -keen sense of life, of the pleasures of living, that gave him some -of his keenness in the realisation of violent death, physical pain, -whatever disturbs the equilibrium of things with unusual emphasis. -Himself really selfish, he can distinguish the unhappiness of others -with a kind of intuition which is not sympathy, but which selfish -people often have: a dramatic consciousness of how painful pain must -be, whoever feels it. It is not pity, though it communicates itself to -us, often enough, as pity. It is the clear-sighted sensitiveness of a -man who watches human things closely, bringing them home to himself -with the deliberate, essaying art of an actor who has to represent a -particular passion in movement. - -And always in Mérimée there is this union of curiosity with -indifference: the curiosity of the student, the indifference of the -man of the world. Indifference, in him, as in the man of the world, -is partly an attitude, adopted for its form, and influencing the -temperament just so much as gesture always influences emotion. The -man who forces himself to appear calm under excitement teaches his -nerves to follow instinctively the way he has shown them. In time -he will not merely seem calm but will be calm, at the moment when he -learns that a great disaster has befallen him. But, in Mérimée, was -the indifference even as external as it must always be when there is -restraint, when, therefore, there is something to restrain? Was there -not in him a certain drying up of the sources of emotion, as the man of -the world came to accept almost the point of view of society, reading -his stories to a little circle of court ladies, when, once in a while, -he permitted himself to write a story? And was not this increase of -well-bred indifference, now more than ever characteristic, almost the -man himself, the chief reason why he abandoned art so early, writing -only two or three short stories during the last twenty-five years of -his life, and writing these with a labour which by no means conceals -itself? - -Mérimée had an abstract interest in, almost an enthusiasm for, -facts; facts for their meaning, the light they throw on psychology. -He declines to consider psychology except through its expression in -facts, with an impersonality far more real than that of Flaubert. The -document, historical or social, must translate itself into sharp action -before he can use it; not that he does not see, and appreciate better -than most others, all there is of significance in the document itself; -but his theory of art is inexorable. He never allowed himself to write -as he pleased, but he wrote always as he considered the artist should -write. Thus he made for himself a kind of formula, confining himself, -as some thought, within too narrow limits, but, to himself, doing -exactly what he set himself to do, with all the satisfaction of one who -is convinced of the justice of his aim and confident of his power to -attain it. - -Look, for instance, at his longest, far from his best work, _La -Chronique du Règne de Charles IX._ Like so much of his work, it has -something of the air of a _tour de force,_ not taken up entirely for -its own sake. Mérimée drops into a fashion, half deprecatingly, as if -he sees through it, and yet, as with merely mundane elegance, with -a resolve to be more scrupuously exact than its devotees. "Belief," -says some one in this book, as if speaking for Mérimée, "is a precious -gift which has been denied me." Well, he will do better, without -belief, than those who believe. Written under a title which suggests -a work of actual history, it is more than possible that the first -suggestion of this book really came, as he tells us in the preface, -from the reading of "a large number of memoirs and pamphlets relating -to the end of the sixteenth century." "I wished to make an epitome of -my reading," he tells us, "and here is the epitome." The historical -problem attracted him, that never quite explicable Massacre of St. -Bartholomew, in which there was precisely the violence of action and -uncertainty of motive which he liked to set before him at the beginning -of a task in literature. Probable, clearly defined people, in the dress -of the period, grew up naturally about this central motive; humour -and irony have their part; there are adventures, told with a sword's -point of sharpness, and in the fewest possible words; there is one of -his cruel and loving women, in whom every sentiment becomes action, by -some twisted feminine logic of their own. It is the most artistic, the -most clean-cut, of historical novels; and yet this perfect neatness of -method suggests a certain indifference on the part of the writer, as -if he were more interested in doing the thing well than in doing it. - -And that, in all but the very best of his stories (even, perhaps, -in _Arsène Guillot_ only not in such perfect things as _Carmen,_ as -_Mateo Falcone),_ is what Mérimée just lets us see, underneath an -almost faultless skill of narrative. An incident told by Mérimée at -his best gathers about it something of the gravity of history, the -composed way in which it is told helping to give it the equivalent of -remoteness, allowing it not merely to be, but, what is more difficult, -to seem classic in its own time. "Magnificent things, things after my -own heart--that is to say, Greek in their truth and simplicity," he -writes in a letter, referring to the tales of Poushkin. The phrase is -scarcely too strong to apply to what is best in his own work. Made -out of elemental passions, hard, cruel, detached as it were from -their own sentiments, the stories that he tells might in other hands -become melodramas: _Carmen,_ taken thoughtlessly out of his hands, has -supplied the libretto to the most popular of modern light operas. And -yet, in his severe method of telling, mere outlines, it seems, told -with an even stricter watch over what is significantly left out than -over what is briefly allowed to be said in words, these stories sum up -little separate pieces of the world, each a little world in itself. -And each is a little world which he has made his own, with a labor at -last its own reward, and taking life partly because he has put into -it more of himself than the mere intention of doing it well. Mérimée -loved Spain, and _Carmen,_ which, by some caprice of popularity, is -the symbol of Spain to people in general, is really, to those who -know Spain well, the most Spanish thing that has been written since -_Gil Blas._ All the little parade of local colour and philology, the -appendix on the _Calo_ of the gipsies, done to heighten the illusion, -has more significance than people sometimes think. In this story -all the qualities of Mérimée come into agreement; the student of -human passions, the traveller, the observer, the learned man, meet -in harmony; and, in addition, there is the _aficionado,_ the true -_amateur,_ in love with Spain and the Spaniards. - -It is significant that at the reception of Mérimée at the Académie -Française in 1845, M. Etienne thought it already needful to say: -"Do not pause in the midst of your career; rest is not permitted to -your talent." Already Mérimée was giving way to facts, to facts in -themselves, as they come into history, into records of scholarship. -We find him writing, a little dryly, on Catiline, on Cæsar, on Don -Pedro the Cruel, learning Russian, and translating from it (yet, while -studying the Russians before all the world, never discovering the -mystical Russian soul), writing learned articles, writing reports. He -looked around on contemporary literature, and found nothing that he -could care for. Stendhal was gone, and who else was there to admire? -Flaubert, it seemed to him, was "wasting his talent under the pretence -of realism." Victor Hugo was "a fellow with the most beautiful figures -of speech at his disposal," who did not take the trouble to think, but -intoxicated himself with his own words. Baudelaire made him furious, -Renan filled him with pitying scorn. In the midst of his contempt, he -may perhaps have imagined that he was being left behind. For whatever -reason, weakness or strength, he could not persuade himself that it -was worth while to strive for anything any more. He died probably at -the moment when he was no longer a fashion, and had not yet become a -classic. - -1901. - - - - -GÉRARD DE NERVAL - - -1 - -This is the problem of one who lost the whole world and gained his own -soul. - -"I like to arrange my life as if it were a novel," wrote Gérard de -Nerval, and, indeed, it is somewhat difficult to disentangle the -precise facts of an existence which was never quite conscious where -began and where ended that "overflowing of dreams into real life," of -which he speaks. "I do not ask of God," he said, "that he should change -anything in events themselves, but that he should change me in regard -to things, so that I might have the power to create my own universe -about me, to govern my dreams, instead of enduring them." The prayer -was not granted, in its entirety; and the tragedy of his life lay in -the vain endeavour to hold back the irresistible empire of the unseen, -which it was the joy of his life to summon about him. Briefly, we -know that Gérard Labrunie (the name de Nerval was taken from a little -piece of property, worth some 1500 francs, which he liked to imagine -had always been in the possession of his family) was born at Paris, -May 22, 1808. His father was surgeon-major; his mother died before he -was old enough to remember her, following the _Grande Armée_ on the -Russian campaign; and Gérard was brought up, largely under the care of -a studious and erratic uncle, in a little village called Montagny, near -Ermenonville. He was a precocious schoolboy, and by the age of eighteen -had published six little collections of verses. It was during one of -his holidays that he saw, for the first and last time, the young girl -whom he calls Adrienne, and whom, under many names, he loved to the -end of his life. One evening she had come from the château to dance -with the young peasant girls on the grass. She had danced with Gérard, -he had kissed her cheek, he had crowned her hair with laurels, he had -heard her sing an old song telling of the sorrows of a princess whom -her father had shut in a tower because she had loved. To Gérard it -seemed that already he remembered her, and certainly he was never to -forget her. After-wards, he heard that Adrienne had taken the veil; -then, that she was dead. To one who had realised that it is "we, the -living, who walk in a world of phantoms," death could not exclude hope; -and when, many years later, he fell seriously and fantastically in love -with a little actress called Jenny Colon, it was because he seemed to -have found, in that blonde and very human person, the re-incarnation of -the blonde Adrienne. - -Meanwhile Gérard was living in Paris, among his friends the Romantics, -writing and living in an equally desultory fashion. _Le bon Gérard_ -was the best loved, and, in his time, not the least famous, of the -company. He led, by choice, now in Paris, now across Europe, the life -of a vagabond, and more persistently than others of his friends who -were driven to it by need. At that time, when it was the aim of every -one to be as eccentric as possible, the eccentricities of Gérard's life -and thought seemed, on the whole, less noticeable than those of many -really quite normal persons. But with Gérard there was no pose; and -when, one day, he was found in the Palais-Royal, leading a lobster -at the end of a blue ribbon (because, he said, it does not bark, and -knows the secrets of the sea), the visionary had simply lost control of -his visions, and had to be sent to Dr. Blanche's asylum at Montmartre. -He entered March 21, 1841, and came out, apparently well again, on -the 21st of November. It would seem that this first access of madness -was, to some extent, the consequence of the final rupture with Jenny -Colon; on June 5, 1842, she died and it was partly in order to put as -many leagues of the earth as possible between him and that memory that -Gérard set out, at the end of 1842, for the East. It was also in order -to prove to the world, by his consciousness of external things, that -he had recovered his reason. While he was in Syria, he once more fell -in love with a new incarnation of Adrienne, a young Druse, Saléma, the -daughter of a Sheikh of Lebanon; and it seems to have been almost by -accident that he did not marry her. He returned to Paris at the end -of 1843 or the beginning of 1844, and for the next few years he lived -mostly in Paris, writing charming, graceful, remarkably sane articles -and books and wandering about the streets, by day and night, in a -perpetual dream from which, now and again, he was somewhat rudely -awakened. When, in the spring of 1853, he went to see Heine, for whom -he was doing an admirable prose translation of his poems, and told him -he had come to return the money he had received in advance, because -the times were accomplished, and the end of the world, announced by -the Apocalypse, was at hand, Heine sent for a cab, and Gérard found -himself at Dr. Dubois' asylum, where he remained two months. It was on -coming out of the asylum that he wrote _Sylvie,_ a delightful idyl, -chiefly autobiographical, one of his three actual achievements. On -August 27, 1853, he had to be taken to Dr. Blanche's asylum at Passy, -where he remained till May 27, 1854. Thither, after a month or two -spent in Germany, he returned on August 8, and on October 19 he came -out for the last time, manifestly uncured. He was now engaged on the -narrative of his own madness, and the first part of _Le Rêve et la Vie_ -appeared in the _Revue de Paris_ of January I, 1855. On the 20th he -came into the office of the review, and showed Gautier and Maxime du -Camp an apron-string which he was carrying in his pocket. "It is the -girdle," he said, "that Madame de Maintenon wore when she had _Esther_ -performed at Saint-Cyr." On the 24th he wrote to a friend: "Come and -prove my identity at the police-station of the Châtelet." The night -before he had been working at his manuscript in a pot-house of Les -Halles, and had been arrested as a vagabond. He was used to such little -misadventures, but he complained of the difficulty of writing. "I set -off after an idea," he said, "and lose myself; I am hours in finding -my way back. Do you know I can scarcely write twenty lines a day, the -darkness comes about me so close!" He took out the apron-string. "It -is the garter of the Queen of Sheba," he said. The snow was freezing -on the ground, and on the night of the 25th, at three in the morning, -the landlord of a "penny doss" in the Rue de la Vieille-Lanterne, a -filthy alley lying between the quays and the Rue de Rivoli, heard -some one knocking at the door, but did not open, on account of the -cold. At dawn, the body of Gérard de Nerval was found hanging by the -apron-string to a bar of the window. - -It is not necessary to exaggerate the importance of the half-dozen -volumes which make up the works of Gérard de Nerval. He was not a -great writer; he had moments of greatness; and it is the particular -quality of these moments which is of interest for us. There is the -entertaining, but not more than entertaining, _Voyage en Orient;_ there -is the estimable translation of _Faust,_ and the admirable versions -from Heine; there are the volumes of short stories and sketches, of -which even _Les Illuminés,_ in spite of the promise of its title, is -little more than an agreeable compilation. But there remain three -compositions: the sonnets, _Le Rêve et la Vie,_ and _Sylvie;_ of which -_Sylvie_ is the most objectively achieved, a wandering idyl, full of -pastoral delight, and containing some folk-songs of Valois, two of -which have been translated by Rossetti; _Le Rêve et la Vie_ being the -most intensely personal, a narrative of madness, unique as madness -itself; and the sonnets, a kind of miracle, which may be held to have -created something at least of the method of the later Symbolist. These -three compositions, in which alone Gérard is his finest self, all -belong to the periods when he was, in the eyes of the world, actually -mad. The sonnets belong to two of these periods, _Le Rêve et la Vie_ to -the last; _Sylvie_ was written in the short interval between the two -attacks in the early part of 1853. We have thus the case of a writer, -graceful and elegant when he is sane, but only inspired, only really -wise, passionate, collected, only really master of himself, when he -is insane. It may be worth looking at a few of the points which so -suggestive a problem presents to us. - - -2 - -Gérard de Nerval lived the transfigured inner life of the dreamer. "I -was very tired of life!" he says. And like so many dreamers, who have -all the luminous darkness of the universe in their brains, he found -his most precious and uninterrupted solitude in the crowded and more -sordid streets of great cities. He who had loved the Queen of Sheba, -and seen the seven Elohims dividing the world, could find nothing more -tolerable in mortal conditions, when he was truly aware of them, than -the company of the meanest of mankind, in whom poverty and vice, and -the hard pressure of civilisation, still leave some of the original -vivacity of the human comedy. The real world seeming to be always so -far from him, and a sort of terror of the gulfs holding him, in spite -of himself, to its flying skirts, he found something at all events -realisable, concrete, in these drinkers of Les Halles, these vagabonds -of the Place du Carrousel, among whom he so often sought refuge. It was -literally, in part, a refuge. During the day he could sleep, but night -wakened him, and that restlessness, which the night draws out in those -who are really under lunar influences, set his feet wandering, if only -in order that his mind might wander the less. The sun, as he mentions, -never appears in dreams; but, with the approach of night, is not every -one a little readier to believe in the mystery lurking behind the world? - - Crains, dans le mur aveugle, un regard qui t'épie! - -he writes in one of his great sonnets; and that fear of the invisible -watchfulness of nature was never absent from him. It is one of the -terrors of human existence that we may be led at once to seek and so -shun solitude; unable to bear the mortal pressure if its embrace, -unable to endure the nostalgia of its absence. "I think man's happiest -when he forgets himself," says an Elizabethan dramatist; and, with -Gérard, there was Adrienne to forget, and Jenny Colon the actress, -and the Queen of Sheba. But to have drunk of the cup of dreams is to -have drunk of the cup of eternal memory. The past, and, as it seemed -to him, the future were continually with him; only the present fled -continually from under his feet. It was only by the effort of this -contact with people who lived so sincerely in the day, the minute, -that he could find even a temporary foothold. With them, at least, he -could hold back all the stars, and the darkness beyond them, and the -interminable approach and disappearance of all the ages, if only for -the space between tavern and tavern, where he could open his eyes on so -frank an abandonment to the common drunkenness of most people in this -world, here for once really living the symbolic intoxication of their -ignorance. - -Like so many dreamers of illimitable dreams, it was the fate of -Gérard to incarnate his ideal in the person of an actress. The fatal -transfiguration of the footlights, in which reality and the artificial -change places with so fantastic a regularity, has drawn many moths into -its flame, and will draw more, as long as men persist in demanding -illusion of what is real, and reality in what is illusion. The Jenny -Colons of the world are very simple, very real, if one will but refrain -from assuming them to be a mystery. But it is the penalty of all -imaginative lovers to create for themselves the veil which hides from -them the features of the beloved. It is their privilege, for it is -incomparably more entrancing to fancy oneself in love with Isis than -to know that one is in love with Manon Lescaut. The picture of Gérard, -after many hesitations, revealing to the astonished Jenny that she is -the incarnation of another, the shadow of a dream, that she has been -Adrienne and is about to be the Queen of Sheba; her very human little -cry of pure incomprehension, _Mais vous ne m'aimez pas!_ and her -prompt refuge in the arms of the _jeune premier ridé,_ if it were not -of the acutest pathos, would certainly be of the most quintessential -comedy. For Gérard, so sharp an awakening was but like the passage from -one state to another, across that little bridge of one step which lies -between heaven and hell, to which he was so used in his dreams. It gave -permanency to the trivial, crystallising it, in another than Stendhal's -sense; and when death came, changing mere human memory into the terms -of eternity, the darkness of the spiritual world was lit with a new -star, which was henceforth the wandering, desolate guide of so many -visions. The tragic figure of Aurélia, which comes and goes through -all the labyrinths of dream, is now seen always "as if lit up by a -lightning-flash, pale and dying, hurried away by dark horsemen." - -The dream or doctrine of the re-incarnation of souls, which has given -so much consolation to so many questioners of eternity, was for -Gérard (need we doubt?) a dream rather than a doctrine, but one of -those dreams which are nearer to a man than his breath. "This vague -and hopeless love," he writes in _Sylvie,_ "inspired by an actress, -which night by night took hold of me at the hour of the performance, -leaving me only at the hour of sleep, had its germ in the recollection -of Adrienne, flower of the night, unfolding under the pale rays of -the moon, rosy and blonde phantom, gliding over the green grass, half -bathed in white mist.... To love a nun under the form of an actress! -... and if it were the very same! It is enough to drive one mad!" Yes, -_il y a de quoi devenir fou,_ as Gérard had found; but there was also, -in this intimate sense of the unity, perpetuity, and harmoniously -recurring rhythm of nature, not a little of the inner substance -of wisdom. It was a dream, perhaps refracted from some broken, -illuminating angle by which madness catches unseen light, that revealed -to him the meaning of his own superstition, fatality, malady: "During -my sleep, I had a marvelous vision. It seemed to me that the goddess -appeared before me, saying to me: 'I am the same as Mary, the same as -thy mother, the same also whom, under all forms, thou hast always -loved. At each of thine ordeals I have dropt yet one more of the masks -with which I veil my countenance, and soon thou shalt see me as I am!'" -And in perhaps his finest sonnet, the mysterious _Artémis,_ we have, -under other symbols, and with the deliberate inconsequence of these -sonnets, the comfort and despair of the same faith. - - La Treizième revient... C'est encor la première; - Et c'est toujours la seule,--ou c'est le seul moment: - Car es-tu reine, ô toi! la première ou dernière? - Es-tu roi, toi le seul ou le dernier amant?... - - Aimez qui vous aima du berceau dans la bière; - Celle que j'aimai seul m'aime encor tendrement; - C'est la mort--ou la morte ... Ô délice! ô tourment! - La Rose qu'elle tient, c'est la Rose trémière. - - Sainte napolitaine aux mains pleines de feux, - Rose au cœur violet, fleur de sainte Gudule; - As-tu trouvé ta croix dans le désert cieux? - - Roses blanches, tombez! vous insultez nos dieux: - Tombez, fantômes blancs, de votre ciel qui brûle: - --La Sainte de l'abîme est plus sainte à mes yeux! - -Who has not often meditated, above all what artist, on the slightness, -after all, of the link which holds our faculties together in that sober -health of the brain which we call reason? Are there not moments when -that link seems to be worn down to so fine a tenuity that the wing of -a passing dream might suffice to snap it? The consciousness seems, -as it were, to expand and contract at once, into something too wide -for the universe, and too narrow for the thought of self to find room -within it. Is it that the sense of identity is about to evaporate, -annihilating all, or is it that a more profound identity, the identity -of the whole sentient universe, has been at last realised? Leaving the -concrete world on these brief voyages, the fear is that we may not have -strength to return, or that we may lose the way back. Every artist -lives a double life, in which he is for the most part conscious of the -illusions of the imagination. He is conscious also of the illusions of -the nerves, which he shares with every man of imaginative mind. Nights -of insomnia, days of anxious waiting, the sudden shock of an event, and -one of these common disturbances may be enough to jangle the tuneless -bells of one's nerves. The artist can distinguish these causes of -certain of his moods from those other causes which come to him because -he is an artist, and are properly concerned with that invention which -is his own function. Yet is there not some danger that he may come -to confuse one with the other, that he may "lose the thread" which -conducts him through the intricacies of the inner world? - -The supreme artist, certainly, is the furthest of all men from this -danger; for he is the supreme intelligence. Like Dante, he can pass -through hell unsinged. With him, imagination is vision; when he looks -into the darkness, he sees. The vague dreamer, the insecure artist and -the uncertain mystic at once, sees only shadows, not recognising their -outlines. He is mastered by the images which have come at his call; he -has not the power which chains them for his slaves. "The kingdom of -Heaven suffers violence," and the dreamer who has gone tremblingly into -the darkness is in peril at the hands of those very real phantoms who -are the reflection of his fear. - -The madness of Gérard de Nerval, whatever physiological reasons may -be rightly given for its outbreak, subsidence, and return, I take to -have been essentially due to the weakness and not the excess of his -visionary quality, to the insufficiency of his imaginative energy, and -to his lack of spiritual discipline. He was an unsystematic mystic; -his "Tower of Babel in two hundred volumes," that medley of books of -religion, science, astrology, history, travel, which he thought would -have rejoiced the heart of Pico della Mirandola, of Meursius, or of -Nicholas of Cusa, was truly, as he says, "enough to drive a wise man -mad." "Why not also," he adds, "enough to make a madman wise?" But -precisely because it was this _amas bizarre,_ this jumble of the -perilous secrets in which wisdom is so often folly, and folly so often -wisdom. He speaks vaguely of the Cabbala; the Cabbala would have been -safety to him, as the Catholic Church would have been, or any other -reasoned scheme of things. Wavering among intuitions, ignorances, -half-truths, shadows of falsehood, now audacious, now hesitating, -he was blown hither and thither by conflicting winds, a prey to the -indefinite. - -_Le Rêve et la Vie,_ the last fragments of which were found in his -pockets after his suicide, scrawled on scraps of paper, interrupted -with Cabbalistic signs and "a demonstration of the Immaculate -Conception by geometry," is a narrative of a madman's visions by the -madman himself, yet showing, as Gautier says, "cold reason seated -by the bedside of hot fever, hallucination analysing itself by a -supreme philosophic effort." What is curious, yet after all natural, -is that part of the narrative seems to be contemporaneous with what -it describes, and part subsequent to it; so that it is not as when De -Quincey says to us, such or such was the opium-dream that I had on such -a night; but as if the opium-dreamer had begun to write down his dream -while he was yet within its coils. "The descent into hell," he calls it -twice; yet does he not also write: "At times I imagined that my force -and my activity were doubled; it seemed to me that I knew everything, -understood everything; and imagination brought me infinite pleasures. -Now that I have recovered what men call reason, must I not regret -having lost them?" But he had not lost them; he was still in that state -of double consciousness which he describes in one of his visions, -when, seeing people dressed in white, "I was astonished," he says, "to -see them all dressed in white; yet it seemed to me that this was an -optical illusion." His cosmical visions are at times so magnificent -that he seems to be creating myths; and it is with a worthy ingenuity -that he plays the part he imagines to be assigned to him in his astral -influences. - -"First of all I imagined that the persons collected in the garden (of -the madhouse) all had some influence on the stars, and that the one who -always walked round and round in a circle regulated the course of the -sun. An old man, who was brought there at certain hours of the day, and -who made knots as he consulted his watch, seemed to me to be charged -with the notation of the course of the hours. I attributed to myself an -influence over the course of the moon, and I believed that this star -had been struck by the thunderbolt of the Most High, which had traced -on its face the imprint of the mask which I had observed. - -"I attributed a mystical signification to the conversations of the -warders and of my companions. It seemed to me that they were the -representatives of all the races of the earth, and that we had -undertaken between us to re-arrange the course of the stars, and to -give a wider development to the system. An error, in my opinion, had -crept into the general combination of numbers, and thence came all the -ills of humanity. I believed also that the celestial spirits had taken -human forms, and assisted at this general congress, seeming though they -did to be concerned with but ordinary occupations. My own part seemed -to me to be the re-establishment of universal harmony by Cabbalistic -art, and I had to seek a solution by evoking the occult forces of -various religions." - -So far we have, no doubt, the confusions of madness, in which what may -indeed be the symbol is taken for the thing itself. But now observe -what follows: - -"I seemed to myself a hero living under the very eyes of the gods; -everything in nature assumed new aspects, and secret voices came to me -from the plants, the trees, animals, the meanest insects, to warn and -to encourage me. The words of my companions had mysterious messages, -the sense of which I alone understood; things without form and without -life lent themselves to the designs of my mind; out of combinations -of stones, the figures of angles, crevices, or openings, the shape of -leaves, out of colours, odours, and sounds, I saw unknown harmonies -come forth. 'How is it,' I said to myself, 'that I can possibly have -lived so long outside Nature, without identifying myself with her! -All things five, all things are in motion, all things correspond; the -magnetic rays emanating from myself or others traverse without obstacle -the infinite chain of created things: a transparent network covers the -world, whose loose threads communicate more and more closely with the -planets and the stars. Now a captive upon the earth, I hold converse -with the starry choir, which is feelingly a part of my joys and -sorrows.'" - -To have thus realised that central secret of the mystics, from -Pythagoras onwards, the secret which the Smaragdine Tablet of Hermes -betrays in its "As things are below, so are they above"; which Boehme -has classed in his teaching of "signatures," and Swedenborg has -systematised in his doctrine of "correspondences"; does it matter very -much that he arrived at it by way of the obscure and fatal initiation -of madness? Truth, and especially that soul of truth which is poetry, -may be reached by many roads; and a road is not necessarily misleading -because it is dangerous or forbidden. Here is one who has gazed at -light till it has blinded him; and for us all that is important is -that he has seen something, not that his eyesight has been too weak -to endure the pressure of light overflowing the world from beyond the -world. - - -3 - -And here we arrive at the fundamental principle which is at once -the substance and the æsthetics of the sonnets "composed," as he -explains, "in that state of meditation which the Germans would call -supernaturalistic.'" In one, which I will quote, he is explicit, and -seems to state a doctrine. - - VERS DORÉS - - Homme, libre penseur! te crois-tu seul pensant - Dans ce monde où la vie éclate en toute chose? - Des forces que tu tiens ta liberté dispose, - Mais de tous tes conseils l'univers est absent. - Respecte dans la bête un esprit agissant: - Chaque fleur est une âme à la Nature éclose; - Un mystère d'amour dans le métal repose; - "Tout est sensible!" Et tout sur ton être est puissant. - - Crains, dans le mur aveugle, un regard qui t'épie! - A la matière même un verbe est attaché ... - Ne la fais pas servir à quelque usage impie! - - Souvent dans l'être obscur habite un Dieu caché; - Et comme un œil naissant couvert par ses paupières, - Un pur esprit s'accroît sous l'écorce des pierres! - -But in the other sonnets, in _Artémis,_ which I have quoted, in _El -Desdichado, Myrtho,_ and the rest, he would seem to be deliberately -obscure; or at least, his obscurity results, to some extent, from the -state of mind which he describes in _Le Rêve et la Vie:_ "I then saw, -vaguely drifting into form, plastic images of antiquity, which outlined -themselves, became definite, and seemed to represent symbols, of which -I only seized the idea with difficulty." Nothing could more precisely -represent the impression made by these sonnets, in which, for the first -time in French, words are used as the ingredients of an evocation, as -themselves not merely colour and sound, but symbol. Here are words -which create an atmosphere by the actual suggestive quality of their -syllables, as, according to the theory of Mallarmé, they should do; -as, in the recent attempts of the Symbolists, writer after writer has -endeavoured to lure them into doing. Persuaded, as Gérard was, of the -sensitive unity of all nature, he was able to trace resemblances where -others saw only divergences; and the setting together of unfamiliar -and apparently alien things, which comes so strangely upon us in his -verse, was perhaps an actual sight of what it is our misfortune not -to see. His genius, to which madness had come as the liberating, the -precipitating, spirit, disengaging its finer essence, consisted in a -power of materialising vision, whatever is most volatile and unseizable -in vision and without losing the sense of mystery, or that quality -which gives its charm to the intangible. Madness, then, in him, had -lit up, as if by lightning-flashes, the hidden links of distant and -divergent things; perhaps in somewhat the same manner as that in which -a similarly new, startling, perhaps over-true sight of things is gained -by the artificial stimulation of haschisch, opium, and those other -drugs by which vision is produced deliberately, and the soul, sitting -safe within the perilous circle of its own magic, looks out on the -panorama which either rises out of the darkness before it, or drifts -from itself into the darkness. The very imagery of these sonnets is -the imagery which is known to all dreamers of bought dreams. _Rose au -cœur violet, fleur de sainte Gudule; le Temple au péristyle immense; -la grotte où nage la syrène:_ the dreamer of bought dreams has seen -them all. But no one before Gérard realised that such things as these -might be the basis of almost a new æsthetics. Did he himself realise -all that he had done, or was it left for Mallarmé to theorise upon what -Gérard had but divined? - -That he made the discovery, there is no doubt; and we owe to the -fortunate accident of madness one of the foundations of what may be -called the practical æsthetics of Symbolism. Look again at that sonnet -_Artémis,_ and you will see in it not only the method of Mallarmé, but -much of the most intimate manner of Verlaine. The first four lines, -with their fluid rhythm, their repetitions and echoes, their delicate -evasions, might have been written by Verlaine; in the later part the -firmness of the rhythms and the jewelled significance of the words are -like Mallarmé at his finest, so that in a single sonnet we may fairly -claim to see a fore-shadowing of the styles of Mallarmé and Verlaine -at once. With Verlaine the resemblance goes, perhaps, no further; with -Mallarmé it goes to the very roots, the whole man being, certainly, his -style. - -Gérard de Nerval, then, had divined, before all the world, that poetry -should be a miracle; not a hymn to beauty, nor the description of -beauty, nor beauty's mirror; but beauty itself, the colour, fragrance, -and form of the imagined flower, as it blossoms again out of the page. -Vision, the over-powering vision, had come to him beyond, if not -against, his will; and he knew that vision is the root out of which the -flower must grow. Vision had taught him symbol, and he knew that it is -by symbol alone that the flower can take visible form. He knew that -the whole mystery of beauty can never be comprehended by the crowd, -and that while clearness is a virtue of style, perfect explicitness -is not a necessary virtue. So it was with disdain, as well as with -confidence, that he allowed these sonnets to be overheard. It was -enough for him to say: - - J'ai rêvé dans la grotte où nage la syrène; - -and to speak, it might be, the siren's language, remembering her. "It -will be my last madness," he wrote, "to believe myself a poet: let -criticism cure me of it." Criticism, in his own day, even Gautier's -criticism, could but be disconcerted by a novelty so unexampled. It -is only now that the best critics in France are beginning to realise -how great in themselves, and how great in their influence, are these -sonnets, which, forgotten by the world for nearly fifty years, have all -the while been secretly bringing new æsthetics into French poetry. - - - - -THÉOPHILE GAUTIER - - -1 - -Gautier has spoken for himself in a famous passage of _Mademoiselle de -Maupin_: "I am a man of the Homeric age; the world in which I live is -not my world, and I understand nothing of the society which surrounds -me. For me Christ did not come; I am as much a pagan as Alcibiades or -Phidias. I have never plucked on Golgotha the flowers of the Passion, -and the deep stream that flows from the side of the Crucified and sets -a crimson girdle about the world, has never washed me in its flood; my -rebellious body will not acknowledge the supremacy of the soul, and my -flesh will not endure to be mortified. I find the earth as beautiful as -the sky, and I think that perfection of form is virtue. I have no gift -for spirituality; I prefer a statue to a ghost, full noon to twilight. -Three things delight me: gold, marble, and purple; brilliance, -solidity, colour.... I have looked on love in the light of antiquity, -and as a piece of sculpture more or less perfect.... All my life I have -been concerned with the form of the flagon, never with the quality of -its contents." That is part of a confession of faith, and it is spoken -with absolute sincerity. Gautier knew himself, and could tell the truth -about himself as simply, as impartially, as if he had been describing -a work of art. Or is he not, indeed, describing a work of art? Was not -that very state of mind, that finished and limited temperament, a thing -which he had collaborated with nature in making, with an effective -heightening of what was most natural to him, in the spirit of art? - -Gautier saw the world as mineral, as metal, as pigment, as rock, tree, -water, as architecture, costume, under sunlight, gas, in all the -colours that light can bring out of built or growing things; he saw it -as contour, movement; he saw all that a painter sees, when the painter -sets himself to copy, not to create. He was the finest copyist who ever -used paint with a pen. Nothing that can be expressed in technical terms -escaped him; there were no technical terms which he could not reduce -to an orderly beauty. But he absorbed all this visible world with the -hardly discriminating impartiality of the retina; he had no moods, was -not to be distracted by a sentiment, heard no voices, saw nothing but -darkness, the negation of day, in night. He was tirelessly attentive, -he had no secrets of his own and could keep none of naturels. He could -describe every ray of the nine thousand precious stones in the throne -of Ivan the Terrible, in the Treasury of the Kremlin; but he could tell -you nothing of one of Maeterlinck's bees. - -The five senses made Gautier for themselves, that they might become -articulate. He speaks for them all with a dreadful unconcern. All his -words are in love with matter, and they enjoy their lust and have no -recollection. If the body did not dwindle and expand to some ignoble -physical conclusion; if wrinkles did not creep yellowing up women's -necks, and the fire in a man's blood did not lose its heat; he would -always be content. Everything that he cared for in the world was to be -had, except, perhaps, rest from striving after it; only, everything -would one day come to an end, after a slow spoiling. Decrepit, -colourless, uneager things shocked him, and it was with an acute, -almost disinterested pity that he watched himself die. - -All his life Gautier adored life, and all the processes and forms of -life. A pagan, a young Roman, hard and delicate, with something of -cruelty in his sympathy with things that could be seen and handled, -he would have hated the soul, if he had ever really apprehended it, -for its qualifying and disturbing power upon the body. No other modern -writer, no writer perhaps, has described nakedness with so abstract a -heat of rapture: like d'Albert when he sees Mlle, de Maupin for the -first and last time, he is the artist before he is the lover, and he -is the lover while he is the artist. It was above all things the human -body whose contours and colours he wished to fix for eternity, in the -"robust art" of "verse, marble, onyx, enamel." And it was not the body -as a frail, perishable thing, and a thing to be pitied, that he wanted -to perpetuate; it was the beauty of life itself, imperishable at least -in its recurrence. - -He loved imperishable things: the body, as generation after generation -refashions it, the world, as it is restored and rebuilt, and then -gems, and hewn stone, and carved ivory, and woven tapestry. He loved -verse for its solid, strictly limited, resistant form, which, while -prose melts and drifts about it, remains unalterable, indestructible. -Words, he knew, can build as strongly as stones, and not merely rise -to music, like the walls of Troy, but be themselves music as well as -structure. Yet, as in visible things he cared only for hard outline -and rich colour, so in words too he had no love of half-tints, and was -content to do without that softening of atmosphere which was to be -prized by those who came after him as the thing most worth seeking. -Even his verse is without mystery; if he meditates, his meditation has -all the fixity of a kind of sharp, precise criticism. - -What Gautier saw he saw with unparalleled exactitude; he allows himself -no poetic license or room for fine phrases; has his eye always on the -object, and really uses the words which best describe it, whatever -they may be. So his books of travel are guide-books, in addition to -being other things; and not by any means "states of soul" or states -of nerves. He is willing to give you information, and able to give -it to you without deranging his periods. The little essay on Leonardo -is an admirable piece of artistic divination, and it is also a clear, -simple, sufficient account of the man, his temperament, and his way of -work. The study of Baudelaire, reprinted in the _édition définitive_ -of the "Fleurs du Mal," remains the one satisfactory summing up, it -is not a solution, of the enigma which Baudelaire personified; and it -is almost the most coloured and perfumed thing in words which he ever -wrote. He wrote equally well about cities, poets, novelists, painters, -or sculptors; he did not understand one better than the other, or feel -less sympathy for one than for another. He, the "parfait magicien -ès lettres françaises," to whom faultless words came in faultlessly -beautiful order, could realise, against Balzac himself, that Balzac -had a style: "he possesses, though he did not think so, a style, and a -very beautiful style, the necessary, inevitable, mathematical style of -his ideas." He appreciated Ingres as justly as he appreciated El Greco; -he went through the Louvre, room by room, saying the right thing about -each painter in turn. He did not say the final thing; he said nothing -which we have to pause and think over before we see the whole of its -truth or apprehend the whole of its beauty. Truth, in him, comes to -us almost literally through the eyesight, and with the same beautiful -clearness as if it were one of those visible things which delighted him -most: gold, marble, and purple; brilliance, solidity, colour. - -1902. - - - - -GUSTAVE FLAUBERT - - -_Salammbô_ is an attempt, as Flaubert, himself his best critic, has -told us, to "perpetuate a mirage by applying to antiquity the methods -of the modern novel." By the modern novel he means the novel as he -had reconstructed it; he means _Madame Bovary._ That perfect book is -perfect because Flaubert had, for once, found exactly the subject -suited to his method, had made his method and his subject one. On his -scientific side Flaubert is a realist, but there is another, perhaps -a more intimately personal side, on which he is lyrical, lyrical in -a large, sweeping way. The lyric poet in him made _La Tentation de -Saint-Antoine,_ the analyst made _L'Education Sentimentale;_ but in -_Madame Bovary_ we find the analyst and the lyric poet in equilibrium. -It is the history of a woman, as carefully observed as any story -that has ever been written, and observed in surroundings of the most -ordinary kind. But Flaubert finds the romantic material which he -loved, the materials of beauty, in precisely that temperament which he -studies so patiently and so cruelly. Madame Bovary is a little woman, -half vulgar and half hysterical, incapable of a fine passion; but her -trivial desires, her futile aspirations after second-rate pleasures and -second-hand ideals, give to Flaubert all that he wants: the opportunity -to create beauty out of reality. What is common in the imagination of -Madame Bovary becomes exquisite in Flaubert's rendering of it, and by -that counterpoise of a commonness in the subject he is saved from any -vague ascents of rhetoric in his rendering of it. - -In writing _Salammbô_ Flaubert set himself to renew the historical -novel, as he had renewed the novel of manners. He would have admitted, -doubtless, that perfect success in the historical novel is impossible, -by the nature of the case. We are at best only half conscious of -the reality of the things about us, only able to translate them -approximately into any form of art. How much is left over, in the -closest transcription of a mere line of houses in a street, of a -passing steamer, of one's next-door neighbour, of the point of view -of a foreigner looking along Piccadilly, of one's own state of mind, -moment by moment, as one walks from Oxford Circus to the Marble -Arch? Think, then, of the attempts to reconstruct no matter what -period of the past, to distinguish the difference in the aspect of -a world perhaps bossed with castles and ridged with ramparts, to -two individualities encased within chain-armour! Flaubert chose his -antiquity wisely: a period of which we know too little to confuse us, -a city of which no stone is left on another, the minds of Barbarians -who have left us no psychological documents. "Be sure I have made -no fantastic Carthage," he says proudly, pointing to his documents: -Ammianus Marcellinus, who has furnished him with "the _exact_ form of a -door"; the Bible and Theophrastus, from which he obtains his perfumes -and his precious stones; Gesenius, from whom he gets his Punic names; -the _Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions._ "As for the temple -of Tanit, I am sure of having reconstructed it as it was, with the -treatise of the Syrian Goddess, with the medals of the Duc de Luynes, -with what is known of the temple at Jerusalem, with a passage of St. -Jerome, quoted by Seldon (_De Diis Syriis_), with the plan of the -temple of Gozzo, which is quite Carthaginian, and best of all, with -the ruins of the temple of Thugga, which I have seen myself, with my -own eyes, and of which no traveller or antiquarian, so far as I know, -has ever spoken." But that, after all, as he admits (when, that is, he -has proved point by point his minute accuracy to all that is known of -ancient Carthage, his faithfulness to every indication which can serve -for his guidance, his patience in grouping rather, than his daring in -the invention of action and details), that is not the question. "I -care little enough for archæology! If the colour is not uniform, if -the details are out of keeping, if the manners do not spring from the -religion and the actions from the passions, if the characters are not -consistent, if the costumes are not appropriate to the habits and the -architecture to the climate, if, in a word, there is not harmony, I am -in error. If not, no." - -And there, precisely, is the definition of the one merit which can -give a historical novel the right to exist, and at the same time -a definition of the merit which sets _Salammbô_ above all other -historical novels. Everything in the book is strange, some of it -might easily be bewildering, some revolting; but all is in harmony. -The harmony is like that of Eastern music, not immediately conveying -its charm, or even the secret of its measure, to Western ears; but a -monotony coiling perpetually upon itself, after a severe law of its -own. Or rather, it is like a fresco, painted gravely in hard, definite -colours, firmly detached from a background of burning sky; a procession -of Barbarians, each in the costume of his country, passes across the -wall; there are battles, in which elephants fight with men; an army -besieges a great city, or rots to death in a defile between mountains; -the ground is paved with dead men; crosses, each bearing its living -burden, stand against the sky; a few figures of men and women appear -again and again, expressing by their gestures the soul of the story. - -Flaubert himself has pointed, with his unerring self-criticism, to -the main defect of his book: "The pedestal is too large for the -statue." There should have been, as he says, a hundred pages more -about Salammbô. He declares: "There is not in my book an isolated or -gratuitous description; all are useful to my characters, and have an -influence, near or remote, on the action." This is true, and yet, -all the same, the pedestal is too large for the statue. Salammbô, -"always surrounded with grave and exquisite things," has something -of the somnambulism which enters into the heroism of Judith; she has -a hieratic beauty, and a consciousness as pale and vague as the moon -whom she worships. She passes before us, "her body saturated with -perfumes," encrusted with jewels like an idol, her head turreted with -violet hair, the gold chain tinkling between her ankles; and is hardly -more than an attitude, a fixed gesture, like the Eastern women whom -one sees passing, with oblique eyes and mouths painted into smiles, -their faces curiously traced into a work of art, in the languid -movements of a pantomimic dance. The soul behind those eyes? the -temperament under that at times almost terrifying mask? Salammbô is as -inarticulate for us as the serpent, to whose drowsy beauty, capable of -such sudden awakenings, hers seems half akin; they move before us in a -kind of hieratic pantomime, a coloured, expressive thing, signifying -nothing. Mâtho, maddened with love, "in an invincible stupor, like -those who have drunk some draught of which they are to die," has the -same somnambulistic life; the prey of Venus, he has an almost literal -insanity, which, as Flaubert reminds us, is true to the ancient view -of that passion. He is the only quite vivid person in the book, and -he lives with the intensity of a wild beast, a life "blinded alike" -from every inner and outer interruption to one or two fixed ideas. The -others have their places in the picture, fall into their attitudes -naturally, remain so many coloured outlines for us. The illusion is -perfect; these people may not be the real people of history, but at -least they have no self-consciousness, no Christian tinge in their -minds. - -"The metaphors are few, the epithets definite," Flaubert tells us, -of his style in this book, where, as he says, he has sacrificed less -"to the amplitude of the phrase and to the period," than in _Madame -Bovary._ The movement here is in briefer steps, with a more earnest -gravity, without any of the engaging weakness of adjectives. The style -is never archaic, it is absolutely simple, the precise word being put -always for the precise thing; but it obtains a dignity, a historical -remoteness, by the large seriousness of its manner, the absence of -modern ways of thought, which, in _Madame Bovary,_ bring with them an -instinctively modern cadence. - -_Salammbô_ is written with the severity of history, but Flaubert notes -every detail visually, as a painter notes the details of natural -things. A slave is being flogged under a tree: Flaubert notes the -movement of the thong as it flies, and tells us: "The thongs, as they -whistled through the air, sent the bark of the plane trees flying." -Before the battle of the Macar, the Barbarians are awaiting the -approach of the Carthaginian army. First "the Barbarians were surprised -to see the ground undulate in the distance." Clouds of dust rise and -whirl over the desert, through which are seen glimpses of horns, and, -as it seems, wings. Are they bulls or birds, or a mirage of the -desert? The Barbarians watch intently. "At last they made out several -transverse bars, bristling with uniform points. The bars became denser, -larger; dark mounds swayed from side to side; suddenly square bushes -came into view; they were elephants and lances. A single shout, 'The -Carthaginians!' arose." Observe how all that is seen, as if the eyes, -unaided by the intelligence, had found out everything for themselves, -taking in one indication after another, instinctively. Flaubert puts -himself in the place of his characters, not so much to think for them -as to see for them. - -Compare the style of Flaubert in each of his books, and you will -find that each book has its own rhythm, perfectly appropriate to its -subject-matter. The style, which has almost every merit and hardly -a fault, becomes what it is by a process very different from that -of most writers careful of form. Read Chateaubriand, Gautier, even -Baudelaire, and you will find that the aim of these writers has been -to construct a style which shall be adaptable to every occasion, -but without structural change; the cadence is always the same. The -most exquisite word-painting of Gautier can be translated rhythm for -rhythm into English, without difficulty; once you have mastered -the tune, you have merely to go on; every verse will be the same. -But Flaubert is so difficult to translate because he has no fixed -rhythm; his prose keeps step with no regular march-music. He invents -the rhythm of every sentence, he changes his cadence with every mood -or for the convenience of every fact. He has no theory of beauty in -form apart from what it expresses. For him form is a living thing, -the physical body of thought, which it clothes and interprets. "If I -call stones blue, it is because blue is the precise word, believe me," -he replies to Sainte-Beuve's criticism. Beauty comes into his words -from the precision with which they express definite things, definite -ideas, definite sensations. And in his book, where the material is so -hard, apparently so unmalleable, it is a beauty of sheer exactitude -which fills it from end to end, a beauty of measure and order, seen -equally in the departure of the doves of Carthage at the time of their -flight into Sicily, and in the lions feasting on the corpses of the -Barbarians, in the defile between the mountains. - -1901. - - - - -CHARLES BAUDELAIRE - - -Baudelaire is little known and much misunderstood in England. Only one -English writer has ever done him justice, or said anything adequate -about him. As long ago as 1862 Swinburne introduced Baudelaire to -English readers: in the columns of the _Spectator_, it is amusing to -remember. In 1868 he added a few more words of just and subtle praise -in his book on Blake, and in the same year wrote the magnificent elegy -on his death, _Ave atque Vale._ There have been occasional outbreaks' -of irrelevant abuse or contempt, and the name of Baudelaire (generally -misspelled) is the journalist's handiest brickbat for hurling at random -in the name of respectability. Does all this mean that we are waking -up, over here, to the consciousness of one of the great literary forces -of the age, a force which has been felt in every other country but ours? - -It would be a useful influence for us. Baudelaire desired perfection, -and we have never realised that perfection is a thing to aim at. He -only did what he could do supremely well, and he was in poverty all -his life, not because he would not work, but because he would work -only at certain things, the things which he could hope to do to his -own satisfaction. Of the men of letters of our age he was the most -scrupulous. He spent his whole life in writing one book of verse (out -of which all French poetry has come since his time), one book of prose -in which prose becomes a fine art, some criticism which is the sanest, -subtlest, and surest which his generation produced, and a translation -which is better than a marvellous original. What would French poetry -be to-day if Baudelaire had never existed? As different a thing from -what it is as English poetry would be without Rossetti. Neither of -them is quite among the greatest poets, but they are more fascinating -than the greatest, they influence more minds. And Baudelaire was an -equally great critic. He discovered Poe, Wagner, and Manet. Where -even Sainte-Beuve, with his vast materials, his vast general talent -for criticism, went wrong in contemporary judgments, Baudelaire was -infallibly right. He wrote neither verse nor prose with ease, but -he would not permit himself to write either without inspiration. His -work is without abundance, but it is without waste. It is made out -of his whole intellect and all his nerves. Every poem is a train of -thought and every essay is the record of sensation. This "romantic" -had something classic in his moderation, moderation which becomes at -times as terrifying as Poe's logic. To "cultivate one's hysteria" so -calmly, and to affront the reader _(Hypocrite lecteur, mon semblable, -mon frère)_ as a judge rather than as a penitent; to be a casuist in -confession; to be so much a moralist, with so keen a sense of the -ecstasy of evil: that has always bewildered the world, even in his -own country, where the artist is allowed to live as experimentally as -he writes. Baudelaire lived and died solitary, secret, a confessor of -sins who has never told the whole truth, _le mauvais moine_ of his own -sonnet, an ascetic of passion, a hermit of the brothel. - -To understand, not Baudelaire, but what we can of him, we must read, -not only the four volumes of his collected works, but every document -in Crépet's _Œuvres Posthumes,_ and above all, the letters, and -these have only now been collected into a volume, under the care of -an editor who has done more for Baudelaire than any one since Crépet. -Baudelaire put into his letters only what he cared to reveal of himself -at a given moment: he has a different angle to distract the sight of -every observer; and let no one think that he knows Baudelaire when he -has read the letters to Poulet-Malassis, the friend and publisher, to -whom he showed his business side, or the letters to la Présidente, the -touchstone of his _spleen et idéal,_ his chief experiment in the higher -sentiments, Some of his carefully hidden virtues peep out at moments, -it is true, but nothing that everybody has not long been aware of. -We hear of his ill-luck with money, with proof-sheets, with his own -health. The tragedy of the life which he chose, as he chose all things -(poetry, Jeanne Duval, the "artificial paradises") deliberately, is -made a little clearer to us; we can moralise over it if we like. But -the man remains baffling, and will probably never be discovered. - -As it is, much of the value of the book consists in those glimpses -into his mind and intentions which he allowed people now and then to -see. Writing to Sainte-Beuve, to Flaubert, to Soulary, he sometimes -lets out, through mere sensitiveness to an intelligence capable of -understanding him, some little interesting secret. Thus it is to -Sainte-Beuve that he defines and explains the origin and real meaning -of the _Petits Poèmes en Prose: Faire cent bagatelles laborieuses qui -exigent une bonne humeur constante (bonne humeur nécessaire, même -pour traiter des sujets tristes), une excitation bizarre qui a besoin -de spectacles, de foules, de musiques, de réverbères même, voilà ce -que j'ai voulu faire!_ And, writing to some obscure person, he will -take the trouble to be even more explicit, _us_ in this symbol of -the sonnet: _Avez-vous observé qu'un morceau de ciel aperçu par un -soupirail, ou entre deux cheminées, deux rochers, ou par une arcade, -donnait une idée plus profonde de l'infini que le grand panorama vu du -haut d'une montagne?_ It is to another casual person that he speaks out -still more intimately (and the occasion of his writing is some thrill -of gratitude towards one who had at last done "a little justice," not -to himself, but to Manet): _Eh bien! on m'accuse, moi, d'imiter Edgar -Poe! Savez-vous pourquoi j'ai si patiemment traduit Poe? Parce qu'il -me resemblait. La première fois que j'ai ouvert un livre de lui, j'ai -vu avec épouvante et ravissement, non seulement des sujets rêvés par -moi, mais des phrases, pensées par moi, et écrites par lui, vingt ans -auparavant._ It is in such glimpses as these that we see something of -Baudelaire in his letters. - -1906. - - - - -EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT - - -My first visit to Edmond de Goncourt was in May, 1892. I remember my -immense curiosity about that "House Beautiful," at Auteuil, of which I -had heard so much, and my excitement as I rang the bell, and was shown -at once into the garden, where Goncourt was just saying good-bye to -some friends. He was carelessly dressed, without a collar, and with -the usual loosely knotted large white scarf rolled round his neck. -He was wearing a straw hat, and it was only afterwards that I could -see the fine sweep of the white hair, falling across the forehead. I -thought him the most distinguished-looking man of letters I had ever -seen; for he had at once the distinction of race, of fine breeding, and -of that delicate artistic genius which, with him, was so intimately -a part of things beautiful and distinguished. He had the eyes of an -old eagle; a general air of dignified collectedness; a rare, and a -rarely charming, smile, which came out, like a ray of sunshine, in the -instinctive pleasure of having said a witty or graceful thing to which -one's response had been immediate. When he took me indoors, into that -house which was a museum, I noticed the delicacy of his hands, and the -tenderness with which he handled his treasures, touching them as if he -loved them, with little, unconscious murmurs: _Quel goût! quel goût!_ -These rose-coloured rooms, with their embroidered ceilings, were filled -with cabinets of beautiful things, Japanese carvings, and prints (the -miraculous "Plongeuses"!), always in perfect condition (_Je cherche le -beau_); albums had been made for him in Japan, and in these he inserted -prints, mounting others upon silver and gold paper, which formed a sort -of frame. He showed me his eighteenth-century designs, among which I -remember his pointing out one (a Chardin, I think) as the first he had -ever bought; he had been sixteen at the time, and he bought it for -twelve francs. - -When we came to the study, the room in which he worked, he showed me -all of his own first editions, carefully bound, and first editions -of Flaubert, Baudelaire, Gautier, with those, less interesting to me, -of the men of later generations. He spoke of himself and his brother -with a serene pride, which seemed to me perfectly dignified and -appropriate; and I remember his speaking (with a parenthetic disdain -of the _brouillard Scandinave,_ in which it seemed to him that France -was trying to envelop herself; at the best it would be but _un mauvais -brouillard_) of the endeavour which he and his brother had made to -represent the only thing worth representing, _le vie vécue, la vraie -vérité._ As in painting, he said, all depends on the way of seeing, -_l'optique:_ out of twenty-four men who will describe what they have -all seen, it is only the twenty-fourth who will find the right way of -expressing it. "There is a true thing I have said in my journal," he -went on. "The thing is, to find a lorgnette" (and he put up his hands -to his eyes, adjusting them carefully) "through which to see things. -My brother and I invented a lorgnette, and the young men have taken it -from us." - -How true that is, and how significantly it states just what is most -essential in the work of the Goncourts! It is a new way of seeing, -literally a new way of seeing, which they have invented; and it is in -the invention of this that they have invented that "new language" of -which purists have so long, so vainly, and so thanklessly complained. -You remember that saying of Masson, the mask of Gautier, in _Charles -Demailly:_ "I am a man for whom the visible world exists." Well, that -is true, also, of the Goncourts; but in a different way. - -"The delicacies of fine literature," that phrase of Pater always comes -into my mind when I think of the Goncourts; and indeed Pater seems to -me the only English writer who has ever handled language at all in -their manner or spirit. I frequently heard Pater refer to certain of -their books, to _Madame Gervaisais,_ to _L'Art du XVIIIe -Siècle,_ to _Chérie;_ with a passing objection to what he called the -"immodesty" of this last book, and a strong emphasis in the assertion -that "that was how it seemed to him a book should be written." I -repeated this once to Goncourt, trying to give him some idea of what -Patera work was like; and he lamented that his ignorance of English -prevented him from what he instinctively realised would be so intimate -an enjoyment. Pater was of course far more scrupulous, more limited, in -his choice of epithet, less feverish in his variations of cadence; and -naturally so, for he dealt with another subject-matter and was careful -of another kind of truth. But with both there was that passionately -intent preoccupation with "the delicacies of fine literature"; both -achieved a style of the most personal sincerity: _tout grand écrivain -de tous les temps,_ said Goncourt, _ne se reconnaît absolument qu'à -cela, c'est qu'il a une langue personnelle, une langue dont chaque -page, chaque ligne, est signée, pour le lecteur lettré, comme si son -nom était au has de cette page, de cette ligne:_ and this style, in -both, was accused, by the "literary" criticism of its generation, of -being insincere, artificial, and therefore reprehensible. - -It is difficult, in speaking of Edmond de Goncourt, to avoid -attributing to him the whole credit of the work which has so long borne -his name alone. That is an error which he himself would never have -pardoned. _Mon frère et moi_ was the phrase constantly on his lips, and -in his journal, his prefaces, he has done full justice to the vivid and -admirable qualities of that talent which, all the same, would seem to -have been the lesser, the more subservient, of the two. Jules, I think, -had a more active sense of life, a more generally human curiosity; -for the novels of Edmond, written since his brother's death, have, in -even that excessively specialised world of their common observation, -a yet more specialised choice and direction. But Edmond, there is no -doubt, was in the strictest sense the writer; and it is above all for -the qualities of its writing that the work of the Goncourts will live. -It has been largely concerned with truth--truth to the minute details -of human character, sensation, and circumstance, and also of the -document, the exact words, of the past; but this devotion to fact, to -the curiosities of fact, has been united with an even more persistent -devotion to the curiosities of expression. They have invented a new -language: that was the old reproach against them; let it be their -distinction. Like all writers of an elaborate carefulness, they have -been accused of sacrificing both truth and beauty to deliberate -eccentricity. Deliberate their style certainly was; eccentric it may, -perhaps, sometimes have been; but deliberately eccentric, no. It was -their belief that a writer should have a personal style, a style as -peculiar to himself as his handwriting; and indeed I seem to see -in the handwriting of Edmond de Goncourt just the characteristics -of his style. Every letter is formed carefully, separately, with a -certain elegant stiffness; it is beautiful, formal, too regular in the -"continual slight novelty" of its form to be quite clear at a glance: -very personal, very distinguished writing. - -It may be asserted that the Goncourts are not merely men of genius, -but are perhaps the typical men of letters of the close of our -century. They have all the curiosities and the acquirements, the new -weaknesses and the new powers, that belong to our age; and they sum -up in themselves certain theories, aspirations, ways of looking at -things, notions of literary duty and artistic conscience, which have -only lately become at all actual, and some of which owe to them their -very origin. To be not merely novelists (inventing a new kind of -novel), but historians; not merely historians, but the historians of -a particular century, and of what was intimate and what is unknown in -it; to be also discriminating, indeed innovating critics of art, but -of a certain section of art, the eighteenth century, in France and in -Japan; to collect pictures and _bibelots,_ beautiful things, always -of the French and Japanese eighteenth century: these excursions in so -many directions, with their audacities and their careful limitations, -their bold novelty and their scrupulous exactitude in detail, are -characteristic of what is the finest in the modern conception of -culture and the modern ideal in art. Look, for instance, at the -Goncourts' view of history. _Quand les civilisations commencent, quand -les peuples se forment, l'histoire est drame ou geste.... Les siècles -qui out précédé notre siècle ne demandaient à l'historien que le -personnage de l'homme, et le portrait de son génie.... Le XIXe siècle -demande l'homme qui était cet homme d'État, cet homme de guerre, ce -poète, ce peintre, ce grand homme de science ou de métier. L'âme qui -était en cet acteur, le cœur qui a vécu derrière cet esprit, il les -exige et les réclame; et s'il ne peut recueillir tout cet être moral, -toute la vie intérieure, il commande du moins qu'on lui en apporte -une trace, un jour, un lambeau, une relique._ From this theory, this -conviction, came that marvellous series of studies in the eighteenth -century in France (_ La Femme au XVIIIe Siècle, Portraits intimes du -XVIIIe Siècle, La du Barry,_ and the others), made entirely out of -documents, autograph letters, scraps of costume, engravings, songs, -the unconscious self-revelations of the time, forming, as they justly -say, _l'histoire intime; c'est ce roman vrai que la postérité appellera -peut-être un jour l'histoire humaine._ To be the bookworm and the -magician; to give the actual documents, but not to set barren fact by -barren fact; to find a soul and a voice in documents, to make them more -living and more charming than the charm of life itself: that is what -the Goncourts have done. And it is through this conception of history -that they have found their way to that new conception of the novel -which has revolutionised the entire art of fiction. - -_Aujourd'hui,_ they wrote, in 1864, in the preface to _Germinie -Lacerteux, que le Roman s'élargit et grandit, qu'il commence à être la -grande forme sérieuse, passionnée, vivante, de l'étude littéraire et -de l'enquête sociale, qu'il devient, par l'analyse et par la recherche -psychologique, l'Histoire morale contemporaine, aujourd'hui que le -Roman s'est imposé les devoirs de la science, il peut en revendiquer -les libertés et les franchises. Te public aime les romans faux,_ is -another brave declaration in the same preface; _ce roman est un roman -vrai._ But what, precisely, is it that the Goncourts understood by -_un roman vrai?_ The old notion of the novel was that it should be -an entertaining record of incidents or adventures told for their own -sake; a plain, straightforward narrative of facts, the aim being to -produce as nearly as possible an effect of continuity, of nothing -having been omitted, the statement, so to speak, of a witness on -oath; in a word, it is the same as the old notion of history, _drame -ou geste._ That is not how the Goncourts apprehend life, or how they -conceive it should be rendered. As in the study of history they seek -mainly the _inédit,_ caring only to record that, so it is the _inédit_ -of life that they conceive to be the main concern, the real "inner -history." And for them the _inédit_ of life consists in the noting of -the sensations; it is of the sensations that they have resolved to -be the historians; not of action, nor of emotion, properly speaking, -nor of moral conceptions, but of an inner life which is all made up -of the perceptions of the senses. It is scarcely too paradoxical to -say that they are psychologists for whom the soul does not exist. One -thing, they know, exists: the sensation flashed through the brain, -the image on the mental retina. Having found that, they bodily omit -all the rest as of no importance, trusting to their instinct of -selection, of retaining all that really matters. It is the painter's -method, a selection made almost visually; the method of the painter who -accumulates detail on detail, in his patient, many-sided observation -of his subject, and then omits everything which is not an essential -part of the _ensemble_ which he sees. Thus the new conception of what -the real truth of things consist in has brought with it, inevitably, -an entirely new form, a breaking up of the plain, straightforward -narrative into chapters, which are generally quite disconnected, and -sometimes of less than a page in length. A very apt image of this new, -curious manner of narrative has been found, somewhat maliciously, by -M. Lemaître. _Un homme qui marche à l'intérieur d'une maison, si nous -regardons du dehors, apparaît successivement à chaque fenêtre, et dans -les intervalles nous échappe. Ces fenêtres, ce sont les chapitres de -MM. de Goncourt. Encore,_ he adds, _y a-t-il plusieurs de ces fenêtres -où l'homme que nous attendions ne passe point._ That, certainly, is -the danger of the method. No doubt the Goncourts, in their passion -for the _inédit,_ leave out certain things because they are obvious, -even if they are obviously true and obviously important; that is the -defect of their quality. To represent life by a series of moments, -and to choose these moments for a certain subtlety and rarity in -them, is to challenge grave perils. Nor are these the only perils -which the Goncourts have constantly before them. There are others, -essential to their natures, to their preferences. And, first of all, -as we may see on every page of that miraculous _Journal,_ which will -remain, doubtless, the truest, deepest, most poignant piece of human -history that they have ever written, they are sick men, seeing life -through the medium of diseased nerves. _Notre œuvre entier,_ writes -Edmond de Goncourt, _reposa sur la maladie nerveuse; les peintures -de la maladie, nous les avons tirées de nous-mêmes, et, à force de -nous disséquer, nous sommes arrivés à une sensitivité supra-aiguë -que blessaient les infiniment petits de la vie._ This unhealthy -sensitiveness explains much, the singular merits as well as certain -shortcomings or deviations, in their work. The Goncourts' vision of -reality might almost be called an exaggerated sense of the truth of -things; such a sense as diseased nerves inflict upon one, sharpening -the acuteness of every sensation; or somewhat such a sense as one -derives from haschisch, which simply intensifies, yet in a veiled and -fragrant way, the charm or the disagreeableness of outward things, the -notion of time, the notion of space. What the Goncourts paint is the -subtler poetry of reality, its unusual aspects, and they evoke it, -fleetingly, like Whistler; they do not render it in hard outline, like -Flaubert, like Manet. As in the world of Whistler, so in the world -of the Goncourts, we see cities in which there are always fire-works -at Cremorne, and fair women reflected beautifully and curiously in -mirrors. It is a world which is extraordinarily real; but there is -choice, there is curiosity, in the aspect of reality which it presents. - -Compare the descriptions, which form so large a part of the work of the -Goncourts, with those of Théophile Gautier, who may reasonably be said -to have introduced the practice of eloquent writing about places, and -also the exact description of them. Gautier describes miraculously, but -it is, after all, the ordinary observation carried to perfection, or, -rather, the ordinary pictorial observation. The Goncourts only tell you -the things that Gautier leaves out; they find new, fantastic points of -view, discover secrets in things, curiosities of beauty, often acute, -distressing, in the aspects of quite ordinary places. They see things -as an artist, an ultra-subtle artist of the impressionist kind, might -see them; seeing them indeed always very consciously with a deliberate -attempt upon them, in just that partial, selecting, creative way -in which an artist looks at things for the purpose of painting a -picture. In order to arrive at their effects, they shrink from no -sacrifice, from no excess; slang, neologism, forced construction, -archaism, barbarous epithet, nothing comes amiss to them, so long as -it tends to render a sensation. Their unique care is that the phrase -should live, should palpitate, should be alert, exactly expressive, -super-subtle in expression; and they prefer indeed a certain perversity -in their relations with language, which they would have not merely a -passionate and sensuous thing, but complex with all the curiosities of -a delicately depraved instinct. It is the accusation of the severer -sort of French critics that the Goncourts have invented a new language; -that the language which they use is no longer the calm and faultless -French of the past. It is true; it is their distinction; it is the most -wonderful of all their inventions: in order to render new sensations, a -new vision of things, they have invented a new language. - -1894, 1896. - - - - -VILLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM - - -_A chacun son infini_ - - -1 - -Count Philippe Auguste Mathias de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam was born at -St. Brieuc, in Brittany, November 28, 1838; he died at Paris, under the -care of the Frères Saint-Jean-de-Dieu, August 19, 1889. Even before -his death, his life had become a legend, and the legend is even now -not to be disentangled from the actual occurrences of an existence so -heroically visionary. The Don Quixote of idealism, it was not only in -philosophical terms that life, to him, was the dream, and the spiritual -world the reality; he lived his faith, enduring what others called -reality with contempt, whenever, for a moment, he becomes conscious of -it. The basis of the character of Villiers was pride, and it was pride -which covered more than the universe. And this pride, first of all, -was the pride of race. - -Descendant of the original Rodolphe le Bel, Seigneur de Villiers -(1067), through Jean de Villiers and Maria de l'Isle and their son -Pierre the first Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, a Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, -born in 1384, had been Marshal of France under Jean-sans-Peur, Duke -of Burgundy; he took Paris during the civil war, and after being -imprisoned in the Bastille, reconquered Pontoise from the English, -and helped to reconquer Paris. Another Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, born -in 1464, Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, defended -Rhodes against 200,000 Turks for a whole year, in lone of the most -famous sieges in history; it was he who obtained from Charles V. the -concession of the isle of Malta for his Order, henceforth the Order of -the Knights of Malta. - -For Villiers, to whom time, after all, was but a metaphysical -abstraction, the age of the Crusaders had not passed. From a descendant -of the Grand Master of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, the -nineteenth century demanded precisely the virtues which the sixteenth -century had demanded of that ancestor. And these virtues were all -summed up in one word, which, in its double significance, single to -him, covered the whole attitude of life: the word "nobility." No word -returns oftener to the lips in speaking of what is most characteristic -in his work, and to Villiers moral and spiritual nobility seemed but -the inevitable consequence of that other kind of nobility by which he -seemed to himself still a Knight of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. -It was his birthright. - -To the aristocratic conception of things, nobility of soul is indeed a -birthright, and the pride with which this gift of nature is accepted -is a pride of exactly the opposite kind to that democratic pride -to which nobility of soul is a conquest, valuable in proportion to -its difficulty. This duality, always essentially aristocratic and -democratic, typically Eastern and Western also, finds its place in -every theory of religion, philosophy, and the ideal life. The pride -of _being,_ the pride of _becoming:_ these are the two ultimate -contradictions set before every idealist. Villiers' choice, inevitable -indeed, was significant. In this measure, it must always be the choice -of the artist, to whom, in his contemplation of life, the means is -often so much more important than the end. That nobility of soul which -comes without effort, which comes only with an unrelaxed diligence over -oneself, that I should be I: there can at least be no comparison of its -beauty with the stained and dusty onslaught on a never quite conquered -fort of the enemy, in a divided self. And, if it be permitted to choose -among degrees of sanctity, that, surely, is the highest in which a -natural genius for such things accepts its own attainment with the -simplicity of a birthright. - -And the Catholicism of Villiers was also a part of his inheritance. -His ancestors had fought for the Church, and Catholicism was still -a pompous flag, under which it was possible to fight on behalf of -the spirit, against that materialism which is always, in one way or -another, atheist. Thus he dedicates one of his stories to the Pope, -chooses ecclesiastical splendours by preference among the many -splendours of the world which go to make up his stage-pictures, and is -learned in the subtleties of the Fathers. The Church is his favourite -symbol of austere intellectual beauty; one way, certainly, by which the -temptations of external matter may be vanquished, and a way, also, by -which the desire of worship may be satisfied. - -But there was also, in his attitude towards the mysteries of the -spiritual world, that "forbidden" curiosity which had troubled the -obedience of the Templars, and which came to him, too, as a kind of -knightly quality. Whether or not he was actually a Cabbalist, questions -of magic began, at an early age, to preoccupy him, and, from the first -wild experiment of _Isis_ to the deliberate summing up of _Axël,_ the -"occult" world finds its way into most of his pages. - -Fundamentally, the belief of Villiers is the belief common to all -Eastern mystics.[1] "Know, once for all, that there is for thee no -other universe than that conception thereof which is reflected at -the bottom of thy thoughts." "What is knowledge but a recognition?" -Therefore, "forgetting for ever that which was the illusion of -thyself," hasten to become "an intelligence freed from the bonds and -the desires of the present moment." "Become the flower of thyself! Thou -art but what thou thinkest: therefore think thyself eternal." "Man, if -thou cease to limit in thyself a thing, that is, to desire it, if, so -doing, thou withdraw thyself from it, it will follow thee, woman-like, -as the water fills the place that is offered to it in the hollow of the -hand. For thou possessest the real being of all things, in thy pure -will, and thou art the God that thou art able to become." - -To have accepted the doctrine which thus finds expression in _Axël,_ -is to have accepted this among others of its consequences: "Science -states, but does not explain: she is the oldest offspring of the -chimeras; all the chimeras, then, on the same terms as the world (the -oldest of them!), are _something more_ than nothing!" And in _Elën_ -there is a fragment of conversation between two young students, which -has its significance also: - - _"Goetze._ There's my philosopher in full flight to the - regions of the sublime! Happily we have Science, which is a - torch, dear mystic; we will analyse your sun, if the planet - does not burst into pieces sooner than it has any right to! - - _Samuel._ Science will not suffice. Sooner or later you will - end by coming to your knees. - - _Goetze._ Before what? - - _Samuel._ Before the darkness!" - -Such avowals of ignorance are possible only from the height of a great -intellectual pride. Villiers' revolt against Science, so far as Science -is materialistic, and his passionate curiosity in that chimera's flight -towards the invisible, are one and the same impulse of a mind to which -only mind is interesting. _Toute cette vieille Extériorité, maligne, -compiquée, inflexible,_ that illusion which Science accepts for the one -reality: it must be the whole effort of one's consciousness to escape -from its entanglements, to dominate it, or to ignore it, and one's art -must be the building of an ideal world beyond its access, from which -one may indeed sally out, now and again, in a desperate enough attack -upon the illusions in the midst of which men live. - -And just that, we find, makes up the work of Villiers, work which -divides itself roughly into two divisions: one, the ideal world, or the -ideal in the world (_Axël, Elën, Morgane, Isis,_ some of the _contes,_ -and, intermediary, _La Révolte_); the other, satire, the mockery of -reality (_L'Eve Future,_ the _Contes Cruels, Tribulat Bonhomet_). It is -part of the originality of Villiers that the two divisions constantly -flow into one another; the idealist being never more the idealist than -in his buffooneries. - - -[1] "I am far from sure," wrote Verlaine, "that the philosophy of -Villiers will not one day become the formula of our century." - - -2 - -_Axël_ is the Symbolist drama, in all its uncompromising conflict with -the "modesty" of Nature and the limitations of the stage. It is the -drama of the soul, and at the same time it is the most pictorial of -dramas; I should define its manner as a kind of spiritual romanticism. -The earlier dramas, _Elën, Morgane,_ are fixed at somewhat the same -point in space; _La Révolte,_ which seems to anticipate _The Doll's -House,_ shows us an aristocratic Ibsen, touching reality with a certain -disdain, certainly with far less skill, certainly with far more beauty. -But _Axël,_ meditated over during a lifetime, shows us Villiers' ideal -of his own idealism. - -The action takes place, it is true, in this century, but it takes -place in corners of the world into which the modern spirit has not -yet passed; this _Monastère de Religieuses-trinitaires, le cloître de -Sainte Appolodora, situé sur les confins du littoral de l'ancienne -Flandre française,_ and the _très vieux château fort, le burg -des margraves d'Auërsperg, isolé au milieu du Schwartzwald._ The -characters, Axël d'Auërsperg, Eve Sara Emmanuèle de Maupers, Maître -Janus, the Archidiacre, the Commandeur Kaspar d'Auërsperg, are at -once more and less than human beings: they are the types of different -ideals, and they are clothed with just enough humanity to give form to -what would otherwise remain disembodied spirit. The religious ideal, -the occult ideal, the worldly ideal, the passionate ideal, are all -presented, one after the other, in these dazzling and profound pages; -Axël is the disdainful choice from among them, the disdainful rejection -of life itself, of the whole illusion of life, "since infinity alone is -not a deception." And Sara? Sara is a superb part of that life which is -rejected, which she herself comes, not without reluctance, to reject. -In that motionless figure, during the whole of the first act silent but -for a single "No," and leaping into a moment's violent action as the -act closes, she is the haughtiest woman in literature. But she is a -woman, and she desires life, finding it in Axël. Pride, and the woman's -devotion to the man, aid her to take the last cold step with Axël, in -the transcendental giving up of life at the moment when life becomes -ideal. - -And the play is written, throughout, with a curious solemnity, a -particular kind of eloquence, which makes no attempt to imitate the -level of the speech of every day, but which is a sort of ideal language -in which beauty is aimed at as exclusively as if it were written in -verse. The modern drama, under the democratic influence of Ibsen, -the positive influence of Dumas _fils,_ has limited itself to the -expression of temperaments in the one case, of theoretic intelligences -in the other, in as nearly as possible the words which the average man -would use for the statement of his emotions and ideas. The form, that -is, is degraded below the level of the characters whom it attempts to -express; for it is evident that the average man can articulate only a -small enough part of what he obscurely feels or thinks; and the theory -of Realism is that his emotions and ideas are to be given only in so -far as the words at his own command can give them. Villiers, choosing -to concern himself only with exceptional characters, and with them -only in the absolute, invents for them a more elaborate and a more -magnificent speech than they would naturally employ, the speech of -their thoughts, of their dreams. - -And it is a world thought or dreamt in some more fortunate atmosphere -than that in which we live, that Villiers has created for the final -achievement of his abstract ideas. I do not doubt that he himself -always lived in it, through all the poverty of the precipitous Rue -des Martyrs. But it is in _Axël,_ and in _Axël_ only, that he has made -us also inhabitants of that world. Even in _Elën_ we are spectators, -watching a tragical fairy play (as if _Fantasio_ became suddenly in -deadly earnest), watching some one else's dreams. _Axël_ envelops us in -its own atmosphere; it is as if we found ourselves on a mountain top on -the other side of the clouds, and without surprise at finding ourselves -there. - -The ideal, to Villiers, being the real, spiritual beauty being -the essential beauty, and material beauty its reflection, or its -revelation, it is with a sort of fury that he attacks the materialising -forces of the world: science, progress, the worldly emphasis on -"facts," on what is "positive," "serious," "respectable." Satire, with -him, is the revenge of beauty upon ugliness, the persecution of the -ugly; it is not merely social satire, it is a satire on the material -universe by one who believes in a spiritual universe. Thus it is the -only laughter of our time which is fundamental, as fundamental as that -of Swift or Rabelais. And this lacerating laughter of the idealist -is never surer in its aim than when it turns the arms of science -against itself, as in the vast buffoonery of _L'Eve Future._ A Parisian -wit, sharpened to a fineness of irony such as only wit which is also -philosophy can attain, brings in another method of attack; humour, -which is almost English, another; while again satire becomes tragic, -fantastic, macabre. In those enigmatic "tales of the grotesque and -arabesque," in which Villiers rivals Poe on his own ground, there is, -for the most part, a multiplicity of meaning which is, as it is meant -to be, disconcerting. I should not like to say how far Villiers does -not, sometimes, believe in his own magic. - -It is characteristic of him, at all events, that he employs what we -call the supernatural alike in his works of pure idealism and in his -works of sheer satire. The moment the world ceased to be the stable -object, solidly encrusted with houses in brick and stone, which it is -to most of its so temporary inhabitants, Villiers was at home. When -he sought the absolute beauty, it was beyond the world that he found -it; when he sought horror, it was a breath blowing from an invisible -darkness which brought it to his nerves; when he desired to mock the -pretensions of knowledge of or ignorance, it was always with the unseen -that his tragic buffoonery made familiar. - -There is, in everything which Villiers wrote, a strangeness, certainly -both instinctive and deliberate, which seems to me to be the natural -consequence of that intellectual pride which, as I have pointed out, -was at the basis of his character. He hated every kind of mediocrity: -therefore he chose to analyse exceptional souls, to construct -exceptional stories, to invent splendid names, and to evoke singular -landscapes. It was part of his curiosity in souls to prefer the complex -to the simple, the perverse to the straightforward, the ambiguous to -either. His heroes are incarnations of spiritual pride, and their -tragedies are the shock of spirit against matter, the invasion of -spirit by matter, the temptation of spirit by spiritual evil. They seek -the absolute, and find death; they seek wisdom, find love, and fall -into spiritual decay; they seek reality, and find crime; they seek -phantoms, and find themselves. They are on the borders of a wisdom too -great for their capacity; they are haunted by dark powers, instincts -of ambiguous passions; they are too lucid to be quite sane in their -extravagances; they have not quite systematically transposed their -dreams into actions And his heroines, when they are not, like _L'Eve -Future,_ the vitalised mechanism of an Edison, have the solemnity of -dead people, and a hieratic speech. _Songe, des cœurs condamnés à ce -supplice, de ne pas m'aimer!_ says Sara, in _Axël. Je ne l'aime pas, -ce jeune homme. Qu'ai-je donc fait à Dieu?_ says Elën. And their voice -is always like the voice of Elën: "I listened attentively to the sound -of her voice; it was tactiturn, subdued, like the murmur of the river -Lethe, flowing through the region of shadows." They have the immortal -weariness of beauty, they are enigmas to themselves, they desire, and -know not why they refrain, they do good and evil with the lifting of an -eyelid, and are innocent and guilty of all the sins of the earth. - -And these strange inhabitants move in as strange a world. They are the -princes and châtelaines of ancient castles lost in the depths of the -Black Forest; they are the last descendants of a great race about to -come to an end; students of magic, who have the sharp and swift swords -of the soldier; enigmatic courtesans, at the table of strange feasts; -they find incalculable treasures, _tonnantes et sonnantes cataractes -d'or liquide,_ only to disdain them. All the pomp of the world -approaches them, that they may the better abnegate it, or that it may -ruin them to a deeper degree of their material hell. And we see them -always at the moment of a crisis, before the two ways of a decision, -hesitating in the entanglements of a great temptation. And this casuist -of souls will drag forth some horribly stunted or horribly overgrown -soul from under its obscure covering, setting it to dance naked before -our eyes. He has no mercy on those who have no mercy on themselves. - -In the sense in which that word is ordinarily used, Villiers has no -pathos. This is enough to explain why he can never, in the phrase he -would have disliked so greatly, "touch the popular heart." His mind is -too abstract to contain pity, and it is in his lack of pity that he -seems to put himself outside humanity. _A chacun son infini,_ he has -said, and in the avidity of his search for the infinite he has no mercy -for the blind weakness which goes stumbling over the earth, without so -much as knowing that the sun and stars are overhead. He sees only the -gross multitude, the multitude which has the contentment of the slave. -He cannot pardon stupidity, for it is incomprehensible to him. He sees, -rightly, that stupidity is more criminal than vice; if only because -vice is curable, stupidity incurable. But he does not realise, as the -great novelists have realised, that stupidity can be pathetic, and that -there is not a peasant, nor even a self-satisfied bourgeois, in whom -the soul has not its part, in whose existence it is not possible to be -interested. - -Contempt, noble as it may be, anger, righteous though it may be, cannot -be indulged in without a certain lack of sympathy; and lack of sympathy -comes from a lack of patient understanding. It is certain that the -destiny of the greater part of the human race is either infinitely -pathetic or infinitely ridiculous. Under which aspect, then, shall -that destiny, and those obscure fractions of humanity, be considered? -Villiers was too sincere an idealist, too absolute in his idealism, to -hesitate. "As for living," he cries, in that splendid phrase of _Axël,_ -"our servants will do that for us!" And, in the _Contes Cruels,_ there -is this not less characteristic expression of what was always his -mental attitude: "As at the play, in a central stall, one sits out, so -as not to disturb one's neighbours--out of courtesy, in a word--some -play written in a wearisome style and of which one does not like the -subject, so I lived, out of politeness": _je vivais par politesse._ -In this haughtiness towards life, in this disdain of ordinary human -motives and ordinary human beings, there is at once the distinction and -the weakness of Villiers. And he has himself pointed the moral against -himself in these words of the story which forms the epilogue to the -_Contes Cruels:_ "When the forehead alone contains the existence of a -man, that man is enlightened only from above his head; then his jealous -shadow, prostrate under him, draws him by the feet, that it may drag -him down into the invisible." - - -3 - -All his life Villiers was a poor man; though, all his life, he was -awaiting that fortune which he refused to anticipate by any mean -employment. During most of his life, he was practically an unknown man. -Greatly loved, ardently admired, by that inner circle of the men who -have made modern French literature, from Verlaine to Maeterlinck, he -was looked upon by most people as an amusing kind of madman, a little -dangerous, whose ideas, as they floated freely over the café-table, it -was at times highly profitable to steal. For Villiers talked his works -before writing them, and sometimes he talked them instead of writing -them, in his too royally spendthrift way. To those who knew him he -seemed genius itself, and would have seemed so if he had never written -a line; for he had the dangerous gift of a personality which seems to -have already achieved all that it so energetically contemplates. But -personality tells only within hands' reach; and Villiers failed even -to startle, failed even to exasperate, the general reader. That his -_Premières Poésies,_ published at I the age of nineteen, should have -brought him fame was hardly to be expected, remarkable, especially in -its ideas, as that book is. Nor was it to be expected of the enigmatic -fragment of a romance, _Isis_ (1862), anticipating, as it does, by so -long a period, the esoteric and spiritualistic romances which were to -have their vogue. But _Elën_ (1864) and _Morgane_ (1865), those two -poetic dramas in prose, so full of distinction, of spiritual rarity; -but two years later, _Claire Lenoir_ (afterwards incorporated in one -of his really great books, _Tribulat Bonhomet_), with its macabre -horror; but _La Révolte_ (1870), for Villiers so "actual," and which -had its moments of success when it was revived in 1896 at the Odéon; -but _Le Nouveau Monde_ (1880), a drama which, by some extraordinary -caprice, won a prize; but _Les Contes Cruels_ (1880), that collection -of masterpieces, in which the essentially French _conte_ is outdone -on its own ground! It was not till 1886 that Villiers ceased to be an -unknown writer, with the publication of that phosphorescent buffoonery -of science, that vast parody of humanity, _L'Eve Future. Tribulat -Bonhomet_ (which he himself denned as _bouffonnerie énorme et sombre, -couleur du siècle_) was to come, in its final form, and the superb poem -in prose _Akëdysséril;_ and then, more and more indifferent collections -of stories, in which Villiers, already dying, is but the shadow of -himself: _L'Amour Suprême_ (1886), _Histoires Insolites_ (1888), -_Nouveaux Contes Cruels_ (1888). He was correcting the proofs of _Axël_ -when he died; the volume was published in 1890, followed by _Propos -d'au-delà,_ and a series of articles, _Chez les Passants._ Once dead, -the fame which had avoided him all his life began to follow him; he had -_une belle presse_ at his funeral. - -Meanwhile, he had been preparing the spiritual atmosphere of the new -generation. Living among believers in the material world, he had been -declaring, not in vain, his belief in the world of the spirit; living -among Realists and Parnassians, he had been creating a new form of art, -the art of the Symbolist drama, and of Symbolism in fiction. He had -been lonely all his life, for he had been living in his own lifetime, -the life of the next generation. There was but one man among his -contemporaries to whom he could give, and from whom he could receive, -perfect sympathy. That man was Wagner. Gradually the younger men came -about him; at the end he was not lacking in disciples. - -And after all, the last word of Villiers is faith; faith against the -evidence of the senses, against the negations of materialistic science, -against the monstrous paradox of progress, against his own pessimism -in the face of these formidable enemies. He affirms; he "believes in -soul, is very sure of God"; requires no witness to the spiritual world -of which he is always the inhabitant; and is content to lose his way -in the material world, brushing off its mud from time to time with a -disdainful gesture, as he goes on his way (to apply a significant word -of Pater) "like one on a secret errand." - - - - -LÉON CLADEL - - -I hope that the life of Léon Cladel by his daughter Judith, which -Lemerre has brought out in a pleasant volume, will do something for the -fame of one of the most original writers of our time. Cladel had the -good fortune to be recognised in his lifetime by those whose approval -mattered most, beginning with Baudelaire, who discovered him before -he had printed his first book, and helped to teach him the craft of -letters. But so exceptional an artist could never be popular, though he -worked in living stuff and put the whole savour of his countryside into -his tragic and passionate stories. A peasant, who writes about peasants -and poor people, with a curiosity of style which not only packs his -vocabulary with difficult words, old or local, and with unheard of -rhythms, chosen to give voice to some never yet articulated emotion, -but which drives him into oddities of printing, of punctuation, of the -very shape of his accents! A page of Cladel has a certain visible -uncouthness, and at first this seems in keeping with his matter; but -the uncouthness, when you look into it, turns out to be itself a -refinement, and what has seemed a confused whirl, an improvisation, to -be the result really of reiterated labour, whose whole aim has been to -bring the spontaneity of the first impulse back into the laboriously -finished work. - -In this just, sensitive, and admirable book, written by one who has -inherited a not less passionate curiosity about life, but with more -patience in waiting upon it, watching it, noting its surprises, we -have a simple and sufficient commentary upon the books and upon the -man. The narrative has warmth and reserve, and is at once tender and -clear-sighted. _J'entrevois nettement,_ she says with truth, _combien -seront précieux pour les futurs historiens de la littérature du XIXe -siècle, les mémoires tracés au contact immédiat de l'artiste, exposés -de ses faits et gestes particuliers, de ses origines, de la germination -de ses croyances et de son talent; ses critiques à venir y trouveront -de solides matériaux, ses admirateurs un aliment à leur piété et les -philosophes un des aspects de l'Ame française._ - -The man is shown to us, _les élans de cette âme toujours grondante -et fulgurante comme une forge, et les nuances de ce fiévreux visage -d'apôtre, brun, fin et sinueux,_ and we see the inevitable growth, -out of the hard soil of Quercy and out of the fertilising contact of -Paris and Baudelaire, of this whole literature, these books no less -astonishing than their titles: _Ompdrailles-le-Tombeau-des-Lutteurs, -Celui de la Croix-aux-Bœufs, La Fête Votive de -Saint-Bartholomée-Porte-Glaive._ The very titles are an excitement. I -can remember how mysterious and alluring they used to seem to me when -I first saw them on the cover of what was perhaps his best book, _Les -Va-Nu-Pieds._ - -It is by one of the stories, and the shortest, in _Les Va-Nu-Pieds,_ -that I remember Cladel. I read it when I was a boy, and I cannot think -of it now without a shiver. It is called _L'Hercule,_ and it is about -a Sandow of the streets, a professional strong man, who kills himself -by an overstrain; it is not a story at all, it is the record of an -incident, and there is only the strong man in it and his friend the -zany, who makes the jokes while the strong man juggles with bars and -cannon-balls. It is all told in a breath, without a pause, as if -someone who had just seen it poured it out in a flood of hot words. -Such vehemence, such pity, such a sense of the cruelty of the spectacle -of a man driven to death like a beast, for a few pence and the pleasure -of a few children; such an evocation of the sun and the streets and -this sordid tragic thing happening to the sound of drum and cymbals; -such a vision in sunlight of a barbarous and ridiculous and horrible -accident, lifted by the telling of it into a new and unforgettable -beauty, I have never felt or seen in any other story of a like -grotesque tragedy. It realises an ideal, it does for once what many -artists have tried and failed to do; it wrings the last drop of agony -out of that subject which it is so easy to make pathetic and effective. -Dickens could not have done it, Bret Harte could not have done it, -Kipling could not do it: Cladel did it only once, with this perfection. - -Something like it he did over and over again, with unflagging -vehemence, with splendid variations, in stories of peasants and -wrestlers and thieves and prostitutes. They are all, as his daughter -says, epic; she calls them Homeric, but there is none of the Homeric -simplicity in this tumult of coloured and clotted speech, in which the -language is tortured to make it speak. The comparison with Rabelais -is nearer. _La recherche du terme vivant, sa mise en valeur et en -saveur, la surabondance des vocables puisés à toutes sources ... la -condensation de l'action autour de ces quelques motifs éternels de -l'épopée: combat, ripaille, palabre et luxure,_ there, as she sees -justly, are links with Rabelais. Goncourt, himself always aiming at an -impossible closeness of written to spoken speech, noted with admiration -_la vraie photographie de la parole avec ses tours, ses abbreviations -ses ellipses, son essoufflement presque._ Speech out of breath, that -is what Cladel's is always; his words, never the likely ones, do not -so much speak as cry, gesticulate, overtake one another. _L'âme de -Léon Cladel,_ says his daughter, _était dans un constant et flamboyant -automne._ Something of the colour and fever of autumn is in all he -wrote. Another writer since Cladel, who has probably never heard of -him, has made heroes of peasants and vagabonds. But Maxim Gorki makes -heroes of them, consciously, with a mental self-assertion, giving them -ideas which he has found in Nietzsche. Cladel put into all his people -some of his own passionate way of seeing "scarlet," to use Barbey -d'Aurevilly's epithet: _un rural écarlate._ Vehement and voluminous, -he overflowed: his whole aim as an artist, as a pupil of Baudelaire, -was to concentrate, to hold himself back; and the effort added impetus -to the checked overflow. To the realists he seemed merely extravagant; -he saw certainly what they could not see; and his romance was always a -fruit of the soil. The artist in him, seeming to be in conflict with -the peasant, fortified, clarified the peasant, extracted from that hard -soil a rare fruit. You see in his face an extraordinary mingling of the -peasant, the visionary, and the dandy: the long hair and beard, the -sensitive mouth and nose, the fierce brooding eyes, in which wildness -and delicacy, strength and a kind of stealthiness, seem to be grafted -on an inflexible peasant stock. - -1906. - - - - -A NOTE ON ZOLA'S METHOD - - -The art of Zola is based on certain theories, on a view of humanity -which he has adopted as his formula. As a deduction from his formula, -he takes many things in human nature for granted, he is content to -observe at second-hand; and it is only when he comes to the filling-up -of his outlines, the _mise-en-scène,_ that his observation becomes -personal, minute, and persistent. He has thus succeeded in being at -once unreal where reality is most essential, and tediously real where a -point-by-point reality is sometimes unimportant. The contradiction is -an ingenious one, which it may be interesting to examine in a little -detail, and from several points of view. - -And, first of all, take L'_Assommoir,_ no doubt the most characteristic -of Zola's novels, and probably the best; and, leaving out for the -present the broader question of his general conception of humanity, -let us look at Zola's manner of dealing with his material, noting by -the way certain differences between his manner and that of Goncourt, -of Flaubert, with both of whom he has so often been compared, and -with whom he wishes to challenge comparison. Contrast _L'Assommoir_ -with _Germinie Lacerteux,_ which, it must be remembered, was written -thirteen years earlier. Goncourt, as he incessantly reminds us, was -the first novelist in France to deliberately study the life of the -people, after precise documents; and _Germinie Lacerteux_ has this -distinction, among others, that it was a new thing. And it is done -with admirable skill; I as a piece of writing, as a work of art, it is -far superior to Zola. But, certainly, Zola's work has a mass and bulk, -a _fougue,_ a _portée,_ which Goncourt's lacks; and it has a savour -of plebeian flesh which all the delicate art of Goncourt could not -evoke. Zola sickens you with it; but there it is. As in all his books, -but more than in most, there is something greasy, a smear of eating -and drinking; the pages, to use his own phrase, _grasses des lichades -du lundi._ In _Germinie Lacerteux_ you never forget that Goncourt -is an aristocrat; in _L'Assommoir_ you never forget that Zola is a -bourgeois. Whatever Goncourt touches becomes, by the mere magic of his -touch, charming, a picture; Zola is totally destitute of charm. But -how, in _L'Assommoir,_ he drives home to you the horrid realities of -these narrow, uncomfortable lives! Zola has made up his mind that he -will say everything, without omitting a single item, whatever he has -to say; thus, in _L'Assommoir,_ there is a great feast which lasts for -fifty pages, beginning with the picking of the goose, the day before, -and going on to the picking of the goose's bones, by a stray marauding -cat, the night after. And, in a sense, he does say everything; and -there, certainly, is his novelty, his invention. He observes with -immense persistence, but his observation, after all, is only that of -the man in the street; it is simply carried into detail, deliberately. -And, while Goncourt wanders away sometimes into arabesques, indulges in -flourishes, so finely artistic is his sense of words and of the things -they represent, so perfectly can he match a sensation or an impression -by its figure in speech, Zola, on the contrary, never finds just the -right word, and it is his persistent fumbling for it which produces -these miles of description; four pages describing how two people went -upstairs, from the ground floor to the sixth story, and then two pages -afterwards to describe how they came downstairs again. Sometimes, by -his prodigious diligence and minuteness, he succeeds in giving you the -impression; often, indeed; but at the cost of what _ennui_ to writer -and reader alike! And so much of it all is purely unnecessary, has -no interest in itself and no connection with the story: the precise -details of Lorilleux's chain-making, bristling with technical terms: -it was _la colonne_ that he made, and only that particular kind of -chain; Goujet's forge, and the machinery in the shed next door; and -just how you cut out zinc with a large pair of scissors. When Goncourt -gives you a long description of anything, even if you do not feel -that it helps on the story very much, it is such a beautiful thing in -itself, his mere way of writing it is so enchanting, that you find -yourself wishing it longer, at its longest. But with Zola, there is no -literary interest in the--writing, apart from its clear and coherent -expression of a given thing; and these interminable descriptions have -no extraneous, or, if you will, implicit interest, to save them from -the charge of irrelevancy; they sink by their own weight. Just as -Zola's vision is the vision of the average man, so his vocabulary, -with all its technicology, remains mediocre, incapable of expressing -subtleties, incapable of a really artistic effect. To find out in a -slang dictionary that a filthy idea can be expressed by an ingeniously -filthy phrase in _argot,_ and to use that phrase, is not a great feat, -or, on purely artistic grounds, altogether desirable. To go to a -chainmaker and learn the trade name of the various kinds of chain which -he manufactures, and of the instruments with which he manufactures -them, is not an elaborate process, or one which can be said to pay you -for the little trouble which it no doubt takes. And it is not well to -be too cerïain after all that Zola is always perfectly accurate in his -use of all this manifold knowledge. The slang, for example; he went to -books for it, in books he found it, and no one will ever find some of -it but in books. However, my main contention is that Zola's general -use of words is, to be quite frank, somewhat ineffectual. He tries -to do what Flaubert did, without Flaubert's tools, and without the -craftsman's hand at the back of the tools. His fingers are too thick; -they leave a blurred line. If you want merely weight, a certain kind of -force, you get it; but no more. - -Where a large part of Zola's merit lies, in his persistent attention -to detail, one finds also one of his chief defects. He cannot leave -well alone; he cannot omit; he will not take the most obvious fact -for granted. _Il marcha le premier, elle le suivit,_ well, of course, -she followed him, if he walked first: why mention the fact? That -beginning of a sentence is absolutely typical; it is impossible for -him to refer, for the twentieth time, to some unimportant character, -without giving name and profession, not one or the other, but both, -invariably both. He tells us particularly that a room is composed of -four walls, that a table stands on its four legs. And he does not -appear to see the difference between doing that and doing as Flaubert -does, namely, selecting precisely the detail out of all others which -renders or consorts with the scene in hand, and giving that detail -with an ingenious exactness. Here, for instance, in _Madame Bovary,_ -is a characteristic detail in the manner of Flaubert: _Huit jours -après, comme elle étendait du linge dans sa cour, elle fut prise d'un -crachement de sang, et le lendemain, tandis que Charles avait le dos -tourné pour fermer le rideau de la fenêtre, elle dit: "Ah! mon Dieu!" -poussa un soupir et s'évanouit. Elle était morte._ Now that detail, -brought in without the slightest emphasis, of the husband turning his -back at the very instant that his wife dies, is a detail of immense -psychological value; it indicates to us, at the very opening of the -book, just the character of the man about whom we are to read so much. -Zola would have taken at least two pages to say that, and, after all, -he would not have said it. He would have told you the position of the -chest of drawers in the room, what wood the chest of drawers was made -of, and if it had a little varnish knocked off at the corner of the -lower cornice, just where it would naturally be in the way of people's -feet as they entered the door. He would have told you how Charles leant -against the other corner of the chest of drawers, and that the edge of -the upper cornice left a slight dent in his black frock-coat, which -remained visible half an hour afterwards. But that one little detail, -which Flaubert selects from among a thousand, that, no, he would never -have given us that! - -And the language in which all this is written, apart from the -consideration of language as a medium, is really not literature at -all, in any strict sense. I am not, for the moment, complaining of -the colloquialism and the slang. Zola has told us that he has, in -_L'Assommoir,_ used the language of the people in order to render the -people with a closer truth. Whether he has done that or not is not -the question. The question is, that he does not give one the sense of -reading good literature, whether he speaks in Delvau's _langue verte,_ -or according to the Academy's latest edition of classical French. His -sentences have no rhythm; they give no pleasure to the ear; they carry -no sensation to the eye. You hear a sentence of Flaubert, and you see a -sentence of Goncourt, like living things, with forms and voices. But a -page of Zola lies dull and silent before you; it draws you by no charm, -it has no meaning until you have read the page that goes before and the -page that comes after. It is like cabinet-makers' work, solid, well -fitted together, and essentially made to be used. - -Yes, there is no doubt that Zola writes very badly, worse than any -other French writer of eminence. It is true that Balzac, certainly one -of the greatest, does, in a sense, write badly; but his way of writing -badly is very different from Zola's, and leaves you with the sense of -quite a different result. Balzac is too impatient with words; he cannot -stay to get them all into proper order, to pick and choose among them. -Night, the coffee, the wet towel, and the end of six hours' labour -are often too much for him; and his manner of writing his novels on -the proof-sheets, altering and expanding as fresh ideas came to him -on each re-reading, was not a way of doing things which can possibly -result in perfect writing. But Balzac sins from excess, from a feverish -haste, the very extravagance of power; and, at all events, he "sins -strongly." Zola sins meanly, he is penuriously careful, he does the -best he possibly can; and he is not aware that his best does not answer -all requirements. So long as writing is clear and not ungrammatical, it -seems to him sufficient. He has not realised that without charm there -can be no fine literature, as there can be no perfect flower without -fragrance. - -And it is here that I would complain, not as a matter of morals, -but as a matter of art, of Zola's obsession by what is grossly, -uninterestingly filthy. There is a certain simile in _L'Assommoir,_ -used in the most innocent connection, in connection with a bonnet, -which seems to me the most abjectly dirty phrase which I have ever -read. It is one thing to use dirty words to describe dirty things: -that may be necessary, and thus unexceptionable. It is another thing -again, and this, too, may well be defended on artistic grounds, to be -ingeniously and wittily indecent. But I do not think a real man of -letters could possibly have used such an expression as the one I am -alluding to or could so meanly succumb to certain kinds of prurience -which we find in Zola's work. Such a scene as the one in which Gervaise -comes home with Lantier, and finds per husband lying drunk asleep in -his own vomit, might certainly be explained and even excused, though -few more disagreeable things were ever written, on the ground of the -psychological importance which it undoubtedly has, and the overwhelming -way in which it drives home the point which it is the writer's business -to make. But the worrying way in which _le derrière_ and _le ventre_ -are constantly kept in view, without the slightest necessity, is quite -another thing. I should not like to say how often the phrase "sa nudité -de jolie fille" occurs in Zola. Zola's nudities always remind me of -those which you can see in the _Foire au pain d'épice_ at Vincennes, by -paying a penny and looking through a peep-hole. In the laundry scenes, -for instance in _L'Assommoir,_ he is always reminding you that the -laundresses have turned up their sleeves, or undone a button or two of -their bodices. His eyes seem eternally fixed on the inch or two of bare -flesh that can be seen; and he nudges your elbow at every moment, to -make sure that you are looking too. Nothing may be more charming than a -frankly sensuous description of things which appeal to the senses; but -can one imagine anything less charming, less like art, than this prying -eye glued to the peep-hole in the Gingerbread Fair? - -Yet, whatever view may be taken of Zola's work in literature, there is -no doubt that the life of Zola is a model lesson, and might profitably -be told in one of Dr. Smiles's edifying biographies. It may even be -brought as a reproach against the writer of these novels, in which -there are so many offences against the respectable virtues, that he -is too good a bourgeois, too much the incarnation of the respectable -virtues, to be a man of genius. If the finest art comes of the -intensest living, then Zola has never had even a chance of doing the -greatest kind of work. It is his merit and his misfortune to have lived -entirely in and for his books, with a heroic devotion to his ideal of -literary duty which would merit every praise if we had to consider -simply the moral side of the question. So many pages of copy a day, so -many hours of study given to mysticism, or Les Halles; Zola has always -had his day's work marked out before him, and he has never swerved -from it. A recent life of--Zola tells us something about his way of -getting up a subject. "Immense preparation had been necessary for the -_Faute de l'Abbé Mouret._ Mountains of note-books were heaped up on -his table, and for months Zola was plunged in the study of religious -works. All the mystical part of the book, and notably the passages -having reference to the cultus of Mary, was taken from the works of -the Spanish Jesuits. The _Imitation of Jesus Christ_ was largely -drawn upon, many passages being copied almost word for word into -the novel--much as in _Clarissa Harlowe,_ that other great realist, -Richardson, copied whole passages from the Psalms. The description -of life in a grand seminary was given him by a priest who had been -dismissed from ecclesiastical service. The little church of Sainte -Marie des Batignolles was regularly visited." - -How commendable all that is, but, surely, how futile! Can one conceive -of a more hopeless, a more ridiculous task, than that of setting to -work on a novel of ecclesiastical life as if one were cramming for -an examination in religious knowledge? Zola apparently imagines that -he can master mysticism in a fortnight, as he masters the police -regulations of Les Halles. It must be admitted that he does wonders -with his second-hand information, alike in regard to mysticism and Les -Halles. But he succeeds only to a certain point, and that point lies -on the nearer side of what is really meant by success. Is not Zola -himself, at his moments, aware of this? A letter written in 1881, and -printed in Mr. Sherard's life of Zola, from which I have just quoted, -seems to me very significant. - -"I continue to work in a good state of mental equilibrium. My novel -_(Pot-Bouille)_ is certainly only a task requiring precision and -clearness. No _bravoura,_ not the least lyrical treat. It does not -give me any warm satisfaction, but it amuses me like a piece of -mechanism with a thousand wheels, of which it is my duty to regulate -the movements with the most minute care. I ask myself the question: Is -it good policy, when one feels that one has passion in one, to check -it, or even to bridle it? If one of my books is destined to become -immortal, it will, I am sure, be the most passionate one." - -_Est-elle en marbre ou non, la Vénus de Milo?_ said the Parnassians, -priding themselves on their muse with her _peplum bien sculpté._ Zola -will describe to you the exact shape and the exact smell of the rags -of his naturalistic muse; but has she, under the tatters, really a -human heart? In the whole of Zola's works, amid all his exact and -impressive descriptions of misery, all his endless annals of the poor, -I know only one episode which brings tears to the eyes, the episode -of the child-martyr Lalie in L'_Assommoir._ "A piece of mechanism -with a thousand wheels," that is indeed the image of this immense and -wonderful study of human life, evolved out of the brain of a solitary -student who knows life only by the report of his documents, his -friends, and, above all, his formula. - -Zola has denned art, very aptly, as nature seen through a temperament. -The art of Zola is nature seen through a formula. This professed -realist is a man of theories who studies life with a conviction that -he will find there such and such things which he has read about in -scientific books. He observes, indeed, with astonishing minuteness, but -he observes in support of preconceived ideas. And so powerful is his -imagination that he has created a whole world which has no existence -anywhere but in his own brain, and he has placed there imaginary -beings, so much more logical than life, in the midst of surroundings -which are themselves so real as to lend almost a semblance of reality -to the embodied formulas who inhabit them. - -It is the boast of Zola that he has taken up art at the point where -Flaubert left it, and that he has developed that art in its logical -sequence. But the art of Flaubert, itself a development from Balzac, -had carried realism, if not in _Madame Bovary,_ at all events in -_L'Education Sentimentale,_ as far as realism can well go without -ceasing to be art. In the grey and somewhat sordid history of Frédéric -Moreau there is not à touch of romanticism, not so much as a concession -to style, a momentary escape of the imprisoned lyrical tendency. -Everything is observed, everything is taken straight from life: realism -sincere, direct, implacable, reigns from end to end of the book. But -with what consummate art all this mass of observation is disintegrated, -arranged, composed! with what infinite delicacy it is manipulated in -the service of an unerring sense of construction! And Flaubert has no -theory, has no prejudices, has only a certain impatience with human -imbecility. Zola, too, gathers his documents, heaps up his mass of -observation, and then, in this unhappy "development" of the principles -of art which produced _L'Education Sentimentale,_ flings everything -pell-mell into one overflowing _pot-au-feu._ The probabilities of -nature and the delicacies of art are alike drowned beneath a flood of -turbid observation, and in the end one does not even feel convinced -that Zola really knows his subject. I remember once hearing M. -Huysmans, with his look and tone of subtle, ironical malice, describe -how Zola, when he was writing _La Terre,_ took a drive into the country -in a victoria, to see the peasants. The English papers once reported -an interview in which the author of _Nana,_ indiscreetly questioned -as to the amount of personal observation he had put into the book, -replied that he had lunched with an actress of the Variétés. The reply -was generally taken for a joke, but the lunch was a reality, and it -was assuredly a rare experience in the life of solitary diligence to -which we owe so many impersonal studies in life. Nor did Zola, as he -sat silent by the side of Mlle. X., seem to be making much use of -the opportunity. The language of the miners in _Germinal,_ how much -of local colour is there in that? The interminable additions and -divisions, the extracts from a financial gazette, in _L'Argent,_ how -much of the real temper and idiosyncrasy of the financier do they -give us? In his description of places, in his _mise-en-scène,_ Zola -puts down what he sees with his own eyes, and, though it is often -done at utterly disproportionate length, it is at all events done -with exactitude. But in the far more important observation of men and -women, he is content with second-hand knowledge, the knowledge of a man -who sees the world through a formula. Zola sees in humanity _la bête -humaine._ He sees the beast in all its transformations, but he sees -only the beast. He has never looked at life impartially, he has never -seen it as it is. His realism is a distorted idealism, and the man who -considers himself the first to paint humanity as it really is will be -remembered in the future as the most idealistic writer of his time. - -1893. - - - - -STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ - - -1 - - -Stéphane Mallarmé was one of those who love literature too much to -write it except by fragments; in whom the desire of perfection brings -its own defeat. With either more or less ambition he would have done -more to achieve himself; he was always divided between an absolute aim -at the absolute, that is, the unattainable, and a too logical disdain -for the compromise by which, after all, literature is literature. -Carry the theories of Mallarmé to a practical conclusion, multiply -his powers in a direct ratio, and you have Wagner. It is his failure -not to be Wagner. And, Wagner having existed, it was for him to be -something more, to complete Wagner. Well, not being able to be that, it -was a matter of sincere indifference to him whether he left one or two -little, limited masterpieces of formal verse and prose, the more or -the less. It was "the work" that he dreamed of, the new art, more than -a new religion, whose precise form in the world he was never quite able -to settle. - -_Un auteur difficile,_ in the phrase of M. Catulle Mendès, it has -always been to what he himself calls "a labyrinth illuminated by -flowers" that Mallarmé has felt it due to their own dignity to invite -his readers. To their own dignity, and also to his. Mallarmé was -obscure, not so much because he wrote differently, as because he -thought differently, from other people. His mind was elliptical, and, -relying with undue confidence on the intelligence of his readers, he -emphasised the effect of what was unlike other people in his mind by -resolutely ignoring even the links of connection that existed between -them. Never having aimed at popularity, he never needed, as most -writers need, to make the first advances. He made neither intrusion -upon nor concession to those who, after all, were not obliged to read -him. And when he spoke, he considered it neither needful nor seemly -to listen in order to hear whether he was heard. To the charge of -obscurity he replied, with sufficient disdain, that there are many -who do not know how to read--except the newspaper, he adds, in one of -those disconcerting, oddly-printed parentheses, which make his work, -to those who rightly apprehend it, so full of wise limitations, so -safe from hasty or seemingly final conclusions. No one in our time -has more significantly vindicated the supreme right of the artist in -the aristocracy of letters; wilfully, perhaps, not always wisely, but -nobly, logically. Has not every artist shrunk from that making of -himself "a motley to the view," that handing over of his naked soul -to the laughter of the multitude? But who, in our time, has wrought -so subtle a veil, shining on this side, where the few are, a thick -cloud on the other, where are the many? The oracles have always had -the wisdom to hide their secrets in the obscurity of many meanings, or -of what has seemed meaningless; and might it not, after all, be the -finest epitaph for a self-respecting man of letters to be able to say, -even after the writing of many books: I have kept my secret, I have not -betrayed myself to the multitude? - -But to Mallarmé, certainly, there might be applied the significant -warning of Rossetti: - - Yet woe to thee if once thou yield - Unto the act of doing nought! - -After a life of persistent devotion to literature, he has left enough -poems to make a single small volume (less, certainly, than a hundred -poems in all), a single volume of prose, a few pamphlets, and a prose -translation of the poems of Poe. It is because among these there are -masterpieces, poems which are among the most beautiful poems written in -our time, prose which has all the subtlest qualities of prose, that, -quitting the abstract point of view, we are forced to regret the fatal -enchantments, fatal for him, of theories which are so greatly needed -by others, so valuable for our instruction, if we are only a little -careful in putting them into practice. - -In estimating the significance of Stéphane Mallarmé, it is necessary -to take into account not only his verse and prose, but, almost more -than these, the Tuesdays of the Rue de Rome, in which he gave himself -freely to more than one generation. No one who has ever climbed -those four flights of stairs will have forgotten the narrow, homely -interior, elegant with a sort of scrupulous Dutch comfort; the heavy, -carved furniture, the tall clock, the portraits, Manet's, Whistler's, -on the walls; the table on which the china bowl, odorous with -tobacco, was pushed from hand to hand; above all, the rocking-chair, -Mallarmé's, from which he would rise quietly, to stand leaning his -elbow on the mantelpiece, while one hand, the hand which did not -hold the cigarette, would sketch out one of those familiar gestures: -_un peu de prêtre, un peu de danseuse_ (in M. Rodenbach's admirable -phrase), _avec lesquels il avait l'air chaque fois d'entrer dans la -conversation, comme on entre en scène._ One of the best talkers of -our time, he was, unlike most other fine talkers, harmonious with his -own theories in giving no monologues, in allowing every liberty to -his guests, to the conversation; in his perfect readiness to follow -the slightest indication, to embroider upon any frame, with any -material presented to him. There would have been something almost of -the challenge of the improvisatore in this, easily moved alertness of -mental attitude, had it not been for the singular gentleness with -which Mallarmé's intelligence moved, in these considerable feats, with -the half-apologetic negligence of the perfect acrobat. He seemed to be -no more than brushing the dust off your own ideas, settling, arranging -them a little, before he gave them back to you, surprisingly luminous. -It was only afterwards that you realised how small had been your own -part in the matter, as well as what it meant to have enlightened -without dazzling you. But there was always the feeling of comradeship, -the comradeship of a master, whom, while you were there at least, -you did not question; and that very feeling lifted you, in your own -estimation, nearer to art. - -Invaluable, it seems to me, those Tuesdays must have been to the young -men of two generations who have been making French literature; they -were unique, certainly, in the experience of the young Englishman -who was always so cordially received there, with so flattering a -cordiality. Here was a house in which art, literature, was the very -atmosphere, a religious atmosphere; and the master of the house, in his -just a little solemn simplicity, a priest. I never heard the price -of a book mentioned, or the number of thousand francs which a popular -author had been paid for his last volume; here, in this one literary -house, literature was unknown as a trade. And, above all, the questions -that were discussed were never, at least, in Mallarmé's treatment, in -his guidance of them, other than essential questions, considerations -of art in the abstract of literature before it coagulates into a book, -of life as its amusing and various web spins the stuff of art. When, -indeed, the conversation, by some untimely hazard, drifted too near to -one, became for a moment, perhaps inconveniently, practical, it was -Mallarmé's solicitous politeness to wait, a little constrained, almost -uneasy, rolling his cigarette in silence, until the disturbing moment -had passed. - -There were other disturbing moments, sometimes. I remember one night, -rather late, the sudden irruption of M. de Heredia, coming on after a -dinner-party, and seating himself in his well-filled evening dress, -precisely in Mallarmé's favourite chair. He was intensely amusing, -voluble, floridly vehement; Mallarmé, I am sure, was delighted to see -him; but the loud voice was a little trying to his nerves, and then he -did not know what to do without his chair. He was like a cat that has -been turned out of its favourite corner, as he roamed uneasily about -the room, resting an unaccustomed elbow on the sideboard, visibly at a -disadvantage. - -For the attitude of those young men, some of them no longer exactly -young, who frequented the Tuesdays, was certainly the attitude of -the disciple. Mallarmé never exacted it, he seemed never to notice -it; yet it meant to him, all the same, a good deal; as it meant, and -in the best sense, a good deal to them. He loved art with a supreme -disinterestedness, and it was for the sake of art that he wished to -be really a master. For he knew that he had something to teach, that -he had found out some secrets worth knowing, that he had discovered a -point of view which he could to some degree perpetuate in those young -men who listened to him. And to them this free kind of apprenticeship -was, beyond all that it gave in direct counsels, in the pattern of -work, a noble influence. Mallarmé's quiet, laborious life was for -some of them the only counterpoise to the Bohemian example of the -_d'Harcourt_ or the _Taverne,_ where art is loved, but with something -of haste, in a very changing devotion. It was impossible to come away -from Mallarmé's without some tranquillising influence from that quiet -place, some impersonal ambition towards excellence, the resolve, at -least, to write a sonnet, a page of prose, that should be in its own -way as perfect as one could make it, worthy of Mallarmé. - - -2 - -"Poetry," said Mallarmé, "is the language of a state of crisis"; and -all his poems are the evocation of a passing ecstasy, arrested in -mid-flight. This ecstasy is never the mere instinctive cry of the -heart, the simple human joy or sorrow, which, like the Parnassians, -but for not quite the same reason, he did not admit in poetry. It is a -mental transposition of emotion or sensation, veiled with atmosphere, -and becoming, as it becomes a poem, pure beauty. Here, for instance, -in a poem, which I have translated line for line, and almost word -for word, a delicate emotion, a figure vaguely divined, a landscape -magically evoked, blend in a single effect. - - SIGH - - My soul, calm sister, towards thy brow, whereon scarce grieves - An autumn strewn already with its russet leaves, - And towards the wandering sky of thine angelic eye, - Mounts, as in melancholy gardens may arise - Some faithful fountain sighing whitely towards the blue! - --Towards the blue pale and pure that sad October knew, - When, in those depths, it mirrored languors infinite, - And agonising leaves upon the waters white, - Windily drifting, traced a furrow cold and dun, - Where, in one long last ray, lingered the yellow sun. - -Another poem comes a little closer to nature, but with what exquisite -precautions, and with what surprising novelty in its unhesitating touch -on actual things! - - SEA-WIND - - The flesh is sad, alas! and all the books are read. - Flight, only flight! I feel that birds are wild to tread - The floor of unknown foam, and to attain the skies! - Nought, neither ancient gardens mirrored in the eyes, - Shall hold this heart that bathes in waters its delight, - O nights! nor yet my waking lamp, whose lonely light - Shadows the vacant paper, whiteness profits best, - Nor the young wife who rocks her baby on her breast. - I will depart. O steamer, swaying rope and spar, - Lift anchor for exotic lands that lie afar! - A weariness, outworn by cruel hopes, still clings - To the last farewell handkerchief's last beckonings! - And are not these, the masts inviting storms, not these - That an awakening wind bends over wrecking seas, - Lost, not a sail, a sail, a flowering isle, ere long? - But, O my heart, hear thou, hear thou the sailors' song! - -These (need I say?) belong to the earlier period, in which Mallarmé -had not yet withdrawn his light into the cloud; and to the same period -belong the prose-poems, one of which, perhaps the most exquisite, I -will translate here. - - -AUTUMN LAMENT - -"Ever since Maria left me, for another star--which? Orion, Altair, or -thou, green Venus?--I have always cherished solitude. How many long -days I have passed, alone with my cat! By _alone,_ I mean without a -material being, and my cat is a mystical companion, a spirit. I may -say, then, that I have passed long days alone with my cat, and alone, -with one of the last writers of the Roman decadence; for since the -white creature is no more, strangely and singularly, I have loved -all that may be summed up in the word: fall. Thus, in the year, my -favourite season is during those last languid summer days which come -just before the autumn; and, in the day, the hour when I take my -walk is the hour when the sun lingers before fading, with rays of -copper-yellow on the grey walls, and of copper-red on the window-panes. -And, just so, the literature from which my soul demands delight -must be the poetry dying out of the last moments of Rome, provided, -nevertheless, that it breathes nothing of the rejuvenating approach of -the Barbarians, and does not stammer the infantile Latin of the first -Christian prose. - -"I read, then, one of those beloved poems (whose streaks of rouge have -more charm for me than the fresh cheek of youth), and buried my hand -in the fur of the pure animal, when a barrel-organ began to sing, -languishingly and melancholy, under my window. It played in the long -alley of poplars, whose leaves seem mournful to me even in spring, -since Maria passed that way with the tapers, for the last time. Yes, -sad people's instrument, truly: the piano glitters, the violin brings -one's torn fibres to the light, but the barrel-organ, in the twilight -of memory, has set me despairingly dreaming. While it murmured a gaily -vulgar air, such as puts mirth into the heart of the suburbs, an -old-fashioned, an empty air, how came it that its refrain went to my -very soul, and made me weep like a romantic ballad? I drank it in, and -I did not throw a penny out of the window, for fear of disturbing my -own impression, and of perceiving that the instrument was not singing -by itself." - -Between these characteristic, clear and beautiful poems, in verse and -in prose, and the opaque darkness of the later writings, come one or -two poems, perhaps the finest of all, in which already clearness is -"a secondary grace," but in which a subtle rapture finds incomparable -expression. _L'Après-midi d'un Faune_ and _Hérodiade_ have already -been introduced, in different ways, to English readers: the former by -Mr. Gosse, in a detailed analysis; the latter by a translation into -verse. And Debussy, in his new music, has taken _L'Après-midi d'un -Faune_ almost for his new point of departure, interpreting it, at -all events, faultlessly. In these two poems I find Mallarmé at the -moment when his own desire achieves itself; when he attains Wagner's -ideal, that "the most complete work of the poet should be that which, -in its final achievement, becomes a perfect music": every word is a -jewel, scattering and recapturing sudden fire, every image is a symbol, -and the whole poem is visible music. After this point began that -fatal "last period" which comes to most artists who have thought too -curiously, or dreamed too remote dreams, or followed a too wandering -beauty. Mallarmé had long been too conscious that all publication is -"almost a speculation, on one's modesty, for one's silence"; that "to -unclench the fists, breaking one's sedentary dream, for a ruffling face -to face with the idea," was after all unnecessary to his own conception -of himself, a mere way of convincing the public that one exists; and -having achieved, as he thought, "the right to abstain from doing -anything exceptional," he devoted himself, doubly, to silence. Seldom -condescending to write, he wrote now only for himself, and in a manner -which certainly saved him from intrusion. Some of Meredith's poems, -and occasional passages of his prose, can alone give in English some -faint idea of the later prose and verse of Mallarmé. The verse could -not, I think, be translated; of the prose, in which an extreme lucidity -of thought comes to us but glimmeringly through the entanglements of a -construction, part Latin, part English, I shall endeavour to translate -some fragments, in speaking of the theoretic writings, contained in the -two volumes of _Vers et Prose_ and _Divagations._ - - -3 - -It is the distinction of Mallarmé to have aspired after an impossible -liberation of the soul of literature from what is fretting and -constraining in "the body of that death," which is the mere literature -of words. Words, he has realised, are of value only as a notation of -the free breath of the spirit; words, therefore, must be employed with -an extreme care, in their choice and adjustment, in setting them to -reflect and chime upon one another; yet least of all for their own -sake, for what they can never, except by suggestion, express. "Every -soul is a melody," he has said, "which needs to be readjusted; and for -that are the flute or viol of each." The word, treated indeed with -a kind of "adoration," as he says, is so regarded in a magnificent -sense, in which it is apprehended as a living thing, itself the vision -rather than the reality; at least the philtre of the evocation. The -word, chosen as he chooses it, is for him a liberating principle, by -which the spirit is extracted from matter; takes form, perhaps assumes -immortality. Thus an artificiality, even, in the use of words, that -seeming artificiality which comes from using words as if they had -never been used before, that chimerical search after the virginity of -language, is but the paradoxical outward sign of an extreme discontent -with even the best of their service. Writers who use words fluently, -seeming to disregard their importance, do so from an unconscious -confidence in their expressiveness, which the scrupulous thinker, the -precise dreamer, can never place in the most carefully chosen among -them. To evoke, by some elaborate, instantaneous magic of language, -without the formality of an after all impossible description; to be, -rather than to express: that is what Mallarmé has consistently, and -from the first, sought in verse and prose. And he has sought this -wandering, illusive, beckoning butterfly, the soul of dreams, over -more and more entangled ground; and it has led him into the depths of -many forests, far from the sunlight. To say that he has found what he -sought is impossible; but (is it possible to avoid saying?) how heroic -a search, and what marvellous discoveries by the way! - -I think I understand, though; I cannot claim his own authority for my -supposition, the way in which Mallarmé wrote verse, and the reason -why it became more and more abstruse, more and more unintelligible. -Remember his principle: that to name is to destroy, to suggest is to -create. Note, further, that he condemns the inclusion in verse of -anything but, "for example, the horror of the forest, or the silent -thunder afloat in the leaves; not the intrinsic, dense wood of the -trees." He has received, then, a mental sensation: let it be the -horror of the forest. This sensation begins to form in his brain, -at first probably no more than a rhythm, absolutely without words. -Gradually thought begins to concentrate itself (but with an extreme -care, lest it should break the tension on which all depends) upon -the sensation, already struggling to find its own consciousness. -Delicately, stealthily, with infinitely timid precaution, words present -themselves, at first in silence. Every word seems like a desecration, -seems, the clearer it is, to throw back the original sensation farther -and farther into the darkness. But, guided always by the rhythm, -which is the executive soul (as, in Aristotle's definition, the soul -is the form of the body), words come slowly, one by one, shaping the -message. Imagine the poem already written down, at least composed. In -its very imperfection, it is clear, it shows the links by which it -has been riveted together; the whole process of its construction can -be studied. Now most writers would be content; but with Mallarmé the -work has only begun. In the final result there must be no sign of the -making, there must be only the thing made. He works over it, word by -word, changing a word here, for its colour, which is not precisely the -colour required, a word there, for the break it makes in the music. A -new image occurs to him, rarer, subtler, than the one he has used; the -image is transferred. By the time the poem has reached, as it seems -to him, a flawless unity, the steps of the progress have been only -too effectually effaced; and while the poet, who has seen the thing -from the beginning, still sees the relation of point to point, the -reader, who comes to it only in its final stage, finds himself in a not -unnatural bewilderment. Pursue this manner of writing to its ultimate -development; start with an enigma, and then withdraw the key of the -enigma; and you arrive, easily at the frozen impenetrability of those -latest sonnets, in which the absence of all punctuation is scarcely a -recognisable hindrance. - -That, I fancy to myself, was his actual way of writing; here, in what -I prefer to give as a corollary, is the theory. "Symbolist, Decadent, -or Mystic, the schools thus called by themselves, or thus hastily -labelled by our information-press, adopt, for meeting-place, the point -of an Idealism which (similarly as in fugues, in sonatas) rejects -the 'natural' materials, and, as brutal, a direct thought ordering -them; to retain no more than suggestion. To be instituted, a relation -between images, exact; and that therefrom should detach itself a third -aspect, fusible and clear, offered to the divination. Abolished, the -pretension, æsthetically an error, despite its dominion over almost all -the masterpieces, to enclose within the subtle paper other than, for -example, the horror of the forest, or the silent thunder afloat in the -leaves; not the intrinsic, dense wood of the trees. Some few bursts of -personal pride, veridically trumpeted, awaken the architecture of the -palace, alone habitable; not of stone, on which the pages would close -but ill." For example (it is his own): "I say: a flower! and out of the -oblivion to which my voice consigns every contour, so far as anything -save the known calyx, musically arises, idea, and exquisite, the one -flower absent from all bouquets." "The pure work," then, "implies the -elocutionary disappearance of the poet, who yields place to the words, -immobilised by the shock of their inequality; they take light from -mutual reflection, like an actual trail of fire over precious stones, -replacing the old lyric afflatus or the enthusiastic personal direction -of the phrase." "The verse which out of many vocables remakes an entire -word, new, unknown to the language, and as if magical, attains this -isolation of speech." Whence, it being "music which rejoins verse, -to form, since Wagner, Poetry," the final conclusion: "That we are -now precisely at the moment of seeking, before that breaking up of -the large rhythms of literature, and their scattering in articulate, -almost instrumental, nervous waves, an art which shall complete the -transposition, into the Book, of the symphony or simply recapture -our own: for, it is not in elementary sonorities of brass, strings, -wood, unquestionably, but in the intellectual word at its utmost, -that, fully and evidently, we should find, drawing to itself all the -correspondences of the universe, the supreme Music." - -Here, literally translated, in exactly the arrangement of the original, -are some passages out of the theoretic writings, which I have brought -together, to indicate what seem to me the main lines of Mallarmé's -doctrine. It is the doctrine which, as I have already said, had been -divined by Gérard de Nerval; but what, in Gérard, was pure vision, -becomes in Mallarmé a logical sequence of meditation. Mallarmé was -not a mystic, to whom anything came unconsciously; he was a thinker, -in whom an extraordinary subtlety of mind was exercised on always -explicit, though by no means the common, problems. "A seeker after -something in the world, that is there in no satisfying measure, or not -at all," he pursued his search with unwearying persistence with a sharp -mental division of dream and idea, certainly very lucid to himself, -however he may have failed to render his expression clear to others. -And I, for one, cannot doubt that he was, for the most part, entirely -right in his statement and analysis of the new conditions under which -we are now privileged or condemned to write. His obscurity was partly -his failure to carry out the spirit of his own directions; but, apart -from obscurity, which we may all be fortunate enough to escape, is it -possible for a writer, at the present day, to be quite simple, with -the old, objective simplicity, in either thought or expression? To be -_naif,_ to be archaic, is not to be either natural or simple; I affirm -that it is not natural to be what is called "natural" any longer. We -have no longer the mental attitude of those to whom a story was but a -story, and all stories good; we have realised since it was proved to -us by Poe, not merely that the age of epics is past, but that no long -poem was ever written; the finest long poem in the world being but a -series of short poems linked together by prose. And, naturally, we can -no longer write what we can no longer accept. Symbolism, implicit in -all literature from the beginning, as it is implicit in the very words -we use, comes to us now, at last quite conscious of itself, offering us -the only escape from our many imprisonments. We find a new, an older, -sense in the so worn-out forms of things; the world, which we can no -longer believe in as the satisfying material object it was to our -grandparents, becomes transfigured with a new light; words, which long -usage had darkened almost out of recognition, take fresh lustre. And -it is on the lines of that spiritualising of the word, that perfecting -of form in its capacity for allusion and suggestion, that confidence -in the eternal correspondences between the visible and the invisible -universe, which Mallarmé taught, and too intermittently practised, that -literature must now move, if it is in any sense to move forward. - - - - -PAUL VERLAINE - - -1 - -_"Bien affectueusement_ ... yours, P. Verlaine." So, in its gay and -friendly mingling of French and English, ended the last letter I had -from Verlaine. A few days afterwards came the telegram from Paris -telling me of his death, in the Rue Descartes, on that 8th January, -1896. - -"Condemned to death," as he was, in Victor Hugo's phrase of men in -general, "with a sort of indefinite reprieve," and gravely ill as I -had for some time known him to be, it was still with a shock, not only -of sorrow, but of surprise, that I heard the news of his death. He had -suffered and survived so much, and I found it so hard to associate the -idea of death with one who had always been so passionately in love with -life, more passionately in love with life than any man I ever knew. -Rest was one of the delicate privileges of life which he never loved: -he did but endure it with grumbling gaiety when a hospital-bed claimed -him. And whenever he spoke to me of the long rest which has now sealed -his eyelids, it was with a shuddering revolt from the thought of ever -going away into the cold, out of the sunshine which had been so warm -to him. With all his pains, misfortunes, and the calamities which -followed him step by step all his life, I think few men ever got so -much out of their lives, or lived so fully, so intensely, with such a -genius for living. That, indeed, is why he was a great poet. Verlaine -was a man who gave its full value to every moment, who got out of -every moment all that that moment had to give him. It was not always, -not often, perhaps, pleasure. But it was energy, the vital force of a -nature which was always receiving and giving out, never at rest, never -passive, or indifferent, or hesitating. It is impossible for me to -convey to those who did not know him any notion of how sincere he was. -The word "sincerity" seems hardly to have emphasis enough to say, in -regard to this one man, what it says, adequately enough, of others. -He sinned, and it was with all his humanity; he repented, and it was -with all his soul. And to every occurrence of the day, to every mood -of the mind, to every impulse of the creative instinct, he brought the -same unparalleled sharpness of sensation. When, in 1894, he was my -guest in London, I was amazed by the exactitude of his memory of the -mere turnings of the streets, the shapes and colours of the buildings, -which he had not seen for twenty years. He saw, he felt, he remembered, -everything, with an unconscious mental selection of the fine shades, -the essential part of things, or precisely those aspects which most -other people would pass by. - -Few poets of our time have been more often drawn, few have been easier -to draw, few have better repaid drawing, than Paul Verlaine. A face -without a beautiful line, a face all character, full of somnolence -and sudden fire, in which every irregularity was a kind of aid to -the hand, could not but tempt the artist desiring at once to render -a significant likeness and to have his own part in the creation of a -picture. Verlaine, like all men of genius, had something of the air -of the somnambulist: that profound slumber of the face, as it was in -him, with its startling awakenings. It was a face devoured by dreams, -feverish and somnolent; it had earthly passion, intellectual pride, -spiritual humility; the air of one who remembers, not without an -effort, who is listening, half distractedly to something which other -people do not hear; coming back so suddenly, and from so far, with the -relief of one who steps out of that obscure shadow into the noisier -forgetfulness of life. The eyes, often half closed, were like the eyes -of a cat between sleeping and waking; eyes in which contemplation was -"itself an act." A remarkable lithograph by Mr. Rothenstein (the face -lit by oblique eyes, the folded hands thrust into the cheek) gives with -singular truth the sensation of that restless watch on things which -this prisoner of so many chains kept without slackening. To Verlaine -every corner of the world was alive with tempting and consoling and -terrifying beauty. I have never known any one to whom the sight of the -eyes was so intense and imaginative a thing. To him, physical sight and -spiritual vision, by some strange alchemical operation of the brain, -were one. And in the disquietude of his face, which seemed to take -such close heed of things, precisely because it was sufficiently apart -from them to be always a spectator, there was a realisable process of -vision continually going on, in which all the loose ends of the visible -world were being caught up into a new mental fabric. - -And along with this fierce subjectivity, into which the egoism of -the artist entered so unconsciously, and in which it counted for so -much, there was more than the usual amount of childishness, always -in some measure present in men of genius. There was a real, almost -blithe, childishness in the way in which he would put on his "Satanic" -expression, of which it was part of the joke that every one should not -be quite in the secret. It was a whim of this kind which made him put -at the beginning of _Romances sans Paroles_ that very criminal image -of a head which had so little resemblance with even the shape, indeed -curious enough, of his actual head. "Born under the sign of Saturn," -as he no doubt was, with that "old prisoner's head" of which he tells -us, it was by his amazing faculty for a simple kind of happiness that -he always impressed me. I have never seen so cheerful an invalid as -he used to be at that hospital, the Hôpital Saint-Louis, where at one -time I used to go and see him every week. His whole face seemed to -chuckle as he would tell me, in his emphatic, confiding way, everything -that entered into his head; the droll stories cut short by a groan, a -lamentation, a sudden fury of reminiscence, at which his face would -cloud or convulse, the wild eyebrows slanting up and down; and then, -suddenly, the good laugh would be back, clearing the air. No one was -ever so responsive to his own moods as Verlaine, and with him every -mood had the vehemence of a passion. Is not his whole art a delicate -waiting upon moods, with that perfect confidence in them as they are, -which it is a large part of ordinary education to discourage in us, -and a large part of experience to repress? But to Verlaine, happily, -experience taught nothing; or rather, it taught him only to cling the -more closely to those moods in whose succession lies the more intimate -part of our spiritual life. It is no doubt well for society that man -should learn by experience; for the artist the benefit is doubtful. -The artist, it cannot be too clearly understood, has no more part in -society than a monk in domestic life: he cannot be judged by its rules, -he can be neither praised not blamed for his acceptance or rejection -of its conventions. Social rules are made by normal people for normal -people, and the man of genius is fundamentally abnormal. It is the poet -against society, society against the poet, a direct antagonism; the -shock of which, however, it is often possible to avoid by a compromise. -So much licence is allowed on the one side, so much liberty foregone -on the other. The consequences are not always of the best, art being -generally the loser. But there are certain natures to which compromise -is impossible; and the nature of Verlaine was one of these natures. - -"The soul of an immortal child," says one who has understood him better -than others, Charles Morice, "that is the soul of Verlaine, with -all the privileges and all the perils of so being; with the sudden -despair so easily distracted, the vivid gaieties without a cause, -the excessive suspicions and the excessive confidences, the whims so -easily outwearied, the deaf and blind infatuations, with, especially, -the unceasing renewal of impressions in the incorruptible integrity -of personal vision and sensation. Years, influences, teachings, may -pass over a temperament such as this, may irritate it, may fatigue -it; transform it, never--never so much as to alter that particular -unity which consists in a dualism, in the division of forces between -the longing after what is evil and the adoration of what is good; or -rather, in the antagonism of spirit and flesh. Other men 'arrange' -their lives, take sides, follow one direction; Verlaine hesitates -before a choice, which seems to him monstrous, for, with the integral -_naïveté_ of irrefutable human truth, he cannot resign himself, however -strong may be the doctrine, however enticing may be the passion, to the -necessity of sacrificing one to the other, and from one to the other he -oscillates without a moment's repose." - -It is in such a sense as this that Verlaine may be said to have -learnt nothing from experience, in the sense that he learnt everything -direct from life, and without comparing day with day. That the -exquisite artist of the _Fêtes Galantes_ should become the great -poet of _Sagesse,_ it was needful that things should have happened -as disastrously as they did: the marriage with the girl-wife, that -brief idyl, the passion for drink, those other forbidden passions, -vagabondage, an attempted crime, the eighteen months of prison, -conversion; followed, as it had to be, by relapse, bodily sickness, -poverty, beggary almost, a lower and lower descent into mean -distresses. It was needful that all this should happen, in order that -the spiritual vision should eclipse the material vision; but it was -needful that all this should happen in vain, so far as the conduct of -life was concerned. Reflection, in Verlaine, is pure waste; it is the -speech of the soul and the speech of the eyes, that we must listen to -in his verse, never the speech of the reason. And I call him fortunate -because, going through life with a great unconsciousness of what most -men spend their lives in considering, he was able to abandon himself -entirely to himself, to his unimpeded vision, to his unchecked emotion, -to the passionate sincerity which in him was genius. - - -2 - -French poetry, before Verlaine, was an admirable vehicle for a really -fine, a really poetical, kind of rhetoric. With Victor Hugo, for the -first time since Ronsard (the two or three masterpieces of Ronsard -and his companions) it had learnt to sing; with Baudelaire it had -invented a new vocabulary for the expression of subtle, often perverse, -essentially modern emotion and sensation. But with Victor Hugo, -with Baudelaire, we are still under the dominion of rhetoric. "Take -eloquence, and wring its neck!" said Verlaine in his _Art Poétique;_ -and he showed, by writing it, that French verse could be written -without rhetoric. It was partly from his study of English models that -he learnt the secret of liberty in verse, but it was much more a secret -found by the way, in the mere endeavour to be absolutely sincere, to -express exactly what he saw, to give voice to his own temperament, in -which intensity of feeling seemed to find its own expression, as if by -accident. _L'art, mes enfants, c'est d'être absolument soi-même,_ he -tells us in one of his later poems; and, with such a personality as -Verlaine's to express, what more has art to do, if it would truly, and -in any interesting manner, hold the mirror up to nature? - -For, consider the natural qualities which this man had for the task of -creating a new poetry. "Sincerity, and the impression of the moment -followed to the letter": that is how he defined his theory of style, in -an article written about himself. - - Car nous voulons la nuance encor, - Pas la couleur, rien que la nuance! - -as he cries, in his famous _Art Poétique._ Take, then, his -susceptibility of the senses, an emotional susceptibility not less -delicate; a life sufficiently troubled to draw out every emotion of -which he was capable, and, with it, that absorption in the moment, -that inability to look before or after; the need to love and the need -to confess, each a passion; an art of painting the fine shades of -landscape, of evoking atmosphere, which can be compared only with the -art of Whistler; a simplicity of language which is the direct outcome -of a simplicity of temperament, with just enough consciousness of -itself for a final elegance; and, at the very depth of his being, an -almost fierce humility, by which the passion of love, after searching -furiously through all his creatures, finds God by the way, and kneels -in the dust before him. Verlaine was never a theorist: he left theories -to Mallarmé. He had only his divination; and he divined that poetry, -always desiring that miracles should happen, had never waited patiently -enough upon the miracle. It was by that proud and humble mysticism of -his temperament that he came to realise how much could be done by, In a -sense, trying to do nothing. - -And then: _De la musique avant toute chose; De la musique encore et -toujours!_ There are poems of Verlaine which go as far as verse can -go to become pure music, the voice of a bird with a human soul. It -is part of his simplicity, his divine childishness, that he abandons -himself, at times, to the song which words begin to sing in the air, -with the same wise confidence with which he abandons himself to the -other miracles about him. He knows that words are living things, which -we have not created, and which go their way without demanding of us -the right to live. He knows that words are suspicious, not without -their malice, and that they resist mere force with the impalpable -resistance of fire or water. They are to be caught only with guile or -with trust. Verlaine has both, and words become Ariel to him. They -bring him not only that submission of the slave which they bring to -others, but all the soul, and in a happy bondage. They transform -themselves for him into music, colour, and shadow; a disembodied music, -diaphanous colours, luminous shadow. They serve him with so absolute a -self-negation that he can write _romances sans paroles,_ songs almost -without words, in which scarcely a sense of the interference of human -speech remains. The ideal of lyric poetry, certainly, is to be this -passive, flawless medium for the deeper consciousness of things, the -mysterious voice of that mystery which lies about us, out of which we -have come, and into which we shall return. It is not without reason -that we cannot analyse a perfect lyric. - -With Verlaine the sense of hearing and the sense of sight are almost -interchangeable: he paints with sound, and his line and atmosphere -become music. It was with the most precise accuracy that Whistler -applied the terms of music to his painting, for painting, when it aims -at being the vision of reality, _pas la couleur, rien que la nuance,_ -passes almost into the condition of music. Verlaine's landscape -painting is always an evocation, in which outline is lost in atmosphere. - - C'est des beaux yeux derrière des voiles, - C'est le grand jour tremblant de midi, - C'est, par un ciel d'automne attiédi, - Le bleu fouillis des claires étoiles! - -He was a man, certainly, "for whom the visible world existed," but for -whom it existed always as a vision. He absorbed it through all his -senses, as the true mystic absorbs the divine beauty. And so he created -in verse a new voice for nature, full of the humble ecstasy with which -he saw, listened, accepted. - - Cette âme qui se lamente - En cette plaine dormante - C'est la nôtre, n'est-ce pas? - La mienne, dis, et la tienne, - Dont s'exhale l'humble antienne - Par ce tiède soir, tout has? - -And with the same attentive simplicity with which he found words -for the sensations of hearing and the sensations of sight, he found -words for the sensations of the soul, for the fine shades of feeling. -From the moment when his inner life may be said to have begun, he -was occupied with the task of an unceasing confession, in which one -seems to overhear him talking to himself, in that vague, preoccupied -way which he often had. Here again are words which startle one by -their delicate resemblance to thoughts, by their winged flight from -so far, by their alighting so close. The verse murmurs, with such -an ingenuous confidence, such intimate secrets. That "setting free" -of verse, which is one of the achievements of Verlaine, was itself -mainly an attempt to be more and more sincere, a way of turning poetic -artifice to new account, by getting back to nature itself, hidden away -under the eloquent rhetoric of Hugo, Baudelaire, and the Parnassians. -In the devotion of rhetoric to either beauty or truth, there is a -certain consciousness of an audience, of an external judgment: rhetoric -would convince, be admired. It is the very essence of poetry to be -unconscious of anything between its own moment of flight and the -supreme beauty which it will never attain. Verlaine taught French -poetry that wise and subtle unconsciousness. It was in so doing that -he "fused his personality," in the words of Verhaeren, "so profoundly -with beauty, that he left upon it the imprint of a new and henceforth -eternal attitude." - - -3 - -_J'ai la fureur d'aimer,_ says Verlaine, in a passage of very personal -significance. - - J'ai la fureur d'aimer. Mon cœur si faible est fou. - N'importe quand, n'importe quel et n'importe où, - Qu'un éclair de beauté, de vertu, de vaillance, - Luise, il s'y précipite, il y vole, il y lance, - Et, le temps d'une étreinte, il embrasse cent fois - L'être ou l'objet qu'il a poursuivi de son choix; - Puis, quand l'illusion a replié son aile, - Il revient triste et seul bien souvent, mais fidèle, - Et laissant aux ingrats quelque chose de lui, - Sang ou chair.... - J'ai la fureur d'aimer. Qu'y faire? Ah, laissez faire! - -And certainly this admirable, and supremely dangerous, quality was -at the root of Verlaine's nature. Instinctive, unreasoning as he -was, entirely at the mercy of the emotion or impression which, for -the moment, had seized upon him, it was inevitable that he should -be completely at the mercy of the most imperious of instincts, of -passions, and of intoxications. And he had the simple and ardent -nature, in this again consistently childlike, to which love, some kind -of affection, given or returned, is not the luxury, the exception, -which it is to many natures, but a daily necessity. To such a -temperament there may or may not be the one great passion; there -will certainly be many passions. And in Verlaine I find that single, -childlike necessity of loving and being loved, all through his life -and on every page of his works; I find it, unchanged in essence, but -constantly changing form, in his chaste and unchaste devotions to -women, in his passionate friendships with men, in his supreme mystical -adoration of God. - -To turn from _La Bonne Chanson,_ written for a wedding present to a -young wife, to _Chansons pour Elle,_ written more than twenty years -later, in dubious honour of a middle-aged mistress, is to travel a long -road, the hard, long road which Verlaine had travelled during those -years. His life was ruinous, a disaster, more sordid perhaps than the -life of any other poet; and he could write of it, from a hospital-bed, -with this quite sufficient sense of its deprivations. "But all the -same, it is hard," he laments, in _Mes Hôpitaux,_ "after a life of -work, set off, I admit, with accidents in which I have had a large -share, catastrophes perhaps vaguely premeditated--it is hard, I say, at -forty-seven years of age, in full possession of all the reputation (of -the _success,_ to use the frightful current phrase) to which my highest -ambitions could aspire--hard, hard, hard indeed, worse than hard, to -find myself--good God!--to find myself _on the streets,_ and to have -nowhere to lay my head and support an ageing body save the pillows and -the _menus_ of a public charity, even now uncertain, and which might at -any moment be withdrawn--God forbid!--without, apparently, the fault of -any one, oh! not even, and above all, not mine." Yet, after all, these -sordid miseries, this poor man's vagabondage, all the misfortunes of -one certainly "irreclaimable," on which so much stress has been laid, -alike by friends and by foes, are externalities; they are not the man; -the man, the eternal lover, passionate and humble, remains unchanged, -while only his shadow wanders, from morning to night of the long day. - -The poems to Rimbaud, to Lucien Létinois, to others, the whole volume -of _Dédicaces,_ cover perhaps as wide a range of sentiment as _La Bonne -Chanson_ and _Chansons pour Elle._ The poetry of friendship has never -been sung with such plaintive sincerity, such simple human feeling, as -in some of these poems, which can only be compared, in modern poetry, -with a poem for which Verlaine had a great admiration, Tennyson's _In -Memoriam._ Only with Verlaine, the thing itself, the affection or the -regret, is everything; there is no room for meditation over destiny, -or search for a problematical consolation. Other poems speak a more -difficult language, in which, doubtless, _l'ennui de vivre avec les -gens et dans les choses_ counts for much, and _la fureur d'aimer_ for -more. - -In spite of the general impression to the contrary, an impression -which by no means displeased him himself, I must contend that the -sensuality of Verlaine, brutal as it could sometimes be, was after -all simple rather than complicated, instinctive rather than perverse, -in the poetry of Baudelaire, with which the poetry of Verlaine is so -often compared, there is a deliberate science of sensual perversity -which has something almost monachal in its accentuation of vice with -horror, in its passionate devotion to passions. Baudelaire brings every -complication of taste, the exasperation of; perfumes, the irritant of -cruelty, the very odours and colours of corruption, to the creation and -adornment of a sort of religion, in which an eternal mass is served -before a veiled altar. There is no confession, no absolution, not a -prayer is permitted which is not set down in the ritual. With Verlaine, -however often love may pass into sensuality, to whatever length -sensuality may be hurried, sensuality is never more than the malady -of love. It is love desiring the absolute, seeking in vain, seeking -always, and, finally, out of the depths, finding God. - -Verlaine's conversion took place while he was in prison, during those -solitary eighteen months in company with his thoughts, that enforced -physical inactivity, which could but concentrate his whole energy on -the only kind of sensation then within his capacity, the sensations of -the soul and of the conscience. With that promptitude of abandonment -which was his genius, he grasped feverishly at the succour of God and -the Church, he abased himself before the immaculate purity of the -Virgin. He had not, like others who have risen from the same depths to -the same height of humiliation, to despoil his nature of its pride, to -conquer his intellect, before he could become _l'enfant vêtu de laine -et d'innocence._ All that was simple, humble, childlike in him accepted -that humiliation with the loving child's joy in penitence; all that was -ardent, impulsive, indomitable in him burst at once into a flame of -adoration. - -He realised the great secret of the Christian mystics: that it is -possible to love God with an extravagance of the whole being, to which -the love of the creature cannot attain. All love is an attempt to break -through the loneliness of individuality, to fuse oneself with something -not oneself, to give and to receive, in all the warmth of natural -desire, that inmost element which remains, so cold and so invincible, -in the midst of the soul. It is a desire of the infinite in humanity, -and, as humanity has its limits, it can but return sadly upon itself -when that limit is reached. Thus human love is not only an ecstasy but -a despair, and the more profound a despair the more ardently it is -returned. - -But the love of God, considered only from its human aspect, contains at -least the illusion of infinity. To love God is to love the absolute, -so far as the mind of man can conceive the absolute, and thus, in a -sense, to love God is to possess the absolute, for love has already -possessed that which it apprehends. What the earthly lover realises to -himself as the image of his beloved is, after all, his own vision of -love, not her. God must remain _deus absconditus,_ even to love; but -the lover, incapable of possessing infinity, will have possessed all -of infinity of which he is capable. And his ecstasy will be flawless. -The human mind, meditating on infinity, can but discover perfection -beyond perfection; for it is impossible to conceive of limitation in -any aspect of that which has once been conceived as infinite. In place -of that deception which comes from the shock of a boundary-line beyond -which humanity cannot conceive of humanity, there is only a divine rage -against the limits of human perception, which by their own failure -seem at last to limit for us the infinite itself. For once, love finds -itself bounded only by its own capacity; so far does the love of God -exceed the love of the creature, and so far would it exceed that love -if God did not exist. - -But if He does exist! if, outside humanity, a conscient, eternal -perfection, who has made the world in his image, loves the humanity He -has made, and demands love in return! If the spirit of his love is as -a breath over the world, suggesting, strengthening, the love which it -desires, seeking man that man may seek God, itself the impulse which it -humbles itself to accept at man's hands; if indeed, - - Mon Dieu m'a dit: mon fils, il faut m'aimer; - -how much more is this love of God, in its inconceivable acceptance -and exchange, the most divine, the only unending intoxication, in -the world! Well, it is this realised sense of communion, point by -point realised, and put into words, more simple, more human, more -instinctive than any poet since the mediæval mystics has found for the -delights of this intercourse, that we find in _Sagesse,_ and in the -other religious poems of Verlaine. - -But, with Verlaine, the love of God is not merely a rapture, it is -a thanksgiving for forgiveness. Lying in wait behind all the fair -appearances of the world, he remembers the old enemy, the flesh; and -the sense of sin (that strange paradox of the reason) is childishly -strong in him. He laments his offence, he sees not only the love but -the justice of God, and it seems to him, as in a picture, that the -little hands of the Virgin are clasped in petition for him. Verlaine's -religion is the religion of the Middle Ages. _Je suis catholique,_ he -said to me, _mais ... catholique du moyen-âge!_ He might have written -the ballad which Villon made for his mother, and with the same visual -sense of heaven and hell. Like a child, he tells his sins over, -promises that he has put them behind him, and finds such _naïve,_ human -words to express his gratitude. The Virgin is really, to him, mother -and friend; he delights in the simple, peasant humanity, still visible -in her who is also the Mystical Rose, the Tower of Ivory, the Gate of -Heaven, and who now extends her hands, in the gesture of pardon, from a -throne only just lower than the throne of God. - - -4 - -Experience, I have said, taught Verlaine nothing; religion had no more -stable influence upon his conduct then experience. In that apology for -himself which he wrote under the anagram of "Pauvre Lelian," he has -stated the case with his usual sincerity. "I believe," he says, "and I -sin in thought as in action; I believe, and I repent in thought, if no -more. Or again, I believe, and I am a good Christian at this moment; I -believe, and I am a bad Christian the instant after. The remembrance, -the hope, the invocation of a sin delights me, with or without remorse, -sometimes under the very form of sin, and hedged with all its natural -consequences; more often--so strong, so natural and _animal,_ are -flesh and blood--just in the same manner as the remembrances, hopes, -invocations of any carnal freethinker. This delight, I, you, some one -else, writers, it pleases us to put to paper and publish more or less -well expressed: we consign it, in short, into literary form, forgetting -all religious ideas, or not letting one of them escape us. Can any one -in good faith condemn us as poet? A hundred times no." And, indeed, I -would echo, a hundred times no! It is just this apparent complication -of what is really a great simplicity which gives its singular value to -the poetry of Verlaine, permitting it to sum up in itself the whole -paradox of humanity, and especially the weak, passionate, uncertain, -troubled century to which we belong, in which so many doubts, -negations, and distresses seem, now more than ever, to be struggling -towards at least an ideal of spiritual consolation. Verlaine is the -poet of these weaknesses and of that ideal. - -[_See also account given in "Bibliography and Notes" page_ 351.] - - - - -I. JORIS-KARL HUYSMANS - - -The novels of Huysmans, however we may regard them as novels, -are, at all events, the sincere and complete expression of a very -remarkable personality. From _Marthe_ to _Là-Bas_ every story, every -volume, disengages the same atmosphere--the atmosphere of a London -November, when mere existence is a sufficient burden, and the little -miseries of life loom up through the fog into a vague and formidable -grotesqueness. Here, for once, is a pessimist whose philosophy is -mere sensation--and sensation, after all, is the one certainty in -a world which may be well or ill arranged, for ultimate purposes, -but which is certainly, for each of us, what each of us feels it to -be. To Huysmans the world appears to be a profoundly uncomfortable, -unpleasant, ridiculous place, with a certain solace in various forms -of art, and certain possibilities of at least temporary escape. Part -of his work presents to us a picture of ordinary life as he conceives -it, in its uniform trivial wretchedness; in another part he has -made experiment in directions which have seemed to promise escape, -relief; in yet other portions he has allowed himself the delight of -his sole enthusiasm, the enthusiasm of art. He himself would be the -first to acknowledge--indeed, practically, he has acknowledged that -the particular way in which he sees life is a matter of personal -temperament and constitution, a matter of nerves. The Goncourts have -never tired of insisting on the fact of their _névrose,_ of pointing -out its importance in connection with the form and structure of their -work, their touch on style, even. To them the _maladie fin de siècle_ -has come delicately, as to the chlorotic fine ladies of the Faubourg -Saint-Germain: it has sharpened their senses to a point of morbid -acuteness, it has given their work a certain feverish beauty. To -Huysmans it has given the exaggerated horror of whatever is ugly and -unpleasant, with the fatal instinct of discovering, the fatal necessity -of contemplating, every flaw and every discomfort that a somewhat -imperfect world can offer for inspection. It is the transposition -of the ideal. Relative values are lost, for it is the sense of the -disagreeable only that is heightened; and the world, in this strange -disorder of vision, assumes an aspect which can only be compared with -that of a drop of impure water under the microscope. "Nature seen -through a temperament" is Zola's definition of all art. Nothing, -certainly, could be more exact and expressive as a definition of the -art of Huysmans. - -To realise how faithfully and how completely Huysmans has revealed -himself in all he has written, it is necessary to know the man. "He -gave me the impression of a cat," some interviewer once wrote of him; -"courteous, perfectly polite, almost amiable, but all nerves, ready to -shoot out his claws at the least word." And indeed, there is something -of his favourite animal about him. The face is grey, wearily alert, -with a look of benevolent malice. At first sight it is commonplace, -the features are ordinary, one seems to have seen it at the Bourse or -the Stock Exchange. But gradually that strange, unvarying expression, -that look of benevolent malice, grows upon you as the influence of the -man makes itself felt. I have seen Huysmans in his office--he is an -employé in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a model employé; I have -seen him in a café, in various houses; but I always see him in memory -as I used to see him at the house of the bizarre Madame X. He leans -back on the sofa, rolling a cigarette between his thin, expressive -fingers, looking at no one and at nothing, while Madame X moves about -with solid vivacity in the midst of her extraordinary menagerie of -_bric-à-brac._ The spoils of all the world are there, in that ncredibly -tiny _salon;_ they lie underfoot, they climb up walls, they cling to -screens, brackets, and tables; one of your elbows menaces a Japanese -toy, the other a Dresden china shepherdess; all the colours of the -rainbow clash in a barbaric discord of notes. And in a corner of this -fantastic room, Huysmans lies back indifferently on the sofa, with the -air of one perfectly resigned to the boredom of life. Something is -said by my learned friend who is to write for the new periodical, or -perhaps it is the young editor of the new periodical who speaks, or -(if that were not impossible) the taciturn Englishman who accompanies -me; and Huysmans, without looking up, and without taking the trouble -to speak very distinctly, picks up the phrase, transforms it, more -likely transpierces it, in a perfectly turned sentence, a phrase of -impromptu elaboration. Perhaps it is only a stupid book that some one -has mentioned, or a stupid woman; as he speaks, the book looms up -before one, becomes monstrous in its dulness, a masterpiece and miracle -of imbecility; the unimportant little woman grows into a slow horror -before your eyes. It is always the unpleasant aspect of things that he -seizes, but the intensity of his revolt from that unpleasantness brings -a touch of the sublime into the very expression of his disgust. Every -sentence is an epigram, and every epigram slaughters a reputation or an -idea. He speaks with an accent as of pained surprise, an amused look of -contempt, so profound that it becomes almost pity, for human inbecility. - -Yes, that is the true Huysmans, the Huysmans of _A Rebours,_ and it is -just such surroundings that seem to bring out his peculiar quality. -With this contempt for humanity, this hatred of mediocrity, this -passion for a somewhat exotic kind of modernity, an artist who is so -exclusively an artist was sure, one day or another, to produce a work -which, being produced to please himself, and being entirely typical -of himself, would be, in a way, the quintessence of contemporary -Decadence. And it is precisely such a book that Huysmans has written, -in the extravagant, astonishing _A Rebours._ All his other books -are a sort of unconscious preparation for this one book, a sort of -inevitable and scarcely necessary sequel to it. They range themselves -along the line of a somewhat erratic development, from Baudelaire, -through Goncourt, by way of Zola, to the surprising originality of so -disconcerting an exception to any and every order of things. - -The descendant of a long line of Dutch painters--one of whom, Cornelius -Huysmans, has a certain fame among the lesser landscape men of the -great period--Joris-Karl Huysmans was born at Paris, February 5, 1848. -His first book, _Le Drageoir à Epices,_ published at the age of -twenty-six, is a _pasticcio_ of prose poems, done after Baudelaire, of -little sketches, done after Dutch artists, together with a few studies -of Parisian landscape, done after nature. It shows us the careful, -laboured work of a really artistic temperament; it betrays here and -there, the spirit of acrimonious observation which is to count for so -much with Huysmans--in the crude malice of _L'Extase,_ for example, in -the notation of the "richness of tone," the "superb colouring," of an -old drunkard. And one sees already something of the novelty and the -precision of his description, the novelty and the unpleasantness of the -subjects which he chooses to describe, in this vividly exact picture -of the carcass of a cow hung up outside a butcher's shop: "As in a -hothouse, a marvellous vegetation flourished in the carcass. Veins shot -out on every side like trails of bind-weed; dishevelled branch-work -extended itself along the body, an efflorescence of entrails unfurled -their violet-tinted corollas, and big clusters of fat stood out, a -sharp white, against the red medley of quivering flesh." - -In _Marthe: histoire d'une fille,_ which followed in 1876, two years -later, Huysmans is almost as far from actual achievement as in _Le -Drageoir à Epices,_ but the book, in its crude attempt to deal -realistically, and somewhat after the manner of Goncourt, with the life -of a prostitute of the lowest depths, marks a considerable advance upon -the somewhat casual experiments of his earlier manner. It is important -to remember that _Marthe_ preceded _La Fille Élisa_ and _Nana._ "I -write what I see, what I feel, and what I have experienced," says the -brief and defiant preface, "and I write it as well as I can: that is -all. This explanation is not an excuse, it is simply the statement of -the aim that I pursue in art." Explanation or excuse notwithstanding, -the book was forbidden to be sold in France. It is Naturalism in its -earliest and most pitiless stage--Naturalism which commits the error -of evoking no sort of interest in this unhappy creature who rises a -little from her native gutter, only to fall back more woefully into the -gutter again. Goncourt's Élisa at least interests us; Zola's Nana at -all events appeals to our senses. But Marthe is a mere document, like -her story. Notes have been taken--no doubt _sur le vif_--they have been -strung together, and here they are with only an interesting brutality, -a curious sordidness to note, in these descriptions that do duty for -psychology and incident alike, in the general flatness of character, -the general dislocation of episode. - -_Les Sœurs Vatard,_ published in 1879, and the short story _Sac au -Dos,_ which appeared in 1880 in the famous Zolaist manifesto, _Les -Soirées de Médan,_ show the influence of _Les Rougon-Macquart_ rather -than of _Germinie Lacerteux._ For the time the "formula" of Zola -has been accepted: the result is, a remarkable piece of work, but a -story without a story, a frame without a picture. With Zola, there -is at all events a beginning and an end, a chain of events, a play -of character upon incident. But in _Les Sœurs Vatard_ there is no -reason for the narrative ever beginning or ending; there are miracles -of description--the workroom, the rue de Sèvres, the locomotives, the -_Foire du pain d'épice_--which lead to nothing; there are interiors, -there are interviews, there are the two work-girls, Céline and Désirée, -and their lovers; there is what Zola himself described as _tout -ce milieu ouvrier, ce coin de misère et d'ignorance, de tranquille -ordure et d'air naturellement empesté._ And with it all there is a -heavy sense of stagnancy, a dreary lifelessness. All that is good in -the book reappears, in vastly better company, in _En Ménage_ (1881), -a novel which is, perhaps, more in the direct line of heritage from -_L'Education Sentimentale_--the starting-point of the Naturalistic -novel--than any other novel of the Naturalists. - -_En Ménage_ is the story of _"Monsieur Tout-le-monde,_ an insignificant -personality, one of those poor creatures who have not even the -supreme consolation of being able to complain of any injustice in -their fate, for an injustice supposes at all events a misunderstood -merit, a force." André is the reduction to the bourgeois formula of -the invariable hero of Huysmans. He is just enough removed from the -commonplace to suffer from it with acuteness. He cannot get on either -with or without a woman in his establishment. Betrayed by his wife, he -consoles himself with a mistress, and finally goes back to the wife. -And the moral of it all is: "Let us be stupidly comfortable, if we -can, in any way we can: but it is almost certain that we cannot." In -_A Vau-l'Eau,_ a less interesting story which followed _En Ménage,_ -the daily misery of the respectable M. Folantin, the government -employé, consists in the impossible search for a decent restaurant, -a satisfactory dinner: for M. Folantin, too, there is only the same -counsel of a desperate, an inevitable resignation. Never has the -intolerable monotony of small inconveniences been so scrupulously, so -unsparingly chronicled, as in these two studies in the heroic degree -of the commonplace. It happens to André, at a certain epoch in his -life, to take back an old servant who had left him many years before. -He finds that she has exactly the same defects as before, and "to find -them there again," comments the author, "did not displease him. He had -been expecting them all the time, he saluted them as old acquaintances, -yet with a certain surprise, notwithstanding, to see them neither -grown nor diminished. He noted for himself with satisfaction that -the stupidity of his servant had remained stationary." On another -page, referring to the inventor of cards, Huysmans defines him as one -who "did something towards suppressing the free exchange of human -imbecility." Having to say in passing that a girl has returned from a -ball, "she was at home again," he observes, "after the half-dried sweat -of the waltzes." In this invariably sarcastic turn of the phrase, this -absoluteness of contempt, this insistence on the disagreeable, we find -the note of Huysmans, particularly at this point in his career, when, -like Flaubert, he forced himself to contemplate and to analyse the more -mediocre manifestations of _la bêtise humaine._ - -There is a certain perversity in this furious contemplation of -stupidity, this fanatical insistence on the exasperating attraction of -the sordid and the disagreeable; and it is by such stages that we come -to _A Rebours._ But on the way we have to note a volume of _Croquis -Parisiens_ (1880), in which the virtuoso who is a part of the artist -in Huysmans has executed some of his most astonishing feats; and a -volume on L'_Art Moderne_ (1883), in which the most modern of artists -in literature has applied himself to the criticism--the revelation, -rather--of modernity in art. In the latter, Huysmans was the first -to declare the supremacy of Degas--"the greatest artist that we -possess to-day in France"--while announcing with no less fervour the -remote, reactionary, and intricate genius of Gustave Moreau. He was -the first to discover Raffaëlli, "the painter of poor people and the -open sky--a sort of Parisian Millet," as he called him; the first to -discover Forain, _"le véritable peintre de la fille"_; the first to -discover Odilon Redon, to do justice to Pissaro and Paul Gauguin. No -literary artist since Baudelaire has made so valuable a contribution -to art criticism, and the _Curiosités Esthétiques_ are, after all, -less exact in their actual study, less revolutionary, and less really -significant in their critical judgments, than L'_Art Moderne._ The -_Croquis Parisiens,_ which, in its first edition, was illustrated -by etchings of Forain and Raffaëlli, is simply the attempt to do in -words what those artists have done in aquafortis or in pastel. There -are the same Parisian types--the omnibus-conductor, the washerwoman, -the man who sells hot chestnuts--the same impressions of a sick and -sorry landscape, La Bièvre, for preference, in all its desolate and -lamentable attraction; there is a marvellously minute series of -studies of that typically Parisian music-hall, the Folies-Bergère. -Huysmans' faculty of description is here seen at its fullest stretch of -agility; precise, suggestive, with all the outline and colour of actual -brush-work, it might even be compared with the art of Degas, only there -is just that last touch wanting, that breath of palpitating life, which -is what we always get in Degas, what we never get in Huysmans. - -In _L'Art Moderne,_ speaking of the water-colours of Forain, Huysmans -attributes to them "a specious and _cherché_ art, demanding, for its -appreciation, a certain initiation, a certain special sense." To -realise the full value, the real charm, of _A Rebours,_ some such -initiation might be deemed necessary. In its fantastic unreality, its -exquisite artificiality, it is the natural sequel of _En Ménage_ and -_A Vau-l'Eau,_ which are so much more acutely sordid than the most -sordid kind of real life; it is the logical outcome of that hatred -and horror of human mediocrity, of the mediocrity of daily existence, -which we have seen to be the special form of Huysmans' _névrose._ The -motto, taken from a thirteenth-century mystic, Ruysbroeck the Admirable, -is a cry for escape, for the "something in the world that is there in -no satisfying measure, or not at all": _Il faut que je me réjouisse -au-dessus du temps ... quoique le monde ait horreur de ma joie et -que sa grossièreté ne sache pas ce que je veux dire._ And the book -is the history of a _Thebaïde raffinée_--a voluntary exile from the -world in a new kind of "Palace of Art." Des Esseintes, the vague but -typical hero, is one of those half-pathological cases which help us to -understand the full meaning of the word _décadence,_ which they partly -represent. The last descendant of an ancient family, his impoverished -blood tainted by all sorts of excesses, Des Esseintes finds himself -at thirty _sur le chemin, dégrisé, seul, abominablement lassé._ He -has already realised that "the world is divided, in great part, into -swaggerers and simpletons." His one desire is to "hide himself away, -far from the world, in some retreat, where he might deaden the sound -of the loud rumbling of inflexible life, as one covers the street with -straw, for sick people." This retreat he discovers, just far enough -from Paris to be safe from disturbance, just near enough to be saved -from the nostalgia of the unattainable. He succeeds in making his house -a paradise of the artificial, choosing the tones of colour that go -best with candle-light, for it need scarcely be said that Des Esseintes -has effected a simple transposition of night and day. His disappearance -from the world has been complete; it seems to him that the "comfortable -desert" of his exile need never cease to be just such a luxurious -solitude; it seems to him that he has attained his desire, that he has -attained to happiness. - -Disturbing physical symptoms harass him from time to time, but they -pass. It is an effect of nerves that now and again he is haunted by -remembrance; the recurrence of a perfume, the reading of a book, brings -back a period of life when his deliberate perversity was exercised -actively in matters of the senses. There are his fantastic banquets, -his fantastic amours: the _repas de deuil,_ Miss Urania the acrobat, -the episode of the ventriloquist-woman and the reincarnation of the -Sphinx and the Chimæra of Flaubert, the episode of the boy _chez_ -Madame Laure. A casual recollection brings up the schooldays of his -childhood with the Jesuits, and with that the beliefs of childhood, -the fantasies of the Church, the Catholic abnegation of the _Imitatio_ -joining so strangely with the final philosophy of Schopenhauer. -At times his brain is haunted by social theories--his dull hatred -of the ordinary in life taking form in the region of ideas. But in -the main he feeds himself, with something of the satisfaction of -success, on the strange food for the sensations with which he has so -laboriously furnished himself. There are his books, and among these a -special library of the Latin writers of the Decadence. Exasperated by -Virgil, profoundly contemptuous of Horace, he tolerates Lucan (which -is surprising), adores Petronius (as well he might), and delights -in the neologisms and the exotic novelty of Apuleius. His curiosity -extends to the later Christian poets--from the coloured verse of -Claudian down to the verse which is scarcely verse of the incoherent -ninth century. He is, of course, an amateur of exquisite printing, of -beautiful bindings, and possesses an incomparable Baudelaire _(édition -tirée à un exemplaire),_ a unique Mallarmé. Catholicism being the -adopted religion of the Decadence--for its venerable age, valuable in -such matters as the age of an old wine, its vague excitation of the -senses, its mystical picturesqueness--Des Esseintes has a curious -collection of the later Catholic literature, where Lacordaire and -the Comte de Falloux, Veuillot and Ozanam, find their place side by -side with the half-prophetic, half-ingenious Hello, the amalgam of a -monstrous mysticism and a casuistical sensuality, Barbey d'Aurevilly. -His collection of "profane" writers is small, but it is selected for -the qualities of exotic charm that have come to be his only care in -art--for the somewhat diseased, or the somewhat artificial beauty -that alone can strike, a responsive thrill from his exacting nerves. -"Considering within himself, he realised that a work of art, in order -to attract him, must come to him with that quality of strangeness -demanded by Edgar Poe; but he fared yet further along this route, -and sought for all the Byzantine flora of the brain, for complicated -deliquescences of style; he required a troubling indecision over which -he could muse, fashioning it after his will to more of vagueness or -of solid form, according to the state of his mind at the moment. He -delighted in a work of art both for what it was in itself and for -what it could lend him; he would fain go along with it, thanks to it, -as though sustained by an adjuvant, as though borne in a vehicle, -into a sphere where his sublimated sensations would wake in him an -unaccustomed stir, the cause of which he would long and vainly seek -to determine." So he comes to care supremely for Baudelaire, "who, -more than any other, possessed the marvellous power of rendering, -with a strange sanity of expression, the most fleeting, the most -wavering morbid states of exhausted minds, of desolate souls." In -Flaubert he prefers _La Tentation de Saint-Antoine;_ in Goncourt, _La -Faustin;_ in Zola, _La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret-_ the exceptional, the -most remote and _recherché_ outcome of each temperament. And of the -three it is the novel of Goncourt that appeals to him with special -intimacy--that novel which, more than any other, seems to express, in -its exquisitely perverse charm, all that decadent civilisation of which -Des Esseintes is the type and symbol. In poetry he has discovered the -fine perfume, the evanescent charm, of Paul Verlaine, and near that -great poet (forgetting, strangely, Arthur Rimbaud) he places two poets -who are curious--the disconcerting, tumultuous Tristan Corbière, and -the painted and bejewelled Théodore Hannon. With Edgar Poe he has -the instinctive sympathy which drew Baudelaire to the enigmatically -perverse Decadent of America; he delights, sooner than all the world, -in the astonishing, unbalanced, unachieved genius of Villiers de -l'Isle-Adam. Finally, it is in Stéphane Mallarmé that he finds the -incarnation of "the decadence of a literature, irreparably affected in -its organism, weakened in its ideas by age, exhausted by the excesses -of syntax, sensitive only to the curiosity which fevers sick people, -and yet hastening to say everything, now at the end, torn by the wish -_to_ atone for all its omissions of enjoyment, to bequeath its subtlest -memories of sorrow on its death-bed." - -But it is not on books alone that Des Esseintes nurses his sick and -craving fancy. He pushes his delight in the artificial to the last -limits, and diverts himself with a bouquet of jewels, a concert of -flowers, an orchestra of liqueurs, an orchestra of perfumes. In flowers -he prefers the real flowers that imitate artificial ones. It is the -monstrosities of nature, the offspring of unnatural adulteries, that -he cherishes in the barbarically coloured flowers, the plants with -barbaric names, the carnivorous plants of the Antilles--morbid horrors -of vegetation, chosen, not for their beauty, but for their strangeness. -And his imagination plays harmonies on the sense of taste, like -combinations of music, from the flute-like sweetness of anisette, the -trumpet-note of kirsch, the eager yet velvety sharpness of curaçao, the -clarionet. He combines scents, weaving them into odorous melodies, with -effects like those of the refrains of certain poems, employing, for -example, the method of Baudelaire in _L'Irréparable_ and _Le Balcon,_ -where the last line of the stanza is the echo of the first, in the -languorous progression of the melody. And above all he has his few, -carefully chosen pictures, with their diverse notes of strange beauty -and strange terror--the two Salomés of Gustave Moreau, the "Religious -Persecutions" of Jan Luyken, the opium-dreams of Odilon Redon. His -favourite artist is Gustave Moreau, and it is on this superb and -disquieting picture that he cares chiefly to dwell. - -A throne, like the high altar of a cathedral, rose beneath innumerable -arches springing from columns, thick-set as Roman pillars, enamelled -with vari-coloured bricks, set with mosaics, incrusted with lapis -lazuli and sardonyx, In a palace like the basilica of an architecture -at once Mussulman and Byzantine. In the centre of the tabernacle -surmounting the altar, fronted with rows of circular steps, sat the -Tetrarch Herod, the tiara on his head, his legs pressed together, his -hands on his knees. His face was yellow, parchment-like, annulated -with wrinkles, withered with age; his long beard floated like a white -cloud on the jewelled stars that constellated the robe of netted old -across his breast. Around this statue, motionless, frozen in the -sacred pose of a Hindu god, perfumes burned, throwing out clouds of -vapour, pierced, as by the phosphorescent eyes of animals, by the fire -of precious stones set in the sides of the throne; then the vapour -mounted, unrolling itself beneath arches where the blue smoke mingled -with the powdered gold of great sunrays, fallen jrom the domes. - -In the perverse odour of perfumes, in the overheated atmosphere of this -church, Salomé, her left arm extended in a gesture of command, her bent -right arm holding at the level of the face a great lotus, advances -slowly to the sound of a guitar, thrummed by a woman who crouches on -the floor. - -With collected, solemn, almost august countenance, she begins the -lascivious dance that should waken the sleeping senses of the aged -Herod; her breasts undulate, become rigid at the contact of the -whirling necklets; diamonds sparkle on the dead whiteness of her skin, -her bracelets, girdles, rings, shoot sparks; on her triumphal robe, -sewn with pearls, flowered with silver, sheeted with gold, the jewelled -breastplate, whose every stitch is a precious stone, bursts into flame, -scatters in snakes of fire, swarms on the ivory-toned, tea-rose flesh, -like splendid insects with dazzling wings, marbled with carmine, -dotted with morning gold, diapered with steel-blue, streaked with -peacock-green. . . . . . . . . In the work of Gustave Moreau, conceived -on no Scriptural data, Des Esseintes saw at last the realisation of the -strange, superhuman Salomé that he had dreamed. She was no more the -mere dancing-girl who, with the corrupt torsion of her limbs, tears -a cry of desire from an old man; who, with her eddying breasts, her -palpitating body, her quivering thighs, breaks the energy, melts the -will, of a king; she has become the symbolic deity of indestructible -Lust, the goddess of immortal Hysteria, the accursed Beauty, chosen -among, many by the catalepsy that has stiffened her limbs, that has -hardened her muscles; the monstrous, indifferent, irresponsible, -insensible Beast, poisoning, like Helen of old, all that go near to -her, all that look upon her, all that she touches. - -It is in such a "Palace of Art" that Des Esseintes would recreate his -already over-wrought body and brain, and the monotony of its seclusion -is only once broken by a single excursion into the world without. This -one episode of action, this one touch of realism in a book given over -to the artificial, confined to a record of sensation, is a projected -voyage to London, a voyage that never occurs. Des Esseintes has been -reading Dickens, idly, to quiet his nerves, and the violent colours -of those ultra-British scenes and characters have imposed themselves -upon his imagination. Days of rain and fog complete the picture of -that _pays de brume et de bone,_ and suddenly, stung by the unwonted -desire for change, he takes the train to Paris, resolved to distract -himself by a visit to London. Arrived in Paris before his time, he -takes a cab to the office of _Galignani's Messenger,_ fancying himself, -as the rain-drops rattle on the roof and the mud splashes against the -windows, already in the midst of the immense city, its smoke and dirt. -He reaches _Galignani's Messenger,_ and there, turning over Baedekers -and Mur-rays, loses himself in dreams of an imagined London. He buys a -Baedeker, and, to pass the time, enters the "Bodéga" at the corner of -the Rue de Rivoli and the Rue Castiglione. The wine-cellar is crowded -with Englishmen: he sees, as he drinks his port, and listens to the -unfamiliar accents, all the characters of Dickens--a whole England -of caricature; as he drinks his Amontillado, the recollection of Poe -puts a new horror into the good-humoured faces about him. Leaving the -"Bodéga," he steps out again into the rain-swept street, regains his -cab, and drives to the English tavern of the Rue d'Amsterdam. He has -just time for dinner, and he finds a place beside the _insulaires,_ -with "their porcelain eyes, their crimson cheeks," and orders a heavy -English dinner, which he washes down with ale and porter, seasoning -his coffee, as he imagines we do in England, with gin. As time passes, -and the hour of the train draws near, he begins to reflect vaguely on -his project; he recalls the disillusion of the visit he had once paid -to Holland. Does not a similar disillusion await him in London? "Why -travel, when one can travel so splendidly in a chair? Was he not at -London already, since its odours, its atmosphere, its inhabitants, its -food, its utensils, were all about him?" The train is due, but he does -not stir. "I have felt and seen," he says to himself, "what I wanted -to feel and see. I have been saturated with English life all this -time; it would be madness to lose, by a clumsy change of place, these -imperishable sensations." So he gathers together his luggage, and goes -home again, resolving never to abandon the "docile phantasmagoria of -the brain" for the mere realities of the actual world. But his nervous -malady, one of whose symptoms had driven him forth and brought him back -so spasmodically, is on the increase. He is seized by hallucinations, -haunted by sounds: the hysteria of Schumann, the morbid exaltation of -Berlioz, communicate themselves to him in the music that besieges his -brain. Obliged at last to send for a doctor, we find him, at the end -of the book, ordered back to Paris, to the normal life, the normal -conditions, with just that chance of escape from death or madness. -So suggestively, so instructively, closes the record of a strange, -attractive folly--in itself partly a serious ideal (which indeed is -Huysmans' own), partly the caricature of that ideal. Des Esseintes, -though studied from a real man, who is known to those who know a -certain kind of society in Paris, is a type rather than a man: he is -the offspring of the Decadent art that he adores, and this book a -sort of breviary for its worshippers. It has a place of its own in -the literature of the day, for it sums up, not only a talent, but a -spiritual epoch. - -_A Rebours_ is a book that can only be written once, and since that -date Huysmans has published a short story, _Un Dilemme_ (1887), which -is merely a somewhat lengthy anecdote; two novels, _En Rade_(1887) -and _Là-Bas_(1891), both of which are interesting experiments, but -neither of them an entire success; and a volume of art criticism, -_Certains_ (1890), notable for a single splendid essay, that on -Félicien Rops, the etcher of the fantastically erotic. _En Rade_ is a -sort of deliberately exaggerated record--vision rather then record--of -the disillusions of a country sojourn, as they affect the disordered -nerves of a town _névrose._ The narrative is punctuated by nightmares, -marvellously woven out of nothing, and with no psychological value--the -human part of the book being a sort of picturesque pathology at best, -the representation of a series of states of nerves, sharpened by the -tragic ennui of the country. There is a cat which becomes interesting -in its agonies; but the long boredom of the man and woman is only -too faithfully shared with the reader. _Là-Bas_ is a more artistic -creation, on a more solid foundation. It is a study of Satanism, -a dexterous interweaving of the history of Gilles de Retz (the -traditional Bluebeard) with the contemporary manifestations of the -Black Art. "The execration of impotence, the hate of the mediocre--that -is perhaps one of the most indulgent definitions of Diabolism," says -Huysmans, somewhere in the book, and it is on this side that one finds -the link of connection with the others of that series of pessimist -studies in life. _Un naturalisme spiritualiste,_ he defines his own -art at this point in its development; and it is in somewhat the -"documentary" manner that he applies himself to the study of these -strange problems, half of hysteria, half of a real mystical corruption -that does actually exist in our midst. I do not know whether the -monstrous tableau of the Black Mass--so marvellously, so revoltingly -described in the central episode of the book--is still enacted in our -days, but I do know that all but the most horrible practices of the -sacrilegious magic of the Middle Ages are yet performed, from time -to time, in a secrecy which is all but absolute. The character of -Madame Chantelouve is an attempt, probably the first in literature, -to diagnose a case of Sadism in a woman. To say that it is successful -would be to assume that the thing is possible, which one hesitates to -do. The book is even more disquieting, to the normal mind, than _A -Rebours._ But it is not, like that, the study of an exception which has -become a type. It is the study of an exception which does not profess -to be anything but a disease. - -Huysmans' place in contemporary literature is not quite easy to -estimate. There is a danger of being too much attracted, or too much -repelled, by those qualities of deliberate singularity which make -his work, sincere expression as it is of his own personality, so -artificial and _recherché_ in itself. With his pronounced, exceptional -characteristics, it would have been impossible for him to write fiction -impersonally, or to range himself, for long, in any school, under any -master. Interrogated one day as to his opinion of Naturalism, he had -but to say in reply: _Au fond, il y a des écrivains qui out du talent -et d'autres qui n'en out pas, qu'ils soient naturalistes, romantiques, -décadents, tout ce que vous voudrez, ça m'est égal! il s'agit pour -moi d'avoir du talent, et voilà tout!_ But, as we have seen, he has -undergone various influences, he has had his periods. From the first -he has had a style of singular pungency, novelty, and colour; and, -even in _Le Drageoir à Epices,_ we find such daring combinations as -this _(Camaïeu Rouge)--Cette fanfare de rouge m'étourdissait; cette -gamme d'une intensité furieuse, d'une violence inouïe, m'aveuglait._ -Working upon the foundation of Flaubert and of Goncourt, the two -great modern stylists, he has developed an intensely personal style -of his own, in which the sense of rhythm is entirely dominated by the -sense of colour. He manipulates the French language with a freedom -sometimes barbarous, "dragging his images by the heels or the hair" -(in the admirable phrase of Léon Bloy) "up and down the worm-eaten -staircase of terrified syntax," gaining, certainly, the effects at -which he aims. He possesses, in the highest degree, that _style tacheté -et faisandé_--high-flavoured and spotted with corruption--that he -attributes to Goncourt and Verlaine. And with this audacious and -barbaric profusion of words--chosen always for their colour and their -vividly expressive quality--he is able to describe the essentially -modern aspects of things as no one had ever described them before. No -one before him had ever so realised the perverse charm of the sordid, -the perverse charm of the artificial. Exceptional always, it is for -such qualities as these, rather than for the ordinary qualities of the -novelist, that he is remarkable. His stories are without incident, -they are constructed to go on until they stop, they are almost without -characters. His psychology is a matter of the sensations, and chiefly -the visual sensations. The moral nature is ignored, the emotions -resolve themselves for the most part into a sordid ennui, rising at -times into a rage at existence. The protagonist of every book is not -so much a character as a bundle of impressions and sensations--the -vague outline of a single consciousness, his own. But it is that single -consciousness--in this morbidly personal writer--with which we are -concerned. For Huysmans' novels, with all their strangeness, their -charm, their repulsion, typical too, as they are, of much beside -himself, are certainly the expression of a personality as remarkable as -that of any contemporary writer. - -1892. - - - - -II. THE LATER HUYSMANS - -In the preface to his first novel, _Marthe: histoire d'une fille,_ -thirty years ago, Huysmans defined his theory of art in this defiant -phrase: "I write what I see, what I feel, and what I have experienced, -and I write it as well as I can: that is all." Ten or twelve years -ago, he could still say, in answer to an interviewer who asked him his -opinion of Naturalism: "At bottom, there are writers who have talent -and others who have not; let them be Naturalists, Romantics, Decadents, -what you will, it is all the same to me: I only want to know if they -have talent." Such theoretical liberality, in a writer of original -talent, is a little disconcerting: it means that he is without a theory -of his own, that he is not yet conscious of having chosen his own way. -And, indeed, it is only with _En Route_ that Huysmans can be said to -have discovered the direction in which he had really been travelling -from the beginning. - -In a preface written not long since for a limited edition of _A -Rebours,_ Huysmans confessed that he had never been conscious of the -direction in which he was travelling. "My life and my literature," -he affirmed, "have undoubtedly a certain amount of passivity, of the -incalculable, of a direction not mine. I have simply obeyed; I have -been led by what are called 'mysterious ways.'" He is speaking of the -conversion which took him to La Trappe in 1892, but the words apply -to the whole course of his career as a man of letters. In _Là-Bas,_ -which is a sort of false start, he had, indeed, realised, though for -himself at that time ineffectually, that "it is essential to preserve -the veracity of the document, the precision of detail, the fibrous and -nervous language of Realism, but it is equally essential to become -the well-digger of the soul, and not to attempt to explain what is -mysterious by mental maladies.... It is essential, in a word, to follow -the great road so deeply dug out by Zola, but it is necessary also to -trace a parallel pathway in the air, and to grapple with the within -and the after, to create, in a word, a spiritual Naturalism." This -is almost a definition of the art of _En Route,_ where this spiritual -realism is applied to the history of a soul, a consciousness; in _La -Cathédrale_ the method has still further developed, and Huysmans -becomes, in his own way, a Symbolist. - -To the student of psychology few more interesting cases could be -presented than the development of Huysmans. From the first he has -been a man "for whom the visible world existed," indeed, but as the -scene of a slow martyrdom. The world has always appeared to him to -be a profoundly uncomfortable, unpleasant, and ridiculous place; and -it has been a necessity of his temperament to examine it minutely, -with all the patience of disgust, and a necessity of his method to -record it with an almost ecstatic hatred. In his first book, _Le -Drageoir à Epices,_ published at the age of twenty-six, we find him -seeking his colour by preference in a drunkard's cheek or a carcase -outside a butcher's shop. _Marthe,_ published at Brussels in 1876, -anticipates _La Fille Élisa_ and _Nana,_ but it has a crude brutality -of observation in which there is hardly a touch of pity. _Les Sœurs -Vatard_ is a frame without a picture, but in _En Ménage_ the dreary -tedium of existence is chronicled in all its insignificance with a kind -of weary and aching hate. "We, too," is its conclusion, "by leave of -the everlasting stupidity of things, may, like our fellow-citizens, -live stupid and respected." The fantastic unreality, the exquisite -artificiality of _A Rebours,_ the breviary of the decadence, is the -first sign of that possible escape which Huysmans has always foreseen -in the direction of art, but which he is still unable to make into -more than an artificial paradise, in which beauty turns to a cruel -hallucination and imprisons the soul still more fatally. The end is -a cry of hopeless hope, in which Huysmans did not understand the -meaning till later: "Lord, have pity of the Christian who doubts, of -the sceptic who would fain believe, of the convict of life who sets -sail alone by night, under a firmament lighted only by the consoling -watch-lights of the old hope." - -In _Là-Bas_ we are in yet another stage of this strange pilgrim's -progress. The disgust which once manifested itself in the merely -external revolt against the ugliness of streets, the imbecility of -faces, has become more and more internalised, and the attraction of -what is perverse in the unusual beauty of art has led, by some obscure -route, to the perilous halfway house of a corrupt mysticism. The book, -with its monstrous pictures of the Black Mass and of the spiritual -abominations of Satanism, is one step further in the direction of -the supernatural; and this, too, has its desperate, unlooked-for -conclusion: "Christian glory is a laughing-stock to our age; it -contaminates the supernatural and casts out the world to come." In -_Là-Bas_ we go down into the deepest gulf; _En Route_ sets us one stage -along a new way, and at this turning-point begins the later Huysmans. - -The old conception of the novel as an amusing tale of adventures, -though it has still its apologists in England, has long since ceased -in France to mean anything more actual than powdered wigs and lace -ruffles. Like children who cry to their elders for "a story, a story," -the English public still wants its plot, its heroine, its villain. -That the novel should be psychological was a discovery as early as -Benjamin Constant, whose _Adolphe_ anticipates _Le Rouge et le Noir,_ -that rare, revealing, yet somewhat arid masterpiece of Stendhal. -But that psychology could be carried so far into the darkness of -the soul, that the flaming walls of the world themselves faded to a -glimmer, was a discovery which had been made by no novelist before -Huysmans wrote _En Route._ At once the novel showed itself capable -of competing, on their own ground, with poetry, with the great -"confessions," with philosophy. _En Route_ is perhaps the first novel -which does not et out with the aim of amusing its readers. It offers -you no more entertainment than _Paradise Lost_ or the _Confessions_ -of St. Augustine, and it is possible to consider it on the same -level. The novel, which, after having chronicled the adventures of -the Vanity Fairs of this world, has set itself with admirable success -to analyse the amorous and ambitious and money-making intelligence of -the conscious and practical self, sets itself at last to the final -achievement: the revelation of the sub-conscious self, no longer the -intelligence, but the soul. Here, then, purged of the distraction of -incident, liberated from the bondage of a too realistic conversation, -in which the aim had been to convey the very gesture of breathing -life, internalised to a complete liberty, in which, just because it is -so absolutely free, art is able to accept, without limiting itself, -the expressive medium of a convention, we have in the novel a new -form, which may be at once a confession and a decoration, the soul -and a pattern. This story of a conversion is a new thing in modern -French; it is a confession, a self-auscultation of the soul; a kind -of thinking aloud. It fixes, in precise words, all the uncertainties, -the contradictions, the absurd unreasonableness and not less absurd -logic, which distract man's brain in the passing over him of sensation -and circumstance. And all this thinking is concentrated on one end, -is concerned with the working out, in his own singular way, of one -man's salvation. There is a certain dry hard casuistry, a subtlety and -closeness almost ecclesiastical, in the investigation of an obscure and -yet definite region, whose intellectual passions are as varied and as -tumultuous as those of the heart. Every step is taken deliberately, -is weighed, approved, condemned, viewed from this side and from that, -and at the same time one feels behind all this reasoning an impulsion -urging a soul onward against its will. In this astonishing passage, -through Satanism to faith, in which the cry, "I am so weary of myself, -so sick of my miserable existence," echoes through page after page, -until despair dies into conviction, the conviction of "the uselessness -of concerning oneself about anything but mysticism and the liturgy, -of thinking about anything but about, God," it is impossible not to -see the sincerity of an actual, unique experience. The force of mere -curiosity can go far, can penetrate to a certain depth; yet there is a -point at which mere curiosity, even that of genius, comes to an end; -and we are left to the individual soul's apprehension of what seems -to it the reality of spiritual things. Such a personal apprehension -comes to us out of this book, and at the same time, just as in the days -when he forced language to express, in a more coloured and pictorial -way than it had ever expressed before, the last escaping details of -material things, so, in this analysis of the aberrations and warfares, -the confessions and trials of the soul in penitence, Huysmans has found -words for even the most subtle and illusive aspects of that inner life -which he has come, at the last, to apprehend. - -In _La Cathédrale_ we are still occupied with this sensitive, -lethargic, persevering soul, but with that soul in one of its longest -halts by the way, as it undergoes the slow, permeating influence of -_"la Cathédrale mystique par excellence,"_ the cathedral of Chartres. -And the greater part of the book is taken up with a study of this -cathedral, of that elaborate and profound symbolism by which "the soul -of sanctuaries" slowly reveals itself _(quel laconisme hermétique!)_ -with a sort of parallel interpretation of the symbolism which the -Church of the Middle Ages concealed or revealed in colours, precious -stones, plants, animals, numbers, odours, and in the Bible itself, in -the setting together of the Old and New Testaments. - -No doubt, to some extent this book is less interesting than _En -Route,_ in the exact proportion in which everything in the world is -less interesting than the human soul. There are times when Durtal is -almost forgotten, and, unjustly enough, it may seem as if we are given -this archæology, these bestiaries, for their own sake. To fall into -this error is to mistake the whole purpose of the book, the whole -extent of the discovery in art which Huysmans has been one of the first -to make. - -For in _La Cathédrale_ Huysmans does but carry further the principle -which he had perceived in _En Route,_ showing, as he does, how inert -matter, the art of stones, the growth of plants, the unconscious life -of beasts, may be brought under the same law of the soul, may obtain, -through symbol, a spiritual existence. He is thus but extending the -domain of the soul while he may seem to be limiting or ignoring it; -and Durtal may well stand aside for a moment, in at least the energy -of contemplation, while he sees, with a new understanding, the very -sight of his eyes, the very staff of his thoughts, taking life before -him, a life of the same substance as his own. What is Symbolism if -not an establishing of the links which hold the world together, the -affirmation of an eternal, minute, intricate, almost invisible life, -which runs through the whole universe? Every age has its own symbols; -but a symbol once perfectly expressed, that symbol remains, as Gothic -architecture remains the very soul of the Middle Ages. To get at that -truth which is all but the deepest meaning of beauty, to find that -symbol which is its most adequate expression, is in itself a kind of -creation; and that is what Huysmans does for us in _La Cathédrale._ -More and more he has put aside all the profane and accessible and -outward pomp of writing for an inner and more severe beauty of perfect -truth. He has come to realise that truth can be reached and revealed -only by symbol. Hence, all that description, that heaping up of detail, -that passionately patient elaboration: all means to an end, not, as you -may hastily incline to think, ends in themselves. - -It is curious to observe how often an artist perfects a particular -means of expression long before he has any notion of what to do with -it. Huysmans began by acquiring so astonishing a mastery of description -that he could describe the inside of a cow hanging in a butcher's shop -as beautifully as if it were a casket of jewels. The little work-girls -of his early novels were taken for long walks, in which they would -have seen nothing but the arm on which they leant and the milliners' -shops which they passed; and what they did not see was described, -marvellously, in twenty pages. - -Huysmans is a brain all eye, a brain which sees even ideas as if they -had a superficies. His style is always the same, whether he writes of -a butcher's shop or of a stained-glass window; it is the immediate -expression of a way of seeing, so minute and so intense that it -becomes too emphatic for elegance and too coloured for atmosphere -or composition, always ready to sacrifice euphony to either fact or -colour. He cares only to give you the thing seen, exactly as he sees -it, with all his love or hate, and with all the exaggeration which -that feeling brings into it. And he loves beauty as a bulldog loves -its mistress: by growling at all her enemies. He honours wisdom by -annihilating stupidity. His art of painting in words resembles Monet's -art of painting With his brush: there is the same power of rendering -a vivid effect, almost deceptively, with a crude and yet sensitive -realism. _"C'est pour la gourmandise de l'œil un gala de teintes"_ -he says of the provision cellars at Hamburg; and this greed of the eye -has eaten up in him almost every other sense. Even of music he writes -as a deaf man with an eye for colour might write, to whom a musician -had explained certain technical means of expression in music. No one -has ever invented such barbarous and exact metaphors for the rendering -of visual sensations. Properly, there is no metaphor; the words say -exactly what they mean; they become figurative, as we call it, in their -insistence on being themselves! fact. - -Huysmans knows that the motive force of, the sentence lies in the -verbs, and his verbs: are the most singular, precise, and expressive in -any language. But in subordinating, as he does, every quality to that -of sharp, telling truth, the truth of extremes, his style loses charm; -yet it can be dazzling; it has the solidity of those walls encrusted -with gems which are to be seen in a certain chapel in Prague; it blazes -with colour, and arabesques into a thousand fantastic patterns. - -And now all that laboriously acquired mastery finds at last its use, -lending itself to the new spirit with a wonderful docility. At last the -idea which is beyond reality has been found, not where Des Esseintes -sought it, and a new meaning comes into what had once been scarcely -more than patient and wrathful observation. The idea is there, visible, -in his cathedral, like the sun which flashes into unity, into meaning, -into intelligible beauty the bewildering lozenges of colour, the -inextricable trails of lead, which go to make up the picture in one -of its painted windows. What, for instance, could be more precise in -its translation of the different aspects under which the cathedral of -Chartres can be seen, merely as colour, than this one sentence: "Seen -as a whole, under a clear sky, its grey silvers, and, if the sun shines -upon it, turns pale yellow and then golden; seen close, its skin is -like that of a nibbled biscuit, with its silicious limestone, eaten -into holes; sometimes, when the sun is setting, it turns crimson, and -rises up like a monstrous and delicate shrine, rose and green; and, at -twilight, turns blue, then seems to evaporate as it fades into violet." -Or, again, in a passage which comes nearer to the conventional idea -of eloquence, how absolute an avoidance of a conventional phrase, a -word used for its merely oratorical value: "High up, in space, like -salamanders, human beings, with burning faces and flaming robes, lived -in a firmament of fire; but these conflagrations were circumscribed, -limited by an incombustible frame of darker glass, which beat back the -clear young joy of the flames; by that kind of melancholy, that more -serious and more aged aspect, which is taken by the duller colours. -The hue and cry of reds, the limpid security of whites, the reiterated -halleluias of yellows, the virginal glory of blues, all the quivering -hearth-glow of painted glass, dies away as it came near this border -coloured with the rust of iron, with the russet of sauce, with the -harsh violet of sandstone, with bottle-green, with the brown of -touchwood, with sooty black, with ashen grey." - -This, in its excess of exactitude (how mediæval a quality!) -becomes, on one page, a comparison of the tower without a spire to -an unsharpened pencil which cannot write the prayers of earth upon -the sky. But for the most part it is a consistent humanising of too -objectively visible things a disengaging of the sentiment which -exists in them, which is one of the secrets of their appeal to us, -but which for the most part we overlook as we set ourselves to add -up the shapes and colours which have enchanted us. To Huysmans this -artistic discovery has come, perhaps in the most effectual way, but -certainly in the way least probable in these days, through faith, a -definite religious faith; so that, beginning tentatively, he has come, -at last, to believe in the Catholic Church as a monk of the Middle Ages -believed in it. And there is no doubt that to Huysmans this abandonment -to religion has brought, among other gifts, a certain human charity -in which he was notably lacking, removing at once one of his artistic -limitations. It has softened his contempt of humanity; it has broadened -his outlook on the world. And the sense, diffused through the whole of -this book, of the living and beneficent reality of the Virgin, of her -real presence in the cathedral built in her honour and after her own -image, brings a strange and touching kind of poetry into these closely -and soberly woven pages. - -From this time forward, until his death, Huysmans is seen purging -himself of his realism, coming closer and closer to that spiritual -Naturalism which he had invented, an art made out of an apprehension -of the inner meaning of those things which he still saw with the old -tenacity of vision. Nothing is changed in him and yet all is changed. -The disgust of the world deepens through _L'Oblat,_ which is the last -stage but one in the pilgrimage which begins with _En Route._ It -seeks an escape in poring, with a dreadful diligence, over a saint's -recorded miracles, in the life of _Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam,_ which -is mediæval in its precise acceptance of every horrible detail of the -story. _Les Foules de Lourdes_ has the same minute attentiveness to -horror, but with a new pity in it, and a way of giving thanks to the -Virgin, which is in Huysmans yet another escape from his disgust of -the world. But it is in the great chapter on Satan as the creator of -ugliness that his work seems to end where it had begun, in the service -of art, now come from a great way off to join itself with the service -of God, And the whole soul of Huysmans characterises itself in the turn -of a single phrase there: that "art is the only clean thing on earth, -except holiness." - - - - -ARTHUR RIMBAUD - - -That story of the Arabian Nights, which is at the same time a true -story, the life of Rimbaud, has been told, for the first time, in -the extravagant but valuable book of an anarchist of letters, who -writes under the name of Paterne Berrichon, and who has since married -Rimbaud's sister. _La Vie de Jean-Arthur Rimbaud_ is full of curiosity -for those who have been mystified by I know not what legends, invented -to give wonder to a career itself more wonderful than any of the -inventions. The man who died at Marseilles, at the Hospital of the -Conception, on March 10 1891, at the age of thirty-seven, _négociant,_ -as the register of his death describes him, was a writer of genius, -an innovator in verse and prose, who had written all his poetry by -the age of nineteen, and all his prose by a year or two later. He had -given up literature to travel hither and thither, first in Europe, then -in Africa; he had been an engineer, a leader of caravans, a merchant -of precious merchandise. And this man, who had never written down a -line after those astonishing early experiments, was heard, in his last -delirium, talking of precisely such visions as those which had haunted -his youth, and using, says his sister, "expressions of a singular and -penetrating charm" to render these sensations of visionary countries. -Here certainly is one of the most curious problems of literature: is it -a problem of which we can discover the secret? - -Jean-Nicolas-Arthur Rimbaud was born at Charleville, in the Ardennes, -October 28, 1854. His father, of whom he saw little, was a captain -in the army; his mother, of peasant origin, was severe, rigid and -unsympathetic. At school he was an unwilling but brilliant scholar, -and by his fifteenth year was well acquainted with Latin literature -and intimately with French literature. It was in that year that he -began to write poems from the first curiously original: eleven poems -dating from that year are to be found in his collected works. When he -was sixteen he decided that he had had enough of school, and enough -of home. Only Paris existed: he must go to Paris. The first time he -went without a ticket; he spent, indeed, fifteen days in Paris, but -he spent them in Mazas, from which he was released and restored to -his home by his schoolmaster. The second time, a few days later, he -sold his watch, which paid for his railway ticket. This time he threw -himself on the hospitality of André Gill, a painter and verse-writer, -of some little notoriety then, whose address he had happened to come -across. The uninvited guest was not welcomed, and after some penniless -days in Paris he tramped back to Charleville. The third time (he had -waited five months, writing poems, and discontented to be only writing -poems) he made his way to Paris on foot, in a heat of revolutionary -sympathy, to offer himself to the insurgents of the Commune. Again he -had to return on foot. Finally, having learnt with difficulty that a -man is not taken at his own valuation until he has proved his right to -be so accepted, he sent up the manuscript of his poems to Verlaine. -The manuscript contained _Le Bateau Ivre, Les Premières Communions, Ma -Bohème, Roman, Les Effarés,_ and, indeed, all but a few of the poems -he ever wrote. Verlaine was overwhelmed with delight, and invited him -to Paris. A local admirer lent him the money to get there, and from -October, 1871, to July, 1872, he was Verlaine's guest. - -The boy of seventeen, already a perfectly original poet, and beginning -to be an equally original prose-writer, astonished the whole Parnasse, -Banville, Hugo himself. On Verlaine his influence was more profound. -The meeting brought about one of those lamentable and admirable -disasters which make and unmake careers. Verlaine has told us in his -_Confessions_ that, "in the beginning, there was no question of any -sort of affection or sympathy between two natures so different as -that of the poet of the _Assis_ and mine, but simply of an extreme -admiration and astonishment before this boy of sixteen, who had already -written things, as Fénéon has excellently said, 'perhaps outside -literature.'" This admiration and astonishment passed gradually into -a more personal feeling, and it was under the influence of Rimbaud -that the long vagabondage of Verlaine's life began. The two poets -wandered together through Belgium, England, and again Belgium, from -July, 1872, to August, 1873, when there occurred that tragic parting at -Brussels which left Verlaine a prisoner for eighteen months, and sent -Rimbaud back to his family. He had already written all the poetry and -prose that he was ever to write, and in 1873 he printed at Brussels -_Une Saison en Enfer._ It was the only book he himself ever gave to -the press, and no sooner was it printed than he destroyed the whole -edition, with the exception of a few copies, of which only Verlaine's -copy, I believe, still exists. Soon began new wanderings, with their -invariable return to the starting-point of Charleville: a few days -in Paris, a year in England, four months in Stuttgart (where he was -visited by Verlaine), Italy, France again, Vienna, Java, Holland, -Sweden, Egypt, Cyprus, Abyssinia, and then nothing but Africa, until -the final return to France. He had been a teacher of French in England, -a seller of key-rings in the streets of Paris, had unloaded vessels -in the ports, and helped to gather in the harvest in the country; -he had been a volunteer in the Dutch army, a military engineer, a -trader; and now physical sciences had begun to attract his insatiable -curiosity, and dreams of the fabulous East began to resolve themselves -into dreams of a romantic commerce with the real East. He became a -merchant of coffee, perfumes, ivory, and gold, in the interior of -Africa; then an explorer, a predecessor, and in his own regions, of -Marchand. After twelve years' wandering and exposure in Africa he was -attacked by a malady of the knee, which rapidly became worse. He was -transported first to Aden, then to Marseilles, where, in May, 1891, his -leg was amputated. Further complications set in. He insisted, first, -on being removed to his home, then on being taken back to Marseilles. -His sufferings were an intolerable torment, and more cruel to him was -the torment of his desire to live. He died inch by inch, fighting -every inch; and his sister's quiet narrative of those last months is -agonising. He died at Marseilles in November, "prophesying," says his -sister, and repeating, "Allah Kerim! Allah Kerim!" - -The secret of Rimbaud, I think, and the reason why he was able to do -the unique thing in literature which he did, and then to disappear -quietly and become a legend in the East, is that his mind was not -the mind of the artist but of the man of action. He was a dreamer, -but all his dreams were discoveries. To him it was an identical act -of his temperament to write the sonnet of the _Vowels_ and to trade -in ivory and frankincense with the Arabs. He lived with all his -faculties at every instant of his life, abandoning himself to himself -with a confidence which was at once his strength and (looking at -things less absolutely) his weakness. To the student of success, and -what is relative in achievement, he illustrates the danger of one's -over-possession by one's own genius, just as aptly as the saint in the -cloister does, or the mystic too full of God to speak intelligibly to -the world, or the spilt wisdom of the drunkard. The artist who is above -all, things an artist cultivates a little choice corner of himself -with elaborate care; he brings miraculous flowers to growth there, but -the rest of the garden is but mown grass or tangled bushes. That is -why many excellent writers very many painters, and most musicians are -so tedious on any subject but their own. Is it not tempting, does it -not seem a devotion rather than a superstition, to worship the golden -chalice in which the wine has been made God, as if the chalice were the -reality, and the Real Presence the symbol? The artist, who is only an -artist, circumscribes his intelligence into almost such a fiction, as -he reverences the work of his own hands. But there are certain natures -(great or small, Shakespeare or Rimbaud, it makes no difference) to -whom the work is nothing; the act of working, everything. Rimbaud was -a small, narrow, hard, precipitate nature, which had the will to live, -and nothing but the will to live; and his verses, and his follies, -and his wanderings, and his traffickings were but the breathing of -different hours in his day. - -That is why he is so swift, definite, and quickly exhausted in vision; -why he had his few things to say, each an action with consequences. -He invents new ways of saying things, not because he is a learned -artist, but because he is burning to say them, and he has none of -the hesitations of knowledge. He leaps right over or through the -conventions that had been standing in everybody's way; he has no time -to go round, and no respect for trespass-boards, and so he becomes the -_enfant terrible_ of literature, playing pranks (as in that sonnet of -the _Vowels),_ knocking down barriers for the mere amusement of the -thing, getting all the possible advantage of his barbarisms in mind -and conduct. And so, in life, he is first of all conspicuous as a -disorderly liver, a révolter against morals as against prosody, though -we may imagine that, in his heart, morals meant as little to him, one -way or the other, as prosody. Later on, his revolt seems to be against -civilisation itself, as he disappears into the deserts of Africa. And -it is, if you like, a revolt against civilisation, but the revolt is -instinctive, a need of the organism; it is not doctrinal, cynical, a -conviction, a sentiment. - -Always, as he says _rêvant univers fantastiques,_ he is conscious -of the danger as well as the ecstasy of that divine imitation; for -he says: "My life will always be too vast to be given up wholly to -force and beauty." _J'attends Dieu avec gourmandise,_ he cries, in a -fine rapture; and then, sadly enough: "I have created all the feasts, -all the triumphs, all the dramas of the world. I have set myself to -invent new flowers, a new flesh, a new language. I have fancied that -I have attained supernatural power. Well, I have now only to put my -imagination and my memories in the grave. What a fine artist's and -story-teller's fame thrown away!" See how completely he is conscious, -and how completely he is at the mercy, of that hallucinatory rage of -vision, vision to him being always force, power, creation, which, on -some of his pages, seems to become sheer madness, and on others a -kind of wild but absolute insight. He will be silent, he tells us, -as to all that he contains within his mind, "greedy as the sea," for -otherwise poets and visionaries would envy him his fantastic wealth. -And, in that _Nuit d'Enfer,_ which does not bear that title in vain, -he exalts himself as a kind of saviour; he is in the circle of pride -in Dante's hell, and he has lost all sense of limit, really believes -himself to be "no one and some one." Then, in the _Alchimie du Verbe,_ -he becomes the analyst of his own hallucinations. "I believe in all -the enchantments," he tells us; "I invented the colour of the vowels; -A, black; E, white; I, red; O, blue; U, green. I regulated the form -and the movement of every consonant, and, with instinctive rhythms, I -flattered myself that I had invented a poetic language accessible, one -day or another, to every shade of meaning. I reserved to myself the -right of translation."[1] - -Coincidence or origin, it has lately been pointed out that Rimbaud may -formerly have seen an old ABC book in which the vowels are coloured -for the most part as his are (A, black; E, white; I, red; O, blue; U, -green). In the little illustrative pictures around them some are oddly -in keeping with the image of Rimbaud. - -"... I accustomed myself to simple hallucination: I saw, quite frankly, -a mosque in place of a factory, a school of drums kept by the angels, -post-chaises on the roads of heaven, a drawing-room at the bottom of a -lake; monsters, mysteries; the title of a vaudeville raised up horrors -before me. Then I explained my magical sophisms by the hallucination of -words! I ended by finding something sacred in the disorder of my mind." -Then he makes the great discovery. Action, one sees, this fraudulent -and insistent will to live, has been at the root of all these mental -and verbal orgies, in which he has been wasting the "very substance of -his thought." Well, "action," he discovers, "is not life, but a way of -spoiling something." Even this is a form of enervation, and must be -rejected from the absolute. _Mon devoir m'est remis. Il ne faut plus -songer à cela. Je suis réellement d'outre-tombe, et pas de commissions._ - -It is for the absolute that he seeks, always; the absolute which the -great artist, with his careful wisdom, has renounced seeking. And, -he is content with nothing less; hence his own contempt for what he -has done, after all, so easily; for what has come to him, perhaps -through his impatience, but imperfectly. He is a dreamer in whom dream -is swift, hard in outline, coming suddenly and going suddenly, a real -thing, but seen only in passing. Visions rush past him, he cannot -arrest them; they rush forth from him, he cannot restrain their haste -to be gone, as he creates them in the mere indiscriminate idleness -of energy. And so this seeker after the absolute leaves but a broken -medley of fragments, into each of which he has put a little of his -personality, which he is forever dramatising, by multiplying one facet, -so to speak, after another. Very genuinely, he is now a beaten and -wandering ship, flying in a sort of intoxication before the wind, over -undiscovered seas; now a starving child outside a baker's window, in -the very ecstasy of hunger; now _la victime et la petite épouse_ of the -first communion; now: - - Je ne parlerai pas, je ne penserai rien; - Mais l'amour infini me montera dans l'âme, - Et j'irai loin, bien loin, comme un bohémien, - Par la Nature, heureux comme avec une femme! - -He catches at verse, at prose, invents a sort of _vers libre_ before -any one else, not quite knowing what to do with it, invents a quite -new way of writing prose, which Laforgue will turn to account later on; -and having suggested, with some impatience, half the things that his -own and the next generation are to busy themselves with developing, he -gives up writing, as an inadequate form, to which he is also inadequate. - -What, then, is the actual value of Rimbaud's work, in verse and prose, -apart from its relative values of so many kinds? I think, considerable; -though it will probably come to rest on two or three pieces of verse, -and a still vaguer accomplishment in prose. He brought into French -verse something of that "gipsy way of going with nature, as with a -woman"; a very young, very crude, very defiant and sometimes very -masterly sense of just these real things which are too close to us to -be seen by most people with any clearness. He could render physical -sensation, of the subtlest kind, without making any compromise with -language, forcing language to speak straight, taming it as one would -tame a dangerous animal. And he kneaded prose as he kneaded verse, -making it a disarticulated, abstract, mathematically lyrical thing. In -verse, he pointed the way to certain new splendours, as to certain new -_naïvetés;_ there is the _Bateau Ivre,_ without which we might never -have had Verlaine's _Crimen Amoris._ And, intertangled with what is -ingenuous, and with what is splendid, there is a certain irony, which -comes into that youthful work as if youth were already reminiscent -of itself, so conscious is it that youth is youth, and that youth is -passing. - -In all these ways, Rimbaud had his influence upon Verlaine, and his -influence upon Verlaine was above all the influence of the man of -action upon the man of sensation; the influence of what is simple, -narrow, emphatic, upon what is subtle, complex, growing. Verlaine's -rich, sensitive nature was just then trying to realise itself. Just -because it had such delicate possibilities, because there were so many -directions in which it could grow, it was not at first quite sure of -its way. Rimbaud came into the life and, art of Verlaine, troubling -both, with that trouble which reveals a man to himself. Having helped -to make Verlaine a great poet, he could go. Note that he himself could -never have developed: writing had been one of his discoveries; he could -but make other discoveries, personal ones. Even in literature he had -his future; but his future was Verlaine. - - -[1] Here is the famous sonnet, which must be taken, as it was meant, -without undue seriousness, and yet as something more than a mere joke. - - VOYELLES - - A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu, voyelles, - Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes. - A, noir corset velu des mouches éclatantes - Qui bombillent autour des puanteurs cruelles, - - Golfe d'ombre; E, candeur des vapeurs et des tentes, - Lance des glaciers fiers, rois blancs, frissons d'ombelles; - I, pourpres, sang craché, rire des lèvres belles - _I_ Dans la colère ou les ivresses pénitentes; - - U, cycles, vibrements divins des mers virides, - Paix des pâtis semés d'animaux, paix des rides - Que l'alchemie imprime aux grands fronts studieux; - - O, suprême clairon plein de strideurs étranges, - Silences traversés des mondes et des Anges; - --O l'Oméga, rayon violet de Ses Yeux! - - - - -JULES LAFORGUE - - -Jules Laforgue was born at Montevideo, of Breton parents, August 20, -1860. He died in Paris in 1887, two days before his twenty-seventh -birthday. From 1880 to 1886 he had been reader to the Empress Augusta -at Berlin. He married only a few months before his death. _D'allures?_ -says M. Gustave Kahn, _fort correctes, de hauts gibus, des cravates -sobres, des vestons anglais, des pardessus clergymans, et de par -les nécessités, un parapluie immuablement placé sous le bras._ His -portraits show us a clean-shaved, reticent face, betraying little. With -such a personality anecdotes have but small chance of appropriating -those details by which expansive natures express themselves to the -world. We know nothing about Laforgue which his work is not better -able to tell us, even now that we have all his notes, unfinished -fragments, and the letters of an almost virginal _naïveté_ which he -wrote to the woman whom he was going to marry. His entire work, apart -from these additions, is contained in two small volumes, one of prose, -the _Moralités Légendaires,_ the other of verse, _Les Complaintes, -Limitation de Notre-Dame la Lune,_ and a few other pieces, all -published during the last three years of his life. - -The prose and verse of Laforgue, scrupulously correct, but with a -new manner of correctness, owe more than any one has realised to the -half-unconscious prose and verse of Rimbaud. Verse and prose are -alike a kind of travesty, making subtle use of colloquialism, slang, -neologism, technical terms, for their allusive, their factitious, their -reflected meanings, with which one can play, very seriously. The verse -is alert, troubled, swaying, deliberately uncertain, hating rhetoric so -piously that it prefers, and finds its piquancy in, the ridiculously -obvious. It is really _vers libre,_ but at the same time correct verse, -before _vers libre_ had been invented. And it carries, as far as that -theory has ever been carried, the theory which demands an instantaneous -notation (Whistler, let us say) of the figure or landscape which one, -has been accustomed to define with such rigorous exactitude. Verse, -always elegant, is broken up into a kind of mockery of prose. - - Encore un de mes pierrots mort; - Mort d'un chronique orphelinisme; - C'était un cœur plein de dandysme - Lunaire, en un drôle de corps; - -he will say to us, with a familiarity of manner, as of one talking -languidly, in a low voice, the lips always teased into a slightly -bitter smile; and he will pass suddenly into the ironical lilt of - - Hotel garni - De l'infini, - - Sphinx et Joconde - Des défunts mondes; - -and from that into this solemn and smiling end of one of his last -poems, his own epitaph, if you will: - - Il prit froid l'autre automne, - S'étant attardi vers les peines des cors, - Sur la fin d'un beau jour. - Oh! ce fut pour vos cors, et ce fut pour l'automne, - Qu'il nous montra qu' "on meurt d'amour!" - On ne le verra plus aux fêtes nationales, - S'enfermer dans l'Histoire et tirer les verrous, - Il vint trop tard, il est reparti sans scandale; - O vous qui m'écoutez, rentrez chacun chez vous. - -The old cadences, the old eloquence, the ingenuous seriousness of -poetry, are all banished, on a theory as self-denying as that which -permitted Degas to dispense with recognisable beauty in his figures. -Here, if ever, is modern verse, verse which dispenses with so many of -the privileges of poetry, for an ideal quite of its own. It is, after -all, a very self-conscious ideal, becoming artificial through its -extreme naturalness; for in poetry it is not "natural" to say things -quite so much in the manner of the moment, with however ironical an -intention. - -The prose of the _Moralités Légendaires_ is perhaps even more of -a discovery. Finding its origin, as I have pointed out, in the -experimental prose of Rimbaud, it carries that manner to a singular -perfection. Disarticulated, abstract, mathematically lyrical, it -gives expression, in its icy ecstasy, to a very subtle criticism of -the universe, with a surprising irony of cosmical vision. We learn -from books of mediæval magic that the embraces of the devil are of a -coldness so intense that it may be called, by an allowable figure of -speech, fiery. Everything may be as strongly its opposite as itself, -and that is why this balanced, chill, colloquial style of Laforgue -has, in the paradox of its intensity, the essential heat of the most -obviously emotional prose. The prose is more patient than the verse, -with its more compassionate laughter at universal experience. It can -laugh as seriously, as profoundly, as in that graveyard monologue of -Hamlet, Laforgue's Hamlet, who, Maeterlinck ventures to say, "is at -moments more Hamlet than the Hamlet of Shakespeare." Let me translate a -few sentences from it. - -"Perhaps I have still twenty or thirty years to live, and I shall pass -that way like the others. Like the others? O Totality, the misery of -being there no longer! Ah! I would like to set out to-morrow, and -search all through the world for the most adamantine processes of -embalming. They, too, were, the little people of History, learning to -read, trimming their nails, lighting the dirty lamp every evening, in -love, gluttonous, vain, fond of compliments, handshakes, and kisses, -living on bell-tower gossip, saying, 'What sort of weather shall we -have to-morrow? Winter has really come.... We have had no plums this -year.' Ah! everything is good, if it would not come to an end. And -thou, Silence, pardon the Earth; the little madcap hardly knows what -she is doing; on the day of the great summing-up of consciousness -before the Ideal, she will be labelled with a pitiful _idem_ in the -column of the miniature evolutions of the Unique Evolution, in the -column of négligeable quantities ...". "To die! Evidently, one dies -without knowing it, as, every night, one enters upon sleep. One has no -consciousness of the passing of the last lucid thought into sleep, into -swooning, into death. Evidently. But to be no more, to be here no more, -to be ours no more! Not even to be able, any more, to press against -one's human heart, some idle afternoon, the ancient sadness contained -in one little chord on the piano!" - -In these always "lunar" parodies, _Salomé, Lohengrin, Fils de Parsifal, -Persée et Andromède,_ each a kind of metaphysical myth, he realises -that _la créature va hardiment à être cérébrale, anti-naturelle,_ and -he has invented these fantastic puppets with an almost Japanese art of -spiritual dislocation. They are, in part, a way of taking one's revenge -upon science, by an ironical borrowing of its very terms, which dance -in his prose and verse, derisively, at the end of a string. - -In his acceptance of the fragility of things as actually a principle -of art, Laforgue is a sort of transformed Watteau, showing his disdain -for the world which fascinates him, in quite a different way. He -has constructed his own world, lunar and actual, speaking slang and -astronomy, with a constant disengaging of the visionary aspect, under -which frivolity becomes an escape from the arrogance of a still more -temporary mode of being, the world as it appears to the sober majority. -He is terribly conscious of daily life, cannot omit, mentally, a single -hour of the day; and his flight to the moon is in sheer desperation. -He sees what he calls l'_Inconscient_ in every gesture, but he cannot -see it without these gestures. And he sees, not only as an imposition, -but as a conquest, the possibilities for art which come from the sickly -modern being, with his clothes, his nerves: the mere fact that he -flowers from the soil of his epoch. - -It is an art of the nerves, this art of Laforgue, and it is what all -art would tend towards if we followed our nerves on all their journeys. -There is in it all the restlessness of modern life, the haste to escape -from whatever weighs too heavily on the liberty of the moment, that -capricious liberty which demands only room enough to hurry itself -weary. It is distressingly conscious of the unhappiness of mortality, -but it plays, somewhat uneasily, at a disdainful indifference. And it -is out of these elements of caprice, fear, contempt, linked together by -an embracing laughter, that it makes its existence. - -_Il n'y a pas de type, il y a la vie,_ Laforgue replies to those -who come to him with classical ideals. _Votre idéal est bien vite -magnifiquement submergé,_ in life itself, which should form its -own art, an art deliberately ephemeral, with the attaching pathos -of passing things. There is a great pity at the root of this art -of Laforgue: self-pity, which extends, with the artistic sympathy, -through mere clearness of vision, across the world. His laughter, -which Maeterlinck has defined so admirably as "the laughter of the -soul," is the laughter of Pierrot, more than half a sob, and shaken out -of him with a deplorable gesture of the thin arms, thrown wide. He is a -metaphysical Pierrot, _Pierrot lunaire,_ and it is of abstract notions, -the whole science of the unconscious, that he makes his showman's -patter. As it is part of his manner not to distinguish between irony -and pity, or even belief, we need not attempt to do so. Heine should -teach us to understand at least so much of a poet who could not -otherwise resemble him less. In Laforgue, sentiment is squeezed out of -the world before one begins to play at ball with it. - -And so, of the two, he is the more hopeless. He has invented a new -manner of being René or Werther: an inflexible politeness towards man, -woman, and destiny. He composes love-poems hat in hand, and smiles with -an exasperating tolerance before all the transformations of the eternal -feminine. He is very conscious of death, but his _blague_ of death is, -above all things, gentlemanly. He will not permit himself, at any -moment, the luxury of dropping the mask: not at any moment. - -Read this _Autre Complainte de Lord Pierrot,_ with the singular pity of -its cruelty, before such an imagined dropping of the mask: - - Celle qui doit me mettre au courant de la Femme! - Nous lui dirons d'abord, de mon air le moins froid: - "La somme des angles d'un triangle, chère âme, - Est égale à deux droits." - - Et si ce cri lui part: "Dieu de Dieu que je t'aime!" - "Dieu reconnaîtra les siens." Ou piquée au vif: - "Mes claviers out du cœur, tu sera mon seul thème." - Moi' "Tout est relatif." - - De tous ses yeux, alors! se sentant trop banale: - "Ah! tu ne m'aime pas; tant d'autres sont jaloux!" - Et moi, d'un œil qui vers l'Inconscient s'emballe: - "Merci, pas mal; et vous? - - "Jouons au plus fidèle!"--A quoi bon, ô Nature! - "Autant à qui perd gagne." Alors, autre couplet. - "Ah! tu te lasseras le premier, j'en suis sûre." - "Après vous, s'il vous plaît." - - Enfins, si, par un soir, elle meurt dans mes livres, - Douce; feignant de n'en pas croire encor mes yeux, - J'aurai un: "Ah çà, mais, nous avions De Quoi vivre! - C'était donc sérieux?" - -And yet one realises, if one but reads him attentively enough, how -much suffering and despair, and resignation to what is, after all, -the inevitable, are hidden away under this disguise, and also why this -disguise is possible. Laforgue died at twenty-seven: he had been a -dying man all his life, and his work has the fatal evasiveness of those -who shrink from remembering the one thing which they are unable to -forget. Coming as he does after Rimbaud, turning the divination of the -other into theories, into achieved results, he is the eternally grown -up, mature to the point of self-negation, as the other is the eternal -_enfant terrible._ He thinks intensely about life, seeing what is -automatic, pathetically ludicrous in it, almost as one might who has no -part in the comedy. He has the double advantage, for his art, of being -condemned to death, and of being, in the admirable phrase of Villiers, -"one of those who come into the world with a ray of moonlight in their -brains." - - - - -MAETERLINCK AS A MYSTIC - - -The secret of things which is just beyond the most subtle words, -the secret of the expressive silences, has always been clearer to -Maeterlinck than to most people; and, in his plays, he has elaborated -an art of sensitive, taciturn, and at the same time highly ornamental -simplicity, which has come nearer than any other art to being the voice -of silence. To Maeterlinck the theatre has been, for the most part, -no more than one of the disguises by which he can express himself, -and with his book of meditations on the inner life, _Le Trésor des -Humbles,_ he may seem to have dropped his disguise. - -All art hates the vague; not the mysterious, but the vague; two -opposites very commonly confused, as the secret with the obscure, the -infinite with the indefinite. And the artist who is also a mystic -hates the vague with a more profound hatred than any other artist. -Thus Maeterlinck, endeavouring to clothe mystical conceptions in -concrete form, has invented a drama so precise, so curt, so arbitrary -in its limits, that it can safely be confided to the masks and feigned -voices of marionettes. His theatre of artificial beings, who are at -once more ghostly and more mechanical than the living actors whom we -are accustomed to see, in so curious a parody of life, moving with a -certain freedom of action across the stage, may be taken as itself a -symbol of the aspect under which what we fantastically term "real life" -presents itself to the mystic. Are we not all puppets, in a theatre -of marionettes, in which the parts we play, the dresses we wear, the -very emotion whose dominance gives its express form to our faces, have -all been chosen for us; in which I, it may be, with curled hair and a -Spanish cloak, play the romantic lover, sorely against my will, while -you, a "fair penitent" for no repented sin, pass quietly under a nun's -habit? And as our parts have been chosen for us, cur motions controlled -from behind the curtain, so the words we seem to speak are but spoken -through us, and we do but utter fragments of some elaborate invention, -planned for larger ends than our personal display or convenience, -but to which, all the same, we are in a humble degree necessary. -This symbolical theatre, its very existence being a symbol, has -perplexed many minds, to some of whom it has seemed puerile, a child's -mystification of small words and repetitions, a thing of attitudes -and omissions; while others, yet more unwisely, have compared it with -the violent, rhetorical, most human drama of the Elizabethans, with -Shakespeare himself, to whom all the world was a stage, and the stage -all this world, certainly. A sentence, already famous, of the _Trésor -des Humbles,_ will tell you what it signifies to Maeterlinck himself. - -"I have, come to believe," he writes, in _Le Tragique Quotidien,_ "that -an old man seated in his armchair, waiting quietly under the lamplight, -listening without knowing it to all the eternal laws which reign about -his house, interpreting without understanding it all that there is in -the silence of doors and windows, and in the little voice of light, -enduring the presence of his soul and of his destiny, bowing his head a -little, without suspecting that all the powers of the earth intervene -and stand on guard in the room like attentive servants, not knowing -that the sun itself suspends above the abyss the little table on which -he rests his elbow, and that there is not a star in the sky nor a force -in the soul which is indifferent to the motion of a falling eyelid or -a rising thought--I have come to believe that this motionless old man -lived really a more profound, human, and universal life than the lover -who strangles his mistress, the captain who gains a victory, or the -husband who 'avenges his honour.'" - -That, it seems to me, says all there is to be said of the intention of -this drama which Maeterlinck has evoked; and, of its style, this other -sentence, which I take from the same essay: "It is only the words that -at first sight seem useless which really count in a work." - -This drama, then, is a drama founded on philosophical ideas, -apprehended emotionally; on the sense of the mystery of the universe, -of the weakness of humanity, that sense which Pascal expressed when -he said: _Ce qui m'étonne le plus est de voir que tout le monde n'est -pas étonné de sa faiblesse;_ with an acute feeling of the pathetic -ignorance in which the souls nearest to one another look out upon -their neighbours. It is a drama in which the interest is concentrated -on vague people, who are little parts of the universal consciousness, -their strange names being but the pseudonyms of obscure passions, -intimate emotions. They have the fascination which we find in the eyes -of certain pictures, so much more real and disquieting, so much more -permanent with us, than living people. And they have the touching -simplicity of children; they are always children in their ignorance -of themselves, of one another, and of fate. And, because they are so -disembodied of the more trivial accidents of life, they give themselves -without limitation to whatever passionate instinct possesses them. I -do not know a more passionate love-scene than that scene in the wood -beside the fountain, where Pelléas and Mélisande confess the strange -burden which has come upon them. When the soul gives itself absolutely -to love, all the barriers of the world are burnt away, and all its -wisdom and subtlety are as incense poured on a flame. Morality, too, -is burnt away, no longer exists, any more than it does for children or -for God. - -Maeterlinck has realised, better than any one else, the significance, -in life and art, of mystery. He has realised how unsearchable is the -darkness out of which we have but just stepped, and the darkness -into which we are about to pass. And he has realised how the thought -and sense of that twofold darkness invade the little space of light -in which, for a moment, we move; the depth to which they shadow our -steps, even in that moment's partial escape. But in some of his plays -he would seem to have apprehended this mystery as a thing merely or -mainly terrifying; the actual physical darkness sur-rounding blind men, -the actual physical approach of death as the intruder; he has shown -us people huddled at a window, out of which they are almost afraid -to look, or beating at a door, the opening of which they dread. Fear -shivers through these plays, creeping across our nerves like a damp -mist coiling up out of a valley. And there is beauty, certainly, in -this "vague spiritual fear"; but a less obvious kind of beauty than -that which gives its profound pathos to _Aglavaine et Sélysette,_ the -one play written since the writing of the essays. Here is mystery, -which is also pure beauty, in these delicate approaches of intellectual -pathos, in which suffering and death and error become transformed into -something almost happy, so full is it of strange light. - -And the aim of Maeterlinck, in his plays, is not only to render the -soul and the soul's atmosphere, but to reveal this strangeness, pity, -and beauty through beautiful pictures. No dramatist has ever been so -careful that his scenes should be in themselves beautiful, or has -made the actual space of forest, tower, or seashore so emotionally -significant. He has realised, after Wagner, that the art of the stage -is the art of pictorial beauty, of the correspondence in rhythm between -the speakers, their words, and their surroundings. He has seen how, in -this way, and in this way alone, the emotion, which it is but a part of -the poetic drama to express, can be at once intensified and purified. - -It is only after hinting at many of the things which he had to say -in these plays, which have, after all, been a kind of subterfuge, -that Maeterlinck has cared, or been able, to speak with the direct -utterance of the essays. And what may seem curious is that this prose -of the essays, which is the prose of a doctrine, is incomparably more -beautiful than the prose of the plays, which was the prose of an art. -Holding on this point a different opinion from one who was, in many -senses, his master, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, he did not admit that -beauty of words, or even any expressed beauty of thoughts, had its -place in spoken dialogue, even though it was not two living actors -speaking to one another on the stage, but a soul speaking to a soul and -imagined speaking through the mouths of marionettes. But that beauty of -phrase which makes the profound and sometimes obscure pages of _Axël_ -shine as with the crossing fire of jewels, rejoices us, though with -a softer, a more equable, radiance, in the pages of these essays, in -which every sentence has the in-dwelling beauty of an intellectual -emotion, preserved at the same height of tranquil ecstasy from first -page to last. There is a sort of religious calm in these deliberate -sentences, into which the writer has known how to introduce that divine -monotony which is one of the accomplishments of great style. Never has -simplicity been more ornate or a fine beauty more visible through its -self-concealment. - -But, after all, the claim upon us of this book is not the claim of -a work of art, but of a doctrine, and more than that, of a system. -Belonging, as he does, to the eternal hierarchy, the unbroken -succession, of the mystics, Maeterlinck has apprehended what is -essential in the mystical doctrine with a more profound comprehension, -and thus more systematically, than any mystic of recent times. He -has many points of resemblance with Emerson, on whom he has written -an essay which is properly an exposition of his own personal ideas; -but Emerson, who proclaimed the supreme guidance of the inner light, -the supreme necessity of trusting instinct, of honouring emotion, did -but proclaim all this, not without a certain anti-mystical vagueness: -Maeterlinck has systematised it. A more profound mystic than Emerson, -he has greater command of that which comes to him unawares, is less at -the mercy of visiting angels. - -Also, it may be said that he surrenders himself to them more -absolutely, with less reserve and discretion; and, as he has infinite -leisure, his contemplation being subject to no limits of time, he -is ready to follow them on unknown rounds, to any distance, in any -direction, ready also to rest in any wayside inn, without fearing that -he will have lost the road on the morrow. - -This old gospel, of which Maeterlinck is the new voice, has been -quietly waiting until certain bankruptcies, the bankruptcy of -Science, of the Positive Philosophies, should allow it full credit. -Considering the length even of time, it has not had an unreasonable -space of waiting; and remember that it takes time but little into -account. We have seen many little gospels demanding of every emotion, -of every instinct, "its certificate at the hand of some respectable -authority." Without confidence in themselves or in things, and led by -Science, which is as if one were led by one's note-book, they demand a -reasonable explanation of every mystery. Not finding that explanation, -they reject the mystery; which is as if the fly on the wheel rejected -the wheel because it was hidden from his eyes by the dust of its own -raising. - -The mystic is at once the proudest and the humblest of men. He is as -a child who resigns himself to the guidance of an unseen hand, the -hand of one walking by his side; he resigns himself with the child's -humility. And he has the pride of the humble, a pride manifesting -itself in the calm rejection of every accepted map of the roads, of -every offer of assistance, of every painted signpost pointing out the -smoothest ways on which to travel. He demands no authority for the -unseen hand whose fingers he feels upon his wrist. He conceives of -life, not, indeed, so much as a road on which one walks, very much at -one's own discretion, but as a blown and wandering ship, surrounded by -a sea from which there is no glimpse of land; and he conceives that to -the currents of that sea he may safely trust himself. Let his hand, -indeed, be on the rudder, there will be no miracle worked for him; it -is enough miracle that the sea should be there, and the ship, and he -himself. He will never know why his hand should turn the rudder this -way rather than that. - -Jacob Boehme has said, very subtly, "that man does not perceive the -truth but God perceives the truth in man"; that is, that whatever -we perceive or do is not perceived or done consciously by us, but -unconsciously through us. Our business, then, is to tend that "inner -light" by which most mystics have symbolised that which at once -guides us in time and attaches us to eternity. This inner light is -no miraculous descent of the Holy Spirit, but the perfectly natural, -though it may finally be overcoming, ascent of the spirit within us. -The spirit, in all men, being but a ray of the universal fight, it can, -by careful tending, by the removal of all obstruction, the cleansing of -the vessel, the trimming of the wick, as it were, be increased, made -to burn with a steadier, a brighter flame. In the last rapture it may -become dazzling, may blind the watcher with excess of light, shutting -him in within the circle of transfiguration, whose extreme radiance -will leave all the rest of the world henceforth one darkness. - -All mystics being concerned with what is divine in life, with the -laws which apply equally to time and eternity, it may happen to one to -concern himself chiefly with time seen under the aspect of eternity, to -another to concern himself rather with eternity seen under the aspect -of time. Thus many mystics have occupied themselves, very profitably, -with showing how natural, how explicable on their own terms, are -the mysteries of life; the whole aim of Maeterlinck is to show how -mysterious all life is, "what an astonishing thing it is, merely to -live." What he had pointed out to us, with certain solemn gestures, -in his plays, he sets himself now to affirm, slowly, fully, with that -"confidence in mystery" of which he speaks. Because "there is not an -hour without its familiar miracles and its ineffable suggestions," he -sets himself to show us these miracles and these meanings where others -have not always sought or found them, in women, in children, in the -theatre. He seems to touch, at one moment or another, whether he is -discussing _La Beauté Intérieure_ or _Le Tragique Quotidien,_ on all -of these hours, and there is no hour so dark that his touch does not -illuminate it. - -And it is characteristic of him, of his "confidence in mystery," -that he speaks always without raising his voice, without surprise or -triumph, or the air of having said anything more than the simplest -observation. He speaks, not as if he knew more than others, or had -sought out more elaborate secrets, but as if he had listened more -attentively. - -Loving most those writers "whose works are nearest to silence," -he begins his book, significantly, with an essay on Silence, an -essay which, like all these essays, has the reserve, the expressive -reticence, of those "active silences" of which he succeeds in revealing -a few of the secrets. "Souls," he tells us, "are weighed in silence, -as gold and silver are weighed in pure water, and the words which we -pronounce have no meaning except through the silence in which they are -bathed. We seek to know that we may learn not to know"; knowledge, that -which can be known by the pure reason, metaphysics, "indispensable" -on this side of the "frontiers," being after all precisely what is -least essential to us, since least essentially ourselves. "We possess -a self more profound and more boundless than the self of the passions -or of pure reason.... There comes a moment when the phenomena of our -customary consciousness, what we may call the consciousness of the -passions or of our normal relationships, no longer mean anything to -us, no longer touch our real life. I admit that this consciousness is -often interesting in its way, and that it is often necessary to know -it thoroughly. But it is a surface plant, and its roots fear the great -central fire of our being. I may commit a crime without the least -breath stirring the tiniest flame of this fire; and, on the other hand, -the crossing of a single glance, a thought which never comes into -being, a minute which passes without the utterance of a word, may rouse -it into terrible agitations in the depths of its retreat, and cause -it to overflow upon my life. Our soul does not judge as we judge; it -is a capricious and hidden thing. It can be reached by a breath and -unconscious of a tempest. Let us find out what reaches it; everything -is there, for it is there that we ourselves are." - -And it is towards this point that all the words of this book tend. -Maeterlinck, unlike most men ("What is man but a God who is afraid?"), -is not "miserly of immortal things." He utters the most divine secrets -without fear, betraying certain hiding-places of the soul in those most -nearly inaccessible retreats which lie nearest to us. All that he says -we know already; we may deny it, but we know it. It is what we are not -often at leisure enough with ourselves, sincere enough with ourselves, -to realise; what we often dare not realise; but, when he says it, we -know that it is true, and our knowledge of it is his warrant for saying -it. He is what he is precisely because he tells us nothing which we do -not already know, or it may be, what we have known and forgotten. The -mystic, let it be remembered, has nothing in common with the moralist. -He speaks only to those who are already prepared to listen to him, and -he is indifferent to the "practical" effect which these or others may -draw from his words. A young and profound mystic of our day has figured -the influence of wise words upon the foolish and headstrong as "torches -thrown into a burning city." The mystic knows well that it is not -always the soul of the drunkard or the blasphemer which is farthest -from the eternal beauty. He is concerned only with that soul of the -soul, that life of life, with which the day's doings have so little to -do; itself a mystery, and at home only among those supreme mysteries -which surround it like an atmosphere. It is not always that he cares -that his message, or his vision, may be as clear to others as it is -to himself. But, because he is an artist, and not only a philosopher, -Maeterlinck has taken especial pains that not a word of his may go -astray, and there is not a word of this book which needs to be read -twice, in order that it may be understood, by the least trained of -attentive readers. It is, indeed, as he calls it, "The Treasure of the -Lowly." - - - - -CONCLUSION - - -Our only chance, in this world, of a complete happiness, lies in the -measure of our success in shutting the eyes of the mind, and deadening -its sense of hearing, and dulling the keenness of its apprehension of -the unknown. Knowing so much less than nothing, for we are entrapped -in smiling and many-coloured appearances, our life may seem to be but -a little space of leisure, in which it will be the necessary business -of each of us to speculate on what is so rapidly becoming the past -and so rapidly becoming the future, that scarcely existing present -which is after all our only possession. Yet, as the present passes -from us, hardly to be enjoyed except as memory or as hope, and only -with an at best partial recognition of the uncertainty or inutility -of both, it is with a kind of terror that we wake up, every now and -then, to the whole knowledge of our ignorance, and to some perception -of where it is leading us. To live through a single day with that -overpowering consciousness of our real position, which, in the moments -in which alone it mercifully comes, is like blinding light or the -thrust of a flaming sword, would drive any man out of his senses. It -is our hesitations, the excuses of our hearts, the compromises of -our intelligence, which save us. We can forget so much, we can bear -suspense with so fortunate an evasion of its real issues; we are so -admirably finite. - -And so there is a great, silent conspiracy between us to forget death; -all our lives are spent in busily forgetting death. That is why we -are active about so many things which we know to be unimportant; why -we are so afraid of solitude, and so thankful for the company of our -fellow-creatures. Allowing ourselves, for the most part, to be but -vaguely conscious of that great suspense in which we live, we find -our escape from its sterile, annihilating reality in many dreams, -in religion, passion, art; each a forgetfulness, each a symbol of -creation; religion being the creation of a new heaven, passion the -creation of a new earth, and art, in its mingling of heaven and -earth, the creation of heaven out of earth. Each is a kind of sublime -selfishness, the saint, the lover, and the artist having each an -incommunicable ecstasy which he esteems as his ultimate attainment, -however, in his lower moments, he may serve God in action, or do the -will of his mistress, or minister to men by showing them a little -beauty. But it is, before all things, an escape: and the prophets -who have redeemed the world, and the artists who have made the world -beautiful, and the lovers who have quickened the pulses of the world, -have really, whether they knew it or not, been fleeing from the -certainty of one thought: that we have, all of us, only our one day; -and from the dread of that other thought: that the day, however used, -must after all be wasted. - -The fear of death is not cowardice; it is, rather, an intellectual -dissatisfaction with an enigma which has been presented to us, and -which can be solved only when its solution is of no further use. All -we have to ask of death is the meaning of life, and we are waiting -all through life to ask that question. That life should be happy or -unhappy, as those words are used, means so very little; and the -heightening or lessening of the general felicity of the world means -so little to any individual. There is something almost vulgar in -happiness which does not become joy, and joy is an ecstasy which can -rarely be maintained in the soul for more than the moment during which -we recognize that it is not sorrow. Only very young people want to be -happy. What we all want is to be quite sure that there is something -which makes it worth while to go on living, in what seems to us our -best way, at our finest intensity; something beyond the mere fact that -we are satisfying a sort of inner logic (which may be quite faulty) -and that we get our best makeshift for happiness on that so hazardous -assumption. - -Well, the doctrine of Mysticism, with which all this symbolical -literature has so much to do, of which it is all so much the -expression, presents us, not with a guide for conduct, not with a plan -for our happiness, not with an explanation of any mystery, but with a -theory of life which makes us familiar with mystery, and which seems to -harmonise those instincts which make for religion, passion, and art, -freeing us at once of a great bondage. The final uncertainty remains, -but we seem to knock less helplessly at closed doors, coming so much -closer to the once terrifying eternity of things about us, as we come -to look upon these things as shadows, through which we have our shadowy -passage. "For in the particular acts of human life," Plotinus tells us, -"it is not the interior soul and the true man, but the exterior shadow -of the man alone, which laments and weeps, performing his part on the -earth as in a more ample and extended scene, in which many shadows -of souls and phantom scenes appear." And as we realise the identity -of a poem, a prayer, or a kiss, in that spiritual universe which we -are weaving for ourselves, each out of a thread of the great fabric; -as we realise the infinite insignificance of action, its immense -distance from the current of life; as we realise the delight of feeling -ourselves carried onward by forces which it is our wisdom to obey; it -is at least with a certain relief that we turn to an ancient doctrine, -so much the more likely to be true because it has so much the air of -a dream. On this theory alone does all life become worth living, all -art worth making, all worship worth offering. And because it might -slay as well as save, because the freedom of its sweet captivity might -so easily become deadly to the fool, because that is the hardest path -to walk in where you are told only, walk well; it is perhaps the only -counsel of perfection which can ever really mean much to the artist. - - - - -BIBLIOGRAPHY AND NOTES - - -The essays contained in this book are not intended to give information. -They are concerned with ideas rather than with facts; each is a study -of a problem, only in part a literary one, in which I have endeavoured -to consider writers as personalities under the action of spiritual -forces, or as themselves so many forces. But it has seemed to me that -readers have a right to demand information in regard to writers who are -so often likely to be unfamiliar to them. I have, therefore, given a -bibliography of the works of each writer with whom I have dealt, and -I have added a number of notes, giving various particulars which I -think are likely to be useful in fixing more definitely the personal -characteristics of these writers. - - - - -HONORÉ DE BALZAC - -(1799-1850) - -La Comédie Humaine - -_Scènes de la Vie Privée_ - -_Préface. La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote,_ 1829; _Le Bal de Sceaux,_ -1829; _Mémoires de deux jeunes Mariées,_ 1841; _La Bourse,_ 1832; -_Modeste Mignon,_ 1844; _Un Début dans la vie,_ 1842; _Albert Savarus,_ -1842; _La Vendetta,_ 1830; _La Paix du ménage,_ 1829; _Madame -Firmiani,_ 1832; _Étude de femme,_ 1830; _La Fausse maîtresse,_ 1842; -_Une Fille d'Eve,_ 1838; _Le Message,_ 1832; _La Grenadière,_ 1832; _La -Femme abandonnée,_ 1832; _Honorine,_ 1843; _Beatrix,_ 1838; _Gobseck,_ -1830; _La Femme de trente ans,_ 1834; _La Père Goriot,_ 1834; _Le -Colonel Chabert,_ 1832; _La Messe de l'Athée,_ 1836; _L'Interdiction,_ -1836; Le _Contrat de mariage,_ 1835; Autre _étude de femme,_ 1839; La -_Grande Bretêche,_ 1832. - -_Scènes de la vie de Province_ - -_Ursule Mirouët,_ 1841; _Eugénie Grandet,_ 1833; _Le Lys dans la -vallée_, 1835; _Pierrette,_ 1839; _Le Curé de Tours_, 1832; _La -Ménage d'un garçon,_ 1842; _L'illustre Gaudissart,_ 1833; _La Muse -du département,_ 1843; _Le Vieille fille_, 1836; _Le Cabinet des -Antiques,_ 1837; _Les Illusions Perdues,_ 1836. - -_Scènes de la Vie Parisienne_ - -_Ferragus,_ 1833; _Là Duchesse de Langeais,_ 1834; _La Fille aux yeux -d'or,_ 1834; _La Grandeur et la Décadence de César Birotteau,_ 1837; -_La Maison Nucingen,_ 1837; _Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes,_ -1838; _Les Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan,_ 1839; _Facino -Cane,_ 1836; _Sarrasine,_ 1830; _Pierre Grassou,_ 1839; _La Cousine -Bette,_ 1846; _Le Cousin Pons,_ 1847; _Un Prince de la Bohème,_ 1839; -_Gaudissart II,_ 1844; _Les Employés,_ 1836; _Les Comédiens sans le -savoir,_ 1845; _Les Petits Bourgeois,_ 1845. - - -_Scènes de la Vie Militaire_ - -_Les Chouans,_ 1827; _Une Passion dans le désert,_ 1830. - -_Scènes de la Vie Politique_ - -_Un Épisode sous la Terreur,_ 1831; _Une Ténébreuse Affaire,_ 1841; _Z. -Marcos,_ 1840; _L'Envers de l'Histoire contemporaine,_ 1847; _Le Député -d'Arcis._ - -_Scènes de la Vie de Campagne_ - -_Le Médecin de campagne,_ 1832; _Le Curé de village,_ 1837; _Les -Paysans,_ 1845. - -_Études Philosophiques_ - -_La Peau de Chagrin,_ 1830; _Jésus-Christ en Flandres,_ 1831; _Melmoth -réconcilié,_ 1835; _Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu,_ 1832; _Gambara,_ -1837; _Massimilla Doni,_ 1839; _La Recherche de l'Absolu,_ 1834; -_L'Enfant Maudit,_ 1831; _Les Maranas,_ 1832; _Adieu,_ 1830; _Le -Réquisitionnaire,_ 1831; _El Verdugo,_ 1829; _Un Drame au bord de -la mer,_ 1834; _L'Auberge rouge,_ 1831; L'_Élixir de longue vie,_ -1830; _Maître Cornélius,_ 1831; _Catherine de Médicis,_ 1836; _Les -Proscrits,_ 1831; _Louis Lambert,_ 1832; _Séraphita,_ 1833. - -_Études Analytiques_ - -_La Physiologie du mariage,_ 1829; _Petites misères de la vie -conjugale._ - -_Théâtre_ - -_Vautrin, Drame_5 _Actes,_ 1840; _Les Ressources de Quinola, Comédie_ -5 _Actes,_ 1842; _Paméla Giraud, Drame_5 _Actes,_ 1843; _La Marâtre, -Drame_5 _Actes,_ 1848; _La Faiseur (Mercadet), Comédie_ 5 _Actes,_ -1851; _Les Contes Drolatiques,_ 1832, 1833, 1839. - - - - -PROSPER MÉRIMÉE - -(1803-1870) - -_La Guzla,_ 1827; _La Jacquerie,_ 1828; _Le Chronique du Temps de -Charles IX,_ 1829; _La Vase Etrusque,_ 1829; _Vénus d'Ille,_ 1837; -_Colomba,_ 1846; _Carmen,_ 1845; _Lokis,_ 1869; _Mateo Falcone,_ -1876; _Mélanges Historiques et Littéraires,_ 1855; _Les Cosaques -d'Autrefois,_ 1865; _Étude sur les Arts au Moyen-Age,_ 1875; _Les Faux -Démétrius,_ 1853; _Étude sur l'Histoire Romaine,_ 1844; _Histoire de -Dom Pedro,_ 1848; _Lettres à une Inconnue,_ 1874. - - - - -GÉRARD DE NERVAL - -(1808-1855) - -_Napoléon et la France Guerrière, élégies nationales,_ 1826; _La mort -de Talma,_ 1826; _L'Académie, ou les Membres Introuvables, comédie -satirique en vers,_ 1826; _Napoléon et Talma, élégies nationales -nouvelles,_ 1826; _M. Dentscourt, ou le Cuisinier Grand Homme,_ 1826; -_Elégies Nationales et Satires Politiques,_ 1827; _Faust, tragédie -de Goethe,_ 1828 (suivi du second _Faust,_ 1840); _Couronne Poétique -de Béranger,_ 1828; _Le Peuple, ode,_ 1830; _Poésies Allemandes, -Morceaux choisis et traduits,_ 1830; _Choix de Poésies de Ronsard et -de Régnier,_ 1830; _Nos Adieux à la Chambre de Députés de Van_ 1830, -1831; _Lénore, traduite de Burger,_ 1835; _Piquilo, opéra comique_ -(with Dumas), 1837; l'_Alchimiste, drame en vers_ (with Dumas), 1839; -_Léo Burckhardt, drame en prose_ (with Dumas), 1839; _Scènes de la Vie -Orientale,_ 2 vols., 1848-1850; _Les Monténégrins, opéra comique_ (with -Alboize), 1849; _Le Chariot d'Enfant, drame en vers_ (with Méry), 1850; -_Les Nuits du Ramazan,_ 1850; _Voyage en Orient,_ 1851; _L'Imagier de -Harlem, légende en prose et en vers_ (with Méry and Bernard Lopez), -1852; _Contes et Facéties,_ 1852; _Lorely, souvenirs d'Allemagne,_ -1852; _Les Illuminés,_ 1852; _Petits Châteaux de Bohème,_ 1853; _Les -Filles du Feu,_ 1854; _Misanthropie et Repentir, drame de Kotzebue,_ -1855; _La Bohème galante,_ 1855; _Le Rêve et la Vie; Aurélia,_ 1855; -_Le Marquis de Fayolle_ (with E. Gorges), 1856; _Œuvres Complètes,_ -6 vols. (1, _Les Deux Faust de Goethe;_ 2, 3, _Voyage en Orient;_ 4, -_Les Illuminés, Les Faux Saulniers;_ 5, _Le Rêve et la Vie, Les Filles -du Feu, La Bohème galante;_ 6, _Poésies Complètes),_ 1867. - -The sonnets, written at different periods and published for the first -time in the collection of 1854, "Les Filles du Feu," which also -contains "Sylvie," were reprinted in the volume of _Poésies Complètes,_ -where they are imbedded in the midst of deplorable juvenilia. All, -or almost all, of the verse worth preserving was collected, in 1897, -by that delicate amateur of the curiosities of beauty, M. Remy de -Gourmont, in a tiny volume called _Les Chimères,_ which contains the -six sonnets of "Les Chimères," the sonnet called "Vers Dorés," the -five sonnets of "Le Christ aux Oliviers," and, in facsimile of the -autograph, the lyric called "Les Cydalises." The true facts of the life -of Gérard have been told for the first time, from original documents, -by Mme. Arvède Barine, in two excellent articles in the _Revue des -Deux Mondes,_ October 15 and November 1, 1897, since reprinted in _Les -Névrosés,_1898. - - - - -THÉOPHILE GAUTIER - -(1811-1872) - -_Les Poésies,_ 1830; _Albertus, ou l'âme et le péché,_ 1833; _Les -Jeunes-France,_ 1833; _Mademoiselle de Maupin,_ 1835; _Fortunio,_ 1838. - -_La Comédie de la Mort,_ 1838; _Tras les Montes,_ 1839; _Une Larme du -Diable,_ 1839; _Gisèle, ballet,_ 1841; _Une Voyage en Espagne,_ 1843; -_Le Péri, ballet,_ 1843; _Les Grotesques,_ 1844. - -_Une Nuit de Cléopâtre,_ 1845; _Premières Poésies,_ 1845; _Zigzags,_ -1845; _Le Tricorne Enchanté,_ 1845; _La Turquie,_ 1846. - -_La Juive de Constantine, drama,_ 1846; _Jean et Jeannette,_ 1846; _Le -Roi Candaule,_ 1847. - -_Les Roués innocents,_ 1847; _Histoire des Peintres,_ 1847; _Regardez, -mais n'y touche pas,_ 1847; _Les Fêtes de Madrid,_ 1847; _Partie -carrée,_ 1851; _Italia,_ 1852; Les _Émaux et Camées,_ 1852; L'Art -_Moderne,_ 1859; _Les Beaux Arts_ en _Europe,_ 1852; _Caprices et -Zigzags,_ 1852; Ario _Marcella,_ 1852; Les _Beaux-arts en Europe,_ -1855; _Constantinople,_ 1854; _Théâtre de poche,_ 1855; Le _Roman de la -Momie,_ 1856; _Jettatura,_ 1857; _Avatar_, 1857; _Sakountala, Ballet,_ -1858; Honoré de Balzac, 1859; Les Fosses, 1860; _Trésors d'Art de -la Russie,_1860-1863; _Histoire de l'art théâtrale en France depuis -vingt-cinq ans,_ 1860; Le _Capitaine Fracasse,_ 1863; Les _Dieux et -les Demi-Dieux de la peintre,_ 1863; _Poésies nouvelles,_ 1863; _Loin -de Paris,_ 1864; _La Belle Jenny,_ 1864; _Voyage en Russie,_ 1865; -_Spirite,_ 1866; _Le Palais pompéien de l'Avenue Montaigne,_ 1866; -_Rapport sur le progrès des Lettres,_ 1868; _Ménagère intime,_ 1869; -_La Nature chez Elle,_ 1870; _Tableaux de Siege,_ 1871; _Théâtre,_ -1872; _Portraits Contemporaines,_ 1874; _Histoire du Romantisme,_ 1874; -_Portraits et Souvenirs littéraires,_ 1875; _Poésies complètes,_ 1876: -2 vols.; _L'Orient,_ 1877; _Fusins et eaux-Fortes,_ 1880; _Tableaux à -la Plume,_ 1880; _Mademoiselle Daphné,_ 1881; Guide de _l'Amateur au -Musés du Louvre._ 1882; _Souvenirs de Théâtre d'Art et de critique,_ -1883. - - - - -GUSTAVE FLAUBERT - -(1821-1880) - -_Madame Bovary,_ 1857; _Salammbô,_ 1863; _La Tentation de Saint -Antoine,_ 1874; _L'Education Sentimentale,_ 1870; _Trois Contes,_ -1877; _Bouvard et Pécuchet,_ 1881; _Le Candidat,_ 1874; _Par les -Champs et par les Grèves,_ 1886; _Lettres à George Sand,_ 1884; -_Correspondances,_ 1887-1893. - - - - -CHARLES BAUDELAIRE - -(1821-1867) - -_Salon de_ 1845, 1845; _Salon de_ 1846, 1846; _Histoires -Extraordinaires, traduit de Poe,_ 1856; _Nouvelle Histoires -Extraordinaires,_ 1857; _Les Fleurs du Mal,_ 1857; _Aventures d'Arthur -Gordon Pym (Poe),_ 1858; _Théophile Gautier,_ 1859; _Les Paradis -Artificiels: Opium et Haschisch,_ 1860; _Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser -à Paris,_1861; _Euréka: Poe,_1864; _Histoires Grotesques: Poe,_ 1865; -_Les Épaves de Charles Baudelaire,_ 1866. - - - - -EDMOND and JULES DE GONCOURT - -(1822-1896; 1830-1870) - -_En_ 18, 1851; _Salon de_ 1852, 1852; _La Lorette,_ 1853; _Mystères des -Théâtres,_ 1853; _La revolution dans les Mœurs,_ 1854; _Histoire -de la Société Française pendant la Revolution,_ 1854; _Histoire de -la Société Française pendant la Directoire,_ 1855; _Le Peinture à -l'Exposition de Paris de_ 1855, 1855; _Une Voiture des Masques,_ 1856; -_Les Actrices,_ 1856; _Sophie Arnauld,_ 1857; _Portraits intimes -du XVIII Siècle,_ 1857-1858; _Histoire de Marie Antoinette,_ 1858; -_L'Art du XVIII Siècle,_ 1859-1875; _Les Hommes de Lettres,_ 1860; -_Les Maîtresses de Louis VI,_ 1860; _Sœur Philomène,_ 1861; _Les -Femmes au XVIII Siècle,_ 1864; _Renée Mauperin,_ 1864; _Germinie -Lacerteux,_ 1864; _Idées et Sensations,_ 1860; _Manette Salomon,_ -1867; _Madame Gervaisais,_ 1869; _Gavarni,_ 1873; _La Patrie en -Danger,_ 1879; _L'Amour au XVIII Siècle,_ 1873; _La du Barry,_ 1875; -_Madame de Pompadour,_ 1878; _La Duchesse de la Châteauroux,_ 1879; -_Pages retrouvées,_ 1886; _Journal des Goncourts,_ 1887-1896, 9 Vols.; -_Préfaces et manifestes littéraires,_ 1888; _L'Italie d'hier,_ 1894; -_Edmond de Goncourt: Catalogue raisonée de l'œuvre peinte, dessiné -et gravé d'Antoine Watteau,_ 1873; _Catalogue de l'œuvre de P. -Proudhon,_ 1876; _La Fille Élisa,_ 1879; _Les Frères Zemganno,_ 1879; -_La Maison d'un Artiste,_ 1881; _La Faustin,_ 1882; _La Saint-Hubert,_ -1882; _Chérie,_ 1884; _Germinie Lacerteux, pièce,_ 1888; _Mademoiselle -Clairon,_ 1890; _Outamoro, le peintre des maisons vertes,_ 1891; _La -Guimard,_ 1893; _A bas le progrès,_ 1893; _Hokouseï,_ 1896. - - - - -VILLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM - -(1838-1889) - -_Premières Poésies,_1859; _Isis,_ 1862; _Elën,_ 1864; _Morgane,_ -1865; _Claire Lenoir_(in the _Revue des Lettres et des Arts),_ -1867; _L'Evasion,_ 1870; _La Révolte,_ 1870; _Azraël,_ 1878; _Le -Nouveau Monde,_ 1880; _Contes Cruels,_ 1880; _L'Eve Future,_ 1886; -_Akëdysséril,_ 1886; _L'Amour Suprême,_ 1886; _Tribulat Bonhomet,_ -1887; _Histoires Insolites,_ 1888; _Nouveaux Contes Cruels,_ 1889; -Axël, 1890; Chez les Passants, 1890; _Propos d'Au-delà,_ 1893; -_Histoires Souveraines,_ 1899 (a selection). - -Among works announced, but never published, it may be interesting -to mention: _Seid, William de Strally, Faust, Poésies Nouvelles -(Intermèdes; Gog; Ave, Mater Victa; Poésies diverses), La Tentation -sur la Montagne, Le Vieux de la Montagne, L'Adoration des Mages, -Méditations Littéraires, Mélanges, Théâtre_ (2 vols.), _Documents sur -les Règnes de Charles VI. et de Charles VII., L'Illusionisme, De la -Connaissance de l'Utile, L'Exégèse Divine._ - -A sympathetic, but slightly vague, Life of Villiers was written -by his cousin, Vicomte Robert du Pontavice de Heussey: _Villiers -de l'Isle-Adam,_ 1893; it was translated into English by Lady -Mary Lloyd, 1894. See Verlaine's _Poètes Maudits,_ 1884, and his -biography of Villiers in _Les Hommes d'Aujourd'hui,_ the series of -penny biographies, with caricature portraits, published by Vanier; -also Mallarmé's _Villiers de l'Isle-Adam,_ the reprint of a lecture -given at Brussels a few months after Villiers, death. _La Révolte_ -was translated by Mrs. Theresa Barclay in the _Fortnightly Review,_ -December, 1897, and acted in London by the New Stage Club in 1906. I -have translated a little poem, _Aveu,_ from the interlude of verse in -the _Contes Cruels_ called _Chant d'Amour,_ in _Days and Nights,_ 1889. -An article of mine, the first, I believe, to be written on Villiers -in English, appeared in the _Woman's World_ in 1889; another in the -_Illustrated London News_ in 1891. - - - - -LÉON CLADEL - -(1835-1892) - -_Les Martyrs Ridicules. Preface par Charles Baudelaire,_ 1862; _Pierre -Patient,_ 1862; _L'Amour Romantique,_ 1882; _Le Deuxième Mystère de -l'Incarnation,_ 1883; _Le Bouscassié,_ 1889; _La Fête-Votive de Saint -Bartholomée Porte-Glaive,_ 1872; _Les Vas-nu-Pieds,_ 1874; _Celui de la -Croix-aux-Bœufs,_ 1878; _Bonshommes,_ 1879; _Ompdrailles Le Tombeau -des Lutteurs,_ 1879; _N'a q'un Œil,_ 1885; _Tity Foyssac IV,_ 1886; -_Petits Chiens de Léon Cladel,_ 1879; _Par Devant Notaire,_ 1880; -_Crête-Rouge,_ 1880; _Six Morceaux de la Littérature,_ 1880; _Kerkades -Garde-Barrière,_ 1884; _Urbains et Ruraux,_ 1884; _Léon Cladel et -ses Kyrielle des Chiens,_ 1885; _Héros et Pantins,_ 1885; _Quelques -Sires,_ 1885; _Mi-Diable,_ 1886; _Gueux de Marque,_ 1887; _Effigies -d'Inconnus,_ 1888; _Raca,_ 1888; _Seize Morceaux de Littérature,_ 1889; -_L'ancien,_ 1889; _Juive-Errante,_ 1897. - - - - -EMILE ZOLA - -(1840-1902) - -Les _Rougon-Macquart,_ 1871-1893; _La Fortune des Rougons,_ 1871; _La -Curée,_ 1872; _Le Ventre de Paris,_ 1873; _La Conquête de Pluisans,_ -1874; _La Faute de l'abbé Mouret,_ 1875; _Son Excellence Eugène -Rougon,_ 1876; _L'Assommoir,_ 1876; _Une Page d'Amour,_ 1878; _Nana,_ -1880; _Pot.-Bouille,_ 1882; _Au Bonheur des Dames,_ 1883; _La Joie de -Vivre,_ 1884; _Madeleine Fer at,_ 1885; _La Confession de Claude,_ -1886; _Contes à Ninon,_ 1891; _Nouveaux Contes à Ninon,_ 1874; _Le -Capitaine Burle,_ 1883; _La joie de vivre,_ 1884; _Les Mystères de -Marseilles,_ 1885; _Mes Haines,_ 1866; _Le Roman Expérimental,_ 1881; -_Nos Auteurs dramatiques,_ 1881; _Documents littéraires,_ 1881; _Une -Compagne,_ 1882. _Théâtre: Thérèse Raquin, Les Héritiers Rabourdin, La -Bouton de Rose,_ 1890; _L'Argent,_ 1891; _L'Attaque du Moulin,_ 1890; -_La Bête Humaine,_ 1890; La _Débâcle,_ 1892; _Le Doctor Pascal,_ 1893; -_Germinie,_ 1885; Mon Salon, 1886; Le _naturalisme au Théâtre,_ 1889; -_L'Œuvre,_ 1886; _Le Rêve,_ 1892; _Paris_, 1898; _Rome,_ 1896; -_Lourdes,_ 1894; _Fécondité,_ 1899; _Travail,_ 1901; _Vérité_, 1903. - - - - -STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ - -(1842-1898) - -_Le Corbeau_ (traduit de Poe), 1875; _La Dernière Mode,_ 1875; -L'_Après-Midi d'un Faune,_ 1876; _Le Vathek de Beckford,_ 1876; _Petite -Philologie à l'Usage des Classes et du Monde: Les Mots Anglais,_ 1877; -_Poésies Complètes_ (photogravées sur le manuscrit), 1887; _Les Poèmes -de Poe,_ 1888; _Le Ten o'Clock de M. Whistler,_ 1888; _Pages,_ 1891; -_Les Miens: Villiers de l'Isle-Adam,_ 1892; _Vers et Prose,_ 1892; _La -Musique et les Lettres_ (Oxford, Cambridge), 1894; _Divagations,_ 1897; -_Poésies,_ 1899. - -See, on this difficult subject, Edmund Gosse, _Questions at Issue,_ -1893, in which will be found the first study of Mallarmé that appeared -in English; and Vittorio Pica, _Letteratura d'Eccezione,_1899, which -contains a carefully-documented study of more than a hundred pages. -There is a translation of the poem called "Fleurs" in Mr. John Gray's -_Silverpoints,_1893, and translations of "Hérodiade" and three shorter -poems will be found in the first volume of my collected poems. Several -of the poems in prose have been translated into English; my translation -of the "Plainte d'Automne," contained in this volume, was made in -momentary forgetfulness that the same poem in prose had already been -translated by Mr. George Moore in _Confessions of a Young Man._ Mr. -Moore also translated "Le Phénomène Futur" in the _Savoy,_ July, 1896. - - - - -PAUL VERLAINE - -(1844-1896) - -_Poèmes Saturniens,_ 1866; _Fêtes Galantes,_ 1869; _La Bonne Chanson,_ -1870; _Romances sans Paroles,_ 1874; _Sagesse,_ 1881; _Les Poètes -Maudits,_ 1884; _Jadis et Naguère,_ 1884; _Les Mémoires d'un Veuf,_ -1886; _Louise Leclercq_ (suivi de _Le Poteau, Pierre Duchatelet, Madame -Aubin),_ 1887; _Amour,_ 1888; _Parallèlement,_ 1889; _Dédicaces,_ 1890; -_Bonheur,_ 1891; _Mes Hôpitaux,_ 1891; Chansons _pour Elle,_ 1891; -_Liturgies Intimes,_ 1892; _Mes Prisons,_ 1893; _Odes en son Honneur,_ -1893; _Elégies,_ 1893; _Quinze Jours en Hollande,_ 1894; _Dans les -Limbes,_ 1894; _Epigrammes,_ 1894; _Confessions,_ 1895; _Chair_, 1896; -_Invectives,_ 1896; _Voyage en France d'un Français_ (posthumous), 1907. - -The complete works of Verlaine are now published in six volumes at -the Librairie Léon Vanier (now Messein); the text is very incorrectly -printed, and it is still necessary to refer to the earlier editions -in separate volumes. _A Choix de Poésies,_1891, with a preface by -François Coppée, and a reproduction of Carrière's admirable portrait, -is published in one volume by Charpentier; the series of _Hommes -d'Aujourd'hui_ contains twenty-seven biographical notices by Verlaine; -and a considerable number of poems and prose articles exists, scattered -in various magazines, some of them English, such as the _Senate;_ in -some cases the articles themselves are translated into English, such -as "My Visit to London," in the _Savoy_ for April, 1896, and "Notes on -England: Myself as a French Master," and "Shakespeare and Racine," in -the _Fortnightly Review_ for July, 1894, and September, 1894. The first -English translation in verse from Verlaine is Arthur O'Shaughnessy's -rendering of "Clair de Lune" in _Fêtes Galantes,_ under the title -"Pastel," in _Songs of a Worker,_ 1881. A volume of translations -in verse, _Poems of Verlaine,_ by Gertrude Hall, was published in -America in 1895. In Mr. John Gray's _Silverpoints,_ 1893, there are -translations of "Parsifal," "A Crucifix," "Le Chevalier Malheur," -"Spleen," "Clair de Lune," "Mon Dieu m'a dit," and "Green." - -As I have mentioned, there have been many portraits of Verlaine. The -three portraits drawn on lithographic paper by Mr. Rothenstein, and -published in 1898, are but the latest, if also among the best, of a -long series, of which Mr. Rothenstein himself has done two or three -others, one of which was reproduced in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ in 1894, -when Verlaine was in London. M. F. A. Cazals, a young artist who was -one of Verlaine's most intimate friends, has done I should not like to -say how many portraits, some of which he has gathered together in a -little book, _Paul Verlaine: ses Portraits,_ 1898. There are portraits -in nine of Verlaine's own books, several of them by M. Cazals (roughly -jotted, expressive notes of moments), one by M. Anquetin (a strong -piece of thinking flesh and blood), and in the _Choix de Poésies_ there -is a reproduction of the cloudy, inspired poet of M. Eugène Carrière's -painting. Another portrait, which I have not seen, but which Verlaine -himself calls, in the _Dédicaces, un portrait enfin reposé,_ was done -by M. Aman-Jean. M. Niederhausern has done a bust in bronze, Mr. -Rothenstein a portrait medallion. A new edition of the _Confessions,_ -1899, contains a number of sketches; _Verlaine Dessinateur,_ 1896, many -more; and there are yet others in the extremely objectionable book of -M. Charles Donos, _Verlaine Intime,_ 1898. The _Hommes d'Aujourd'hui_ -contains a caricature-portrait, many other portraits have appeared in -French and English and German and Italian magazines, and there is yet -another portrait in the admirable little book of Charles Morice, _Paul -Verlaine,_ 1888, which contains by far the best study that has ever -been made of Verlaine as a poet. I believe Mr. George Moore's article, -"A Great Poet," reprinted in _Impressions and Opinions,_ 1891, was the -first that was written on Verlaine in England; my own article in the -_National Review_ in 1892 was, I believe, the first detailed study of -the whole of his work up to that date. At last, in the _Vie de Paul -Verlaine,_ of Edmund Lepelletier, there has come the authentic record. - -An honest and instructed life of Verlaine has long been wanted, if only -as an antidote to the defamatory production called _Verlaine Intime,_ -made up out of materials collected by the publisher Léon Vanier in -his own defense, in order that a hard taskmaster might be presented -to the world in the colours of a benefactor. A "legend" which may -well have seemed plausible to those who knew Verlaine only at the -end of his life, has obtained currency; and a comparison of Verlaine -with Villon, not only as a poet (which is to his honour), but also as -a man, has been made, and believed. Lepelletier's book is an exact -chronicle of a friendship which lasted, without a break, for thirty-six -years--that is, from the time when Verlaine was sixteen to the time -of his death; and a more sane, loyal and impartial chronicle of any -man's life we have never read. It is written with full knowledge of -every part of the career which it traces; and it is written by a man -who puts down whatever he knows exactly as he believes it to have -been. His conclusion is that "on peut fouiller sa vie au microscope: -on y reconnaîtra des fautes, des folies, des faiblesses, bien des -souffrances aussi, avec de la fatalité au fond, pas de honte véritable, -pas une vile et indigne action. Les vrais amis du poète peuvent donc -revendiquer pour lui l'épithete d'honnête homme, sans doute très -vulgaire, mais qui, aux yeux de certains, a encore du prix." - -In 1886 Verlaine dedicated _Les Mémoires d'un Veuf_ to Lepelletier, -affirming the resolve, on his part, to "garder intacte la vielle amitié -si forte et si belle." The compact has been kept nobly by the survivor. - -It may, indeed, be questioned whether Lepelletier does not insist a -little too much on the bourgeois element which he finds in Verlaine. -When a man has suffered under unjust accusations, it is natural for -his friends to defend him under whatever aspect seems to them most -generally convincing. So it is interesting to know that for seven years -Verlaine was in a municipal office, the Bureau des Budgets et Comptes, -and that later, in 1882, he made an application, which was refused, -for leave to return to his former post. Lepelletier reproaches the -authorities for an action which he takes to have precipitated Verlaine -into the final misery of his vagabondage. He would have lived quietly, -he says, and written in security. Both assumptions may be doubted. What -was bourgeois, and contented with quiet, was a small part of the nature -of one who was too strong as well as too weak to remain within limits. -The terrible force of Verlaine's weakness would always, in the process -of making him a poet, have carried him far from that "tranquilité d'une -sinécure bureaucratique" which Lepelletier strangely regrets for him. -It is hardly permitted, in looking back over a disastrous life which -has expressed itself in notable poetry, to regret that the end should -have been attained, by no matter what means. - -On moral questions Lepelletier speaks with the authority of an intimate -friendship, and from a point of view which seems wholly without -prejudice. He defends Verlaine with evident conviction against the -most serious charges brought against him, and he shows at least, on -documentary evidence, that nothing of the darker part of his "legend" -was ever proved against him in any of his arrests and imprisonments. -Drink, and mad rages let loose by drink, account, ignobly enough, for -all of them. In the famous quarrel with Rimbaud, which brought him into -prison for eighteen months, the accusation reads: - -"Pour avoir, à Bruxelles, le 10 juillet, 1873, volontairement portés -des coups et fait des blessures ayant entraîné une incapacité de -travail personnel à Arthur Rimbaud." - -The whole account of this episode is given by M. Lepelletier in great -detail, and from this we learn that it was by the merest change of -mind on the part of Rimbaud, or by sudden treachery, that the matter -came into the courts at all. Lepelletier supplies an unfavourable -account of Rimbaud, whom he looks upon as the evil counsellor of -Verlaine--probably with justice. There is little doubt that Rimbaud, -apart from his genuine touch of precocious power, which had its -influence on the genius of Verlaine, was a "mauvais sujet" of a selfish -and mischievous kind. He was destructive and pitiless; and having done -his worst, he went off carelessly into Africa. - -It will surprise some readers to learn that Verlaine took his degree -of "bachelier-ès-lettres," and that on leaving the Lycée Bonaparte he -received a certificate placing him "au nombre des sujets distingués -que compte l'établissement." He was well grounded in Latin, and fairly -well in English, and at several intervals in his life attempted to -master Spanish, with the vague desire of translating Calderon. At an -early period he read French literature, classical and modern, with -avidity; translations of English, German and Eastern classics; books of -criticism and philosophy. - -"Il admirait beaucoup Joseph de Maîstre. _Le Rouge et le Noir_ -de Stendhal avait produce sur lui une forte impression. Il avait -déniché, on ne sait où, une Vie de sainte Thérèse, qu'il lisait avec -ravissement." - -He was absorbed in Baudelaire, Gautier, Leconte de Lisle, Banville; he -read Pétrus Borel and Aloysius Bertrand. The only poem that remains -of this early period is the "Nocturne Parisien" of the _Poèmes -Saturniens,_ which dates from about his twentieth year. Jules de -Goncourt defined it as "un beau poème sinistre mêlant comme une Morgue -à Notre-Dame." Baudelaire, as Sainte-Beuve, in a charming letter of -real appreciation, pointed out, is here the evident "point de départ, -pour aller au delà." - -The chapter in which Lepelletier tells the story of the origin of the -most famous literary movement since that of 1830, the "Parnasse," is -one of the most entertaining in the book, and gives, in its narrative -of the receptions "chez Nina" (a _salon_ which Lepelletier describes -as the ancestor of the "Chat Noir"), a vivid picture of the days when -Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and François Coppée were beginners together. -Nina de Villars was one of the oddest people of her time: she made a -kind of private Bohemia for poets, musicians, all kinds of artists and -eccentric people, herself the most eccentric of them all. It was at her -house that the members of the "Parnasse" gathered, while they selected -as their more formal meeting-place the _salon_ of Madame Ricard. It is -not generally known that Verlaine's _Poèmes Saturniens_ was the third -volume to be issued by the house of Lemerre, afterwards to become a -famous "publisher of poets," and it was in this volume that the new -laws of the Parnasse were first formulated--that impassivity, that -"marble egoism," which Verlaine was so soon to reject for a more living -impulse, but which neither Leconte de Lisle nor Héredia was ever to -abandon. When one thinks of the later Verlaine, it is curious to turn -to that first formula: - - Est-elle en marvre où non, le Vénus de Milo? - -Verlaine's verse suddenly becomes human with _La Bonne Chanson,_ though -the humanity in it is not yet salted as with fire. It is the record of -the event which, as Lepelletier says, dominated his whole life; the -marriage with Mathilde Maute, the young girl with whom he had fallen in -love at first sight, and whose desertion of him, however explicable, -he never forgot nor forgave. Nothing could be more just or delicate -than Lepelletier's treatment of the whole situation and there is no -doubt that he is right in saying that the young wife "eût une grande -responsabilité dans les désordres de l'existence désorbitée du poète." -Verlaine, as he says, "était bon, aimant, et c'était comme un souffrant -qu'il fallait le traiter." "Vous n'avez rien compris à ma simplicité," -he wrote long afterwards, addressing the woman of whom Lepelletier -says, "Il l'aima toujours, il n'aima qu'elle." - -With his marriage Verlaine's disasters begin. Rimbaud enters his life -and turns the current of it; the vagabondage begins, in France and -England, and the letters written from London are among the most vivid -documents in the book: thumbnail sketches full of keen observation. -Then comes his imprisonment and conversion to Catholicism. Here -Lepelletier, while he gives us an infinity of details which he alone -could give, adopts an attitude which we cannot think to be justified, -and which, as a matter of fact, Verlaine protested against during -his lifetime. "Cette conversion fut-elle profonde et véridique?" he -asks; and he answers, "Je ne le crois pas." That his conversion had -much influence on Verlaine's conduct cannot be contended, but conduct -and belief are two different things. Sincerity of the moment was his -fundamental characteristic, but the moments made and remade his moods -in their passing. The religion of _Sagesse_ is not the less genuine -because that grave and sacred book was followed by the revolt of -_Parallèment._ Verlaine tried to explain--in the poems themselves, in -prefaces, and in conversation with friends--how natural it was to sin -and to repent, and to use the same childlike words in the immediate -rendering of sin and of repentance. This _naïveté,_ which made any -regular existence an impossibility, was a part of him which gave a -quality to his work unlike that of any other poet of our time. At -the end of his life hardly anything but the _naïvetê_ was left, and -the poems became mere outcries and gestures. Lepelletier is justly -indignant at the action of Vanier in publishing after Verlaine's -deaths the collection called _Invectives,_ made up of scraps and -impromptus which the poet certainly never intended to publish. Here we -see part of the weakness of a great man, who becomes petty when he puts -off his true character and tries to be angry. "J'ai la fureur d'aimer," -he says somewhere, and there is no essential part of his work which is -not the expression of some form of love, grotesque or heroic, human or -divine. - -Of all this later, more and more miserable part of the life of -Verlaine, Lepelletier has less to tell us. It has been sufficiently -commented on, not always by friendly or understanding witnesses. What -we get in this book, for the first time, is a view of the life as a -whole, with all that is beautiful, tragic, and desperate in it. It is -not an apology: it is a statement. It not only does honor to a great -and unhappy man of genius; it does him justice. - - - - -JORIS-KARL HUYSMANS - -(1848-1907) - -Le _Drageoir à épices,_ 1874; _Marthe: Histoire d'une Fille,_ 1876; -_Les Sœurs Vatard,_ 1879; _Croquis Parisiens,_ 1880; _En Ménage,_ -1881; _A Vau-l'Eau,_ 1882; _L'Art Moderne,_ 1883; _A Rebours,_ 1884; -_Un Dilemme,_ 1887; _En Rade,_ 1887; _Certains,_1889; _La Bièvre,_1890; -_Là-Bas,_ 1891; _En Route,_ 1895; La _Cathédrale,_ 1898; _La Bièvre -Saint-Séverin,_ 1898; Pages _Catholiques,_ 1900; Sainte _Lydwine de -Schiedam,_ 1901; De Tout, 1902; L'Oblat, 1903; Trois _Primitifs,_ -1905; Les Foules de _Lourdes,_ 1906; See also the short story, _Sac -au Dos,_ in the _Soirées de Médan,_ 1880, and the pantomime, _Pierrot -Sceptique,_ 1881, in collaboration with Léon Hennique. _En Route_ was -translated into English by Mr. Kegan Paul, in 1896; and _La Cathédrale_ -by Miss Clara Bell, in 1898. - - - - -ARTHUR RIMBAUD - -(1854-1891) - -_Une Saison en Enfer,_ 1873; _Les Illuminations,_ 1886; _Reliquaire,_ -1891 (containing several poems falsely attributed to Rimbaud); _Les -Illuminations: Une Saison en Enfer,_ 1892; _Poésies Complètes,_ 1895; -_Œuvres,_ 1898. - -See also Paterne Berrichon, _La Vie de Jean-Arthur Rimbaud,_ 1898, -and _Lettres de Jean-Arthur Rimbaud,_ 1899; Paul Verlaine, _Les -Poètes Maudits,_1884, and the biography by Verlaine in _Les Hommes -d'Aujourd'hui._ Mr. George Moore was the first to write about -Rimbaud in England, in "Two Unknown Poets" (Rimbaud and Laforgue) in -_Impressions and Opinions,_ 1891. In Mr. John Gray's _Silverpoints,_ -1893, there are translations of "Charleville" and "Sensation." The -latter, and "Les Chercheuses de Poux," are translated by Mr. T. Sturge -Moore in _The Vinedresser, and other Poems,_ 1899. - - - - -JULES LAFORGUE - -(1860-1887) - -_Les Complaintes,_ 1885; _L'Imitation de Notre-Dame la Lune,_ 1886; -_Le Concile Féerique,_ 1886; _Moralités Légendaires,_ 1887; _Derniers -Vers,_ 1890 (a privately printed volume, containing _Des Fleurs de -Bonne Volonté, Le Concile Féerique,_ and _Derniers Vers); Poésies -Complètes,_ 1894; _Œuvres Complètes, Poésies, Moralités Légendaires, -Mélanges Posthumes_ (3 vols.), 1902, 1903. - -An edition of the _Moralités Légendaires_ was published in 1897, under -the care of M. Lucien Pissarro, at the Sign of the Dial; it is printed -in Mr. Ricketts' admirable type, and makes one of the most beautiful -volumes issued in French during this century. In 1896 M. Camille -Mauclair, with his supple instinct for contemporary values, wrote -a study, or rather an eulogy, of Laforgue, to which M. Maeterlinck -contributed a few searching and delicate words by way of preface. - - - - -MAURICE MAETERLINCK - -(1862) - -_Serres Chaudes,_ 1889; _La Princesse Maleine,_ 1890; _Les Aveugles -(L'Intruse, Les Aveugles),_ 1890; _L'Ornement des Noces Spirituelles, -de Ruysbroeck l'Admirable,_ 1891; _Les Sept Princesses,_ 1891; _Pelléas -et Mélisande,_ 1892; _Alladine et Palomides, Intérieur, La Mort de -Tintagiles,_ 1894; _Annabella, de John Ford,_ 1895; _Les Disciples à -Sais et les Fragments de Novalis,_ 1895; _Le Trésor des Humbles,_ 1896; -_Douze Chansons,_ 1896; _Aglavaine et Sélysette,_ 1896; _La Sagesse et -la Destinée,_ 1898; _Théâtre,_ 1901 (3 vols.); _La Vie des Abeilles,_ -1901; _Monna Vanna,_ 1902; _Le Temple Enseveli,_ 1902; _Joyzelle,_ -1903; _Le Double Jardin,_ 1904; _L'Intelligence des Fleurs,_ 1907. - -M. Maeterlinck has had the good or bad fortune to be more promptly, -and more violently, praised at the beginning of his career than at all -events any other writer of whom I have spoken in this volume. His fame -in France was made by a flaming article of M. Octave Mirbeau in the -_Figaro_ of August 24, 1890. M. Mirbeau greeted him as the "Belgian -Shakepeare," and expressed his opinion of _La Princesse Maleine_ by -saying "M. Maeterlinck has given us the greatest work of genius that -has been produced in our time, and the most extraordinary and the most -naïve too, comparable (dare I say?) superior in beauty to what is -most beautiful in Shakespeare ... more tragic than _Macbeth,_ more -extraordinary in thought than _Hamlet."_ Mr. William Archer introduced -M. Maeterlinck to England in an article called "A Pessimist Playwright" -in the _Fortnightly Review,_ September, 1891. Less enthusiastic than -M. Mirbeau, he defined the author of _La Princesse Maleine_ as "a -Webster who had read Alfred de Musset." A freely adapted version of -_L'Intruse_ was given by Mr. Tree at the Haymarket Theatre, January -27, 1892, and since that time many of M. Maeterlinck's plays have been -acted, without cuts, or with but few cuts, at various London theatres. -Several of his books have also been translated into English: _The -Princesse Maleine_ (by Gerard Harry) and _The Intruder_ (by William -Wilson), 1892; _Pelléas and Mélisande_ and _The Sightless_ (by Laurence -Alma-Tadema), 1892; _Ruysbroeck and the Mystics_ (by J. T. Stoddart), -1894; _The Treasure of the Humble_ (by A. Sutro), 1897; _Aglavaine and -Sélysette_ (by A. Sutro), 1897; _Wisdom and Destiny_ (by A. Sutro), -1898; _Alladine and Palomides_ (by A. Sutro), _Interior_ (by William -Archer), and _The Death of Tintagiles_ (by A. Sutro), 1899. - -I have spoken, in this volume, chiefly of Maeterlinck's essays, and -but little of his plays, and I have said all that I had to say without -special reference to the second volume of essays, _La Sagesse et la -Destinée._ Like _Le Trésor des Humbles,_ that book is a message, a -doctrine, even more than it is a piece of literature. It is a treatise -on wisdom and happiness, on the search for happiness because it is -wisdom, not for wisdom because it is happiness. It is a book of patient -and resigned philosophy, a very Flemish philosophy, more resigned than -even _Le Trésor des Humbles._ In a sense it seems to aim less high. -An ecstatic mysticism has given way to a kind of prudence. Is this -coming nearer to the earth really an intellectual ascent or descent? -At least it is a divergence, and it probably indicates a divergence in -art as well as in meditation. Yet, while it is quite possible to at -least indicate Maeterlinck's position as a philosopher, it seems to me -premature to attempt to define his position as a dramatist. Interesting -as his dramatic work has always been, there is, in the later dramas, -so singular an advance in all the qualities that go to make great -art, that I find it impossible at this stage of his development, -to treat his dramatic work as in any sense the final expression of -a personality. What the next stage of his development may be it is -impossible to say. He will not write more beautiful dramas than he has -written in _Aglavaine et Sélysette_ and in _Pelléas et Mêlisande._ -But he may, and he probably will, write something which will move -the general world more profoundly, touching it more closely, in the -manner of the great writers, in whom beauty has not been more beautiful -than in writers less great, but has come to men with a more splendid -energy. - - - - -TRANSLATIONS - - - - -_From Stéphane Mallarmé_ - - - I. HÉRODIADE - - Herodiade. - - To mine own self I am a wilderness. - You know it, amethyst gardens numberless - Enfolded in the flaming, subtle deep, - Strange gold, that through the red earth's heavy sleep - Has cherished ancient brightness like a dream, - Stones whence mine eyes, pure jewels, have their gleam - Of icy and melodious radiance, you, - Metals, which into my young tresses drew - A fatal splendour and their manifold grace! - Thou, woman, born into these evil days - Disastrous to the cavern sibylline, - Who speakest, prophesying not of one divine, - But of a mortal, if from that close sheath, - My robes, rustle the wild enchanted breath - In the white quiver of my nakedness, - In the warm air of summer, O prophetess, - (And woman's body obeys that ancient claim) - Behold me in my shivering starry shame, - I die! - The horror of my virginity - Delights me, and I would envelop me - In the terror of my tresses, that, by night, - Inviolate reptile, I might feel the white - And glimmering radiance of thy frozen fire, - Thou that art chaste and diest of desire, - White night of ice and of the cruel snow! - Eternal sister, my lone sister, lo - My dreams uplifted before thee! now, apart, - So rare a crystal is my dreaming heart, - I live in a monotonous land alone, - And all about me lives but in mine own - Image, the idolatrous mirror of my pride, - Mirroring this Hérodiade diamond-eyed. - I am indeed alone, O charm and curse! - - Nurse. - O lady, would you die then? - - Herodiade. - No, poor nurse; - Be calm, and leave me; prithee, pardon me, - But, ere thou go, close to the casement; see - How the seraphical blue in the dim glass smiles, - But I abhor the blue of the sky! - Yet miles - On miles of rocking waves! Know'st not a land - Where, in the pestilent sky, men see the hand - Of Venus, and her shadow in dark leaves? - Thither I go. - Light thou the wax that grieves - In the swift flame, and sheds an alien tear - Over the vain gold; wilt not say in mere - Childishness? - - Nurse. - Now? - - Herodiade. - Farewell. You lie, O flower - Of these chill lips! - I wait the unknown hour, - Or, deaf to your crying and that hour supreme, - Utter the lamentation of the dream - Of childhood seeing fall apart in sighs - The icy chaplet of its reveries. - - - - - II. SIGH - - My soul, calm sister, towards thy brow, whereon scarce grieves - An autumn strewn already with its russet leaves, - And towards the wandering sky of thine angelic eyes, - Mounts, as in melancholy gardens may arise - Some faithful fountain sighing whitely towards the blue! - Towards the blue pale and pure that sad October knew, - When, in those depths, it mirrored languors infinité, - And agonising leaves upon the waters white, - Windily drifting, traced a furrow cold and dun, - Where, in one long last ray, lingered the yellow sun. - - - III. SEA-WIND - - The flesh is sad, alas! and all the books are read. - Flight, only flight! I feel that birds are wild to tread - The floor of unknown foam, and to attain the skies! - Nought, neither ancient gardens mirrored in the eyes, - Shall hold this heart that bathes in waters its delight, - O nights! nor yet my waking lamp, whose lonely light - Shadows the vacant paper, whiteness profits best, - Nor the young wife who rocks her baby on her breast. - I will depart! O steamer, swaying rope and spar, - Lift anchor for exotic lands that lie afar! - A weariness, outworn by cruel hopes, still clings - To the last farewell handkerchief's last beckonings! - And are not these, the masts inviting storms, not these - That an awakening wind bends over wrecking seas, - Lost, not a sail, a sail, a flowering isle, ere long? - But, O my heart, hear thou, hear thou the sailors' song! - - - IV. ANGUISH - - To-night I do not come to conquer thee, - O Beast that dost the sins of the whole world bear, - Nor with my kisses' weary misery - Wake a sad tempest in thy wanton hair; - It is that heavy and that dreamless sleep - I ask of the close curtains of thy bed, - Which, after all thy treacheries, folds thee deep, - Who knowest oblivion better than the dead. - For Vice, that gnaws with keener tooth than Time, - Brands me as thee, of barren conquest proud; - But while thou guardest in thy breast of stone - A heart that fears no fang of any crime, - I wander palely, haunted by my shroud, - Fearing to die if I but sleep alone. - - - - - _From Paul Verlaine: Fêtes Galantes_ - - I. CLAIR DE LUNE - - Your soul is a sealed garden, and there go - With masque and bergamasque fair companies - Playing on lutes and dancing and as though - Sad under their fantastic fripperies. - - Though they in minor keys go carolling - Of love the conqueror and of life the boon - They seem to doubt the happiness they sing - And the song melts into the light of the moon, - - The sad light of the moon, so lovely fair - That all the birds dream in the leafy shade - And the slim fountains sob into the air - Among the marble statues in the glade. - - - II. PANTOMIME - - Pierrot, no sentimental swain, - Washes a paté down again - With furtive flagons, white and red. - - Cassandre, with demure content, - Greets with a tear of sentiment - His nephew disinherited. - - That blackguard of a Harlequin - Pirouettes, and plots to win - His Columbine that flits and flies. - - Columbine dreams, and starts to find - A sad heart sighing in the wind, - And in her heart a voice that sighs. - - - III. SUR L'HERBE - - The Abbé wanders.--Marquis, now - Set straight your periwig, and speak! - --This Cyprus wine is heavenly, how - Much less, Camargo, than your cheek! - - --My goddess ...--Do, mi, sol, la, si. - --Abbé, such treason who'll forgive you? - --May I die, ladies, if there be - A star in heaven I will not give you! - - --I'd be my lady's lapdog; then ... - --Shepherdess, kiss your shepherd soon, - Shepherd, come kiss ...--Well, gentlemen? - --Do, mi, so.--Hey, good-night, good moon! - - - IV. L'ALLÉE - - As in the age of shepherd king and queen, - Painted and frail amid her nodding bows, - Under the sombre branches and between - The green and mossy garden-ways she goes, - With little mincing airs one keeps to pet - A darling and provoking perroquet. - Her long-trained robe is blue, the fan she holds - With fluent fingers girt with heavy rings, - So vaguely hints of vague erotic things - That her eye smiles, musing among its folds. - --Blonde too, a tiny nose, a rosy mouth, - Artful as that sly patch that makes more sly, - In her divine unconscious pride of youth, - The slightly simpering sparkle of the eye. - - - V. A LA PROMENADE - - The sky so pale, and the trees, such frail things, - Seem as if smiling on our bright array - That flits so light and gay upon the way - With indolent airs and fluttering as of wings. - - The fountain wrinkles under a faint wind, - And all the sifted sunlight falling through - The lime-trees of the shadowy avenue - Comes to us blue and shadowy-pale and thinned. - - Faultlessly fickle, and yet fond enough, - With fonds hearts not too tender to be free, - We wander whispering deliciously, - And every lover leads a lady-love, - - Whose imperceptible and roguish hand - Darts now and then a dainty tap, the lip - Revenges on an extreme finger-tip, - The tip of the left little finger, and, - - The deed being so excessive and uncouth, - A duly freezing look deals punishment, - That in the instant of the act is blent - With a shy pity pouting in the mouth. - - - VI. DANS LA GROTTE - - Stay, let me die, since I am true, - For my distress will not delay, - And the Hyrcanian tigress ravening for prey - Is as a little lamb to you. - - - Yes, here within, cruel Clymène, - This steel which in how many wars - How many a Cyrus slew, or Scipio, now prepares - To end my life and end my pain. - - But nay, what need of steel have I - To haste my passage to the shades? - Did not Love pierce my heart, beyond all mortal aids, - With the first arrow of your eye? - - - VII. LES INGENUS - - High heels and long skirts intercepting them, - So that, according to the wind or way, - An ankle peeped and vanished as in play; - And well we loved the malice of the game. - - Sometimes an insect with its jealous sting - Some fair one's whiter neck disquieted, - From which the gleams of sudden whiteness shed - Met in our eyes a frolic welcoming. - - The stealthy autumn evening faded out, - And the fair creatures dreaming by our side - Words of such subtle savour to us sighed - That since that time our souls tremble and doubt. - - - VIII. CORTÈGE - - A silver-vested monkey trips - And pirouettes before the face - Of one who twists a kerchief's lace - Between her well-gloved finger-tips. - - A little negro, a red elf, - Carries her dropping train, and holds - At arm's length all the heavy folds, - Watching each fold displace itself. - - The monkey never lets his eyes - Wander from the fair woman's breast, - White wonder that to be possessed - Would call a god out of the skies. - - Sometimes the little negro seems - To lift his sumptuous burden up - Higher than need be, in the hope - Of seeing what all night he dreams. - - She goes by corridor and stair, - Still to the insolent appeals - Of her familiar animals - Indifferent or unaware. - - - IX. LES COQUILLAGES - - Each shell incrusted in the grot - Where we two loved each other well - An aspect of its own has got. - - The purple of a purple shell - Is our souls' colour when they make - Our burning heart's blood visible. - - This pallid shell affects to take - Thy languors, when thy love-tired eyes - Rebuke me for my mockery's sake. - - This counterfeits the harmonies - Of thy pink ear, and this might be - Thy plump short nape with rosy dyes. - - But one, among these, troubled me. - - - X. EN PATINANT - - We were the victims, you and I, - Madame, of mutual self deceits; - And that which set our brains awry - May well have been the summer heats. - - And the spring too, if I recall, - Contributed to spoil our play, - And yet its share, I think, was small - In leading you and me astray. - - For air in springtime is so fresh - That rose-buds Love has surely meant - To match the roses of the flesh - Have odours almost innocent; - - And even the lilies that outpour - Their biting odours where the sun - Is new in heaven, do but the more - Enliven and enlighten one, - - So stealthily the zephyr blows - A mocking breath that renders back - The heart's rest and the soul's repose - And the flower's aphrodisiac, - - And the five senses, peeping out, - Take up their station at the feast, - But, being by themselves, without - Troubling the reason in the least. - - That was the time of azure skies, - (Madame, do you remember it?) - And sonnets to my lady's eyes, - And cautious kisses not too sweet. - - Free from all passion's idle pother, - Full of mere kindliness, how long, - How well we liked not loved each other, - Without one rapture or one wrong! - - Ah, happy hours! But summer came: - Farewell, fresh breezes of the spring! - A wind of pleasure like a flame - Leapt on our senses wondering. - - Strange flowers, fair crimson-hearted flowers - Poured their ripe odours over us, - And evil voices of the hours - Whispered above us in the boughs. - - We yielded to it all, ah me! - What vertigo of fools held fast - Our senses in its ecstasy - Until the heat of summer passed? - - There were vain tears and vainer laughter, - And hands indefinitely pressed, - Moist sadnesses, and swoonings after, - And what vague void within the breast? - - But autumn came to our relief, - Its light grown cold, its gusts grown rough, - Came to remind us, sharp and brief, - That we had wantoned long enough, - - And led us quickly to recover - The elegance demanded of - Every quite irreproachable lover - And every seemly lady-love. - - Now it is winter, and, alas, - Our backers tremble for their stake; - Already other sledges pass - And leave us toiling in their wake. - - Put both your hands into your muff, - Sit back, now, steady! off we go. - Fanchon will tell us soon enough - Whatever news there is to know. - - - XI. FANTOCHES - - Scaramouche waves a threatening hand - To Pulcinella, and they stand, - Two shadows, black against the moon. - - The old doctor of Bologna pries - For simples with impassive eyes, - And mutters o'er a magic rune. - - The while his daughter, scarce half-dressed, - Glides slyly 'neath the trees, in quest - Of her bold pirate lover's sail; - - Her pirate from the Spanish main, - Whose passion thrills her in the pain - Of the loud languorous nightingale. - - - XII. CYTHÈRE - - By favourable breezes fanned, - A trellised harbour is at hand - To shield us from the summer airs; - - The scent of roses, fainting sweet, - Afloat upon the summer heat, - Blends with the perfume that she wears. - - True to the promise her eyes gave, - She ventures all, and her mouth rains - A dainty fever through my veins; - - And, Love fulfilling all things, save - Hunger, we 'scape, with sweets and ices, - The folly of Love's sacrifices. - - - XIII. EN BATEAU - - The shepherd's star with trembling glint - Drops in black water; at the hint - The pilot fumbles for his flint. - - Now is the time or never, sirs. - No hand that wanders wisely errs: - I touch a hand, and is it hers? - - The knightly Atys strikes the strings, - And to the faithless Chloris flings - A look that speaks of many things. - - The abbé has absolved again - Eglé, the viscount all in vain - Has given his hasty heart the rein. - - Meanwhile the moon is up and streams - Upon the skiff that flies and seems - To float upon a tide of dreams. - - - XIV. LE FAUNE - - An aged faun of old red clay-Laughs - from the grassy bowling-green, - Foretelling doubtless some decay - Of mortal moments so serene - - That lead us lightly on our way - (Love's piteous pilgrims have we been!) - To this last hour that runs away - Dancing to the tambourine. - - - XV. MANDOLINE - - The singers of serenades - Whisper their faded vows - Unto fair listening maids - Under the singing boughs. - - Tircis, Aminte, are there, - Clitandre has waited long, - And Damis for many a fair - Tyrant makes many a song. - - Their short vests, silken and bright, - Their long pale silken trains, - Their elegance of delight, - Twine soft blue silken chains. - - And the mandolines and they, - Faintlier breathing, swoon - Into the rose and grey - Ecstasy of the moon. - - - XVI. A CLYMÈNE - - Mystical strains unheard, - A song without a word, - Dearest, because thine eyes, - Pale as the skies, - - Because thy voice, remote - As the far clouds that float - Veiling for me the whole - Heaven of the soul, - - Because the stately scent - Of thy swan's whiteness, blent - With the white lily's bloom - Of thy perfume, - - Ah! because thy dear love, - The music breathed above - By angels halo-crowned, - Odour and sound, - - Hath, in my subtle heart, - With some mysterious art - Transposed thy harmony, - So let it be! - - - XVII. LETTRE - - Far from your sight removed by thankless cares - (The gods are witness when a lover swears) - I languish and I die, Madame, as still - My use is, which I punctually fulfil, - And go, through heavy-hearted woes conveyed, - Attended ever by your lovely shade, - By day in thought, by night in dreams of hell, - And day and night, Madame, adorable! - So that at length my dwindling body lost - In very soul, I too become a ghost, - I too, and in the lamentable stress - Of vain desires remembering happiness, - Remembered kisses, now, alas, unfelt, - My shadow shall into your shadow melt. - - Meanwhile, dearest, your most obedient slave. - - How does the sweet society behave, - Thy cat, thy dog, thy parrot? and is she - Still, as of old, the black-eyed Silvanie - (I had loved black eyes if thine had not been blue) - Who ogled me at moments, palsambleu! - - Thy tender friend and thy sweet confidant? - One dream there is, Madame, long wont to haunt - This too impatient heart: to pour the earth - And all its treasures (of how little worth!) - Before your feet as tokens of a love - Equal to the most famous flames that move - The hearts of men to conquer all but death. - Cleopatra was less loved, yes, on my faith, - By Antony or Cæsar than you are, - Madame, by me, who truly would by far - Out-do the deeds of Cæsar for a smile, - O Cleopatra, queen of word and wile, - Or, for a kiss, take flight with Antony - - With this, farewell, dear, and no more from me; - How can the time it takes to read it, quite - Be worth the trouble that it took to write? - - - XVIII. LES INDOLENTS - - Bah! spite of Fate, that says us nay, - Suppose we die together, eh? - --A rare conclusion you discover - - --What's rare is good. Let us die so, - Like lovers in Boccaccio. - --Ha! ha! ha! you fantastic lover! - - --Nay, not fantastic. If you will, - Fond, surely irreproachable. - Suppose, then, that we die together? - - --Good sir, your jests are fitlier told - Than when you speak of love or gold. - Why speak at all, in this glad weather? - - Whereat, behold them once again, - Tircis beside his Dorimène, - Not far from two blithe rustic rovers, - - For some caprice of idle breath - Deferring a delicious death. - Ha! ha! ha! what fantastic lovers! - - - XIX. COLUMBINE - - The foolish Leander, - Cape-covered Cassander, - And which - Is Pierrot? 'tis he - With the hop of a flea - Leaps the ditch; - - And Harlequin who - Rehearses anew - His sly task, - With his dress that's a wonder, - And eyes shining under - His mask; - - Mi, sol, mi, fa, do! - How gaily they go, - And they sing - And they laugh and they twirl - Round the feet of a girl - Like the Spring, - - Whose eyes are as green - As a cat's are, and keen - As its claws, - And her eyes without frown - Bid all new-comers Down - With your paws! - - On they go with the force - Of the stars in their course, - And the speed: - O tell me toward what - Disaster unthought, - Without heed - - The implacable fair, - A rose in her hair, - Holding up - Her skirts as she runs - Leads this dance of the dunce - And the dupe? - - - XX. L'AMOUR PAR TERRE - - The other night a sudden wind laid low - The Love, shooting an arrow at a mark, - In the mysterious corner of the park, - Whose smile disquieted us long ago. - - The wind has overthrown him, and above - His scattered dust, how sad it is to spell - The artist's name still faintly visible - Upon the pedestal without its Love, - - How sad it is to see the pedestal - Still standing! as in dream I seem to hear - Prophetic voices whisper in my ear - The lonely and despairing end of all. - - How sad it is! Why, even you have found - A tear for it, although your frivolous eye - Laughs at the gold and purple butterfly - Poised on the piteous litter on the ground. - - - XXI. EN SOURDINE - - Calm where twilight leaves have stilled - With their shadow light and sound, - Let our silent love be filled - With a silence as profound. - - Let our ravished senses blend - Heart and spirit, thine and mine, - With vague languors that descend - From the branches of the pine. - - Close thine eyes against the day, - Fold thine arms across thy breast, - And for ever turn away - All desire of all but rest. - - Let the lulling breaths that pass - In soft wrinkles at thy feet, - Tossing all the tawny grass, - This and only this repeat. - - And when solemn evening - Dims the forest's dusky air, - Then the nightingale shall sing - The delight of our despair. - - - XXII. COLLOQUE SENTIMENTAL - - In the old park, solitary and vast, - Over the frozen ground two forms once passed. - - Their lips were languid and their eyes were dead, - And hardly could be heard the words they said. - - In the old park, solitary and vast, - Two ghosts once met to summon up the past. - - --Do you remember our old ecstasy? - --Why would you bring it back again to me? - - --Do you still dream as you dreamed long ago? - Does your heart beat to my heart's beating? - --No. - - --Ah, those old days, what joys have those days seen - When your lips met my lips!--It may have been. - - --How blue the sky was, and our hope how light! - --Hope has flown helpless back into the night. - - They walked through weeds withered and grasses dead, - And only the night heard the words they said. - - - - - _From Poèmes Saturniens_ - - I. SOLEILS COUCHANTS - - Pale dawn delicately - Over earth has spun - The sad melancholy - Of the setting sun. - Sad melancholy - Brings oblivion - In sad songs to me - With the setting sun. - And the strangest dreams, - Dreams like suns that set - On the banks of the streams, - Ghost and glory met, - To my sense it seems, - Pass, and without let, - Like great suns that set - On the banks of streams. - - - II. CHANSON D'AUTOMNE - - When a sighing begins - In the violins - Of the autumn-song, - My heart is drowned - In the slow sound - Languorous and long. - - Pale as with pain, - Breath fails me when - The hour tolls deep. - My thoughts recover - The days that are over, - And I weep. - - And I go - - Where the winds know, - Broken and brief, - To and fro, - As the winds blow - A dead leaf. - - - III. FEMME ET CHATTE - - They were at play, she and her cat, - And it was marvellous to mark - The white paw and the white hand pat - Each other in the deepening dark. - - The stealthy little lady hid - Under her mittens' silken sheath - Her deadly agate nails that thrid - The silk-like dagger-points of death. - - The cat purred primly and drew in - Her claws that were of steel filed thin: - The devil was in it all the same. - - And in the boudoir, while a shout - Of laughter in the air rang out, - Four sparks of phosphor shone like flame. - - - - - _From La Bonne Chanson_ - - I - - The white moon sits - And seems to brood - Where a swift voice flits - From each branch in the wood - That the tree-tops cover.... - - O lover, my lover! - - The pool in the meadows - Like a looking-glass - Casts back the shadows - That over it pass - Of the willow-bower.... - - Let us dream: 'tis the hour.... - - A tender and vast - Lull of content - Like a cloud is cast - From the firmament - Where one planet is bright.... - - 'Tis the hour of delight. - - - II - - The fireside, the lamp's little narrow light; - The dream with head on hand, and the delight - Of eyes that lose themselves in loving looks; - The hour of steaming tea and of shut books; - The solace to know evening almost gone; - The dainty weariness of waiting on - The nuptial shadow and night's softest bliss; - Ah, it is this that without respite, this - That without stay, my tender fancy seeks, - Mad with the months and furious with the weeks. - - - - - _From Romances sans Paroles_ - - I - - 'Tis the ecstasy of repose, - 'Tis love when tired lids close, - 'Tis the wood's long shuddering - In the embrace of the wind, - 'Tis, where grey boughs are thinned, - Little voices that sing. - - O fresh and frail is the sound - That twitters above, around, - Like the sweet tiny sigh - That lies in the shaken grass; - Or the sound when waters pass - And the pebbles shrink and cry. - - What soul is this that complains - Over the sleeping plains, - And what is it that it saith? - Is it mine, is it thine, - This lowly hymn I divine - In the warm night, low as a breath? - - - II - - I divine, through the veil of a murmuring, - The subtle contour of voices gone, - And I see, in the glimmering lights that sing, - The promise, pale love, of a future dawn. - - And my soul and my heart in trouble - What are they but an eye that sees, - As through a mist an eye sees double, - Airs forgotten of songs like these? - - O to die of no other dying, - Love, than this that computes the showers - Of old hours and of new hours flying: - O to die of the swing of the hours! - - - III - - Tears in my heart that weeps, - Like the rain upon the town. - What drowsy languor steeps - In tears my heart that weeps? - - O sweet sound of the rain - On earth and on the roofs! - For a heart's weary pain - O the song of the rain! - - Vain tears, vain tears, my heart! - What, none hath done thee wrong? - Tears without reason start - From my disheartened heart. - - This is the weariest woe, - O heart, of love and hate - Too weary, not to know - Why thou hast all this woe. - - - IV - - A frail hand in the rose-grey evening - Kisses the shining keys that hardly stir, - While, with the light, small flutter of a wing, - And old song, like an old tired wanderer, - Goes very softly, as if trembling, - About the room long redolent of Her. - - What lullaby is this that comes again - To dandle my poor being with its breath? - What wouldst thou have of me, gay laughing strain? - What hadst thou, desultory faint refrain - That now into the garden to thy death - Floatest through the half-opened window-pane? - - - V - - O sad, sad was my soul, alas! - For a woman, a woman's sake it was. - - I have had no comfort since that day, - Although my heart went its way, - - Although my heart and my soul went - From the woman into banishment. - - I have had no comfort since that day, - Although my heart went its way. - - And my heart, being sore in me, - Said to my soul: How can this be, - - How can this be or have been thus, - This proud, sad banishment of us? - - My soul said to my heart: Do I - Know what snare we are tangled by, - - Seeing that, banished, we know not whether - We are divided or together? - - - VI - - Wearily the plain's - Endless length expands; - The snow shines like grains - Of the shifting sands. - - Light of day is none, - Brazen is the sky; - Overhead the moon - Seems to live and die. - - Where the woods are seen, - Grey the oak-trees lift - Through the vaporous screen - Like the clouds that drift. - - Light of day is none, - Brazen is the sky; - Overhead the moon - Seems to live and die. - - Broken-winded crow, - And you, lean wolves, when - The sharp north-winds blow, - What do you do then? - - Wearily the plain's - Endless length expands; - The snow shines like grains - Of the shifting sands. - - - VII - - There's a flight of green and red - In the hurry of hills and rails, - Through the shadowy twilight shed - By the lamps as daylight pales. - - Dim gold light flushes to blood - In humble hollows far down; - Birds sing low from a wood - Of barren trees without crown. - - Scarcely more to be felt - Than that autumn is gone; - Languors, lulled in me, melt - In the still air's monotone. - - - VIII. SPLEEN - - The roses were all red, - The ivy was all black: - Dear, if you turn your head, - All my despairs come back. - - The sky was too blue, too kind, - The sea too green, and the air - Too calm: and I know in my mind - I shall wake and not find you there. - - I am tired of the box-tree's shine - And the holly's, that never will pass, - And the plain's unending line, - And of all but you, alas! - - - IX. STREETS - - Dance the jig! - - I loved best her pretty eyes - Clearer than stars in any skies, - I loved her eyes for their dear lies. - - Dance the jig! - - And ah! the ways, the ways she had - Of driving a poor lover mad: - It made a man's heart sad and glad. - - Dance the jig! - - But now I find the old kisses shed - From her flower-mouth a rarer red - Now that her heart to mine is dead. - - Dance the jig! - - And I recall, now I recall - Old days and hours, and ever shall, - And that is best, and best of all. - - Dance the jig! - - - - - _From Jadis et Naguère_ - - I. ART POÉTIQUE - - Music first and foremost of all! - Choose your measure of odd not even, - Let it melt in the air of heaven, - Pose not, poise not, but rise and fall. - - Choose your words, but think not whether - Each to other of old belong: - What so dear as the dim grey song - Where clear and vague are joined together? - - 'Tis veils of beauty for beautiful eyes, - 'Tis the trembling light of the naked noon, - 'Tis a medley of blue and gold, the moon - And stars in the cool of autumn skies. - - Let every shape of its shade be born; - Colour, away! come to me, shade! - Only of shade can the marriage be made - Of dream with dream and of flute with horn. - - Shun the Point, lest death with it come, - Unholy laughter and cruel wit - (For the eyes of the angels weep at it) - And all the garbage of scullery-scum. - - Take Eloquence, and wring the neck of him! - You had better, by force, from time to time, - Put a little sense in the head of Rhyme: - If you watch him not, you will be at the beck of him. - - O, who shall tell us the wrongs of Rhyme? - What witless savage or what deaf boy - Has made for us this twopenny toy - Whose bells ring hollow and out of time? - - Music always and music still! - Let your verse be the wandering thing - That flutters in flight from a soul on the wing - Towards other skies at a new whim's will. - - Let your verse be the luck of the lure - Afloat on the winds that at morning hint - Of the odours of thyme and the savour of mint ... - And all the rest is literature. - - - II. MEZZETIN CHANTANT - - Go, and with never a care - But the care to keep happiness! - Crumple a silken dress - And snatch a song in the air. - - Hear the moral of all the wise - In a world where happy folly - Is wiser than melancholy: - Forget the hour as it flies! - - The one thing needful on earth, it - Is not to be whimpering. - Is life after all a thing - Real enough to be worth it? - - - - - _From Sagesse_ - - I - - The little hands that once were mine, - The hands I loved, the lovely hands, - After the roadways and the strands, - And realms and kingdoms once divine, - - And mortal loss of all that seems - Lost with the old sad pagan things, - Royal as in the days of kings - The dear hands open to me dreams. - - Hands of dream, hands of holy flame - Upon my soul in blessing laid, - What is it that these hands have said - That my soul hears and swoons to them? - - Is it a phantom, this pure sight - Of mother's love made tenderer, - Of spirit with spirit linked to share - The mutual kinship of delight? - - Good sorrow, dear remorse, and ye, - Blest dreams, O hands ordained of heaven - To tell me if I am forgiven, - Make but the sign that pardons me! - - - II - - O my God, thou hast wounded me with love, - Behold the wound, that is still vibrating, - O my God, thou hast wounded me with love. - - O my God, thy fear hath fallen upon me, - Behold the burn is there, and it throbs aloud, - O my God, thy fear hath fallen upon me. - - O my God, I have known that all is vile - And that thy glory hath stationed itself in me, - O my God, I have known that all is vile. - - Drown my soul in floods, floods of thy wine, - Mingle my life with the body of thy bread, - Drown my soul in floods, floods of thy wine. - - Take my blood, that I have not poured out, - Take my flesh, unworthy of suffering, - Take my blood, that I have not poured out. - - Take my brow, that has only learned to blush, - To be the footstool of thine adorable feet, - Take my brow, that has only learned to blush. - - Take my hands, because they have laboured not - For coals of fire and for rare frankincense, - Take my hands, because they have laboured not. - - Take my heart, that has beaten for vain things, - To throb under the thorns of Calvary, - Take my heart that has beaten for vain things. - - Take my feet, frivolous travellers, - That they may run to the crying of thy grace, - Take my feet, frivolous travellers. - - Take my voice, a harsh and a lying noise, - For the reproaches of thy Penitence, - Take my voice, a harsh and a lying noise - - Take mine eyes, luminaries of deceit, - That they may be extinguished in the tears of prayer, - Take mine eyes, luminaries of deceit. - - Alas, thou, God of pardon and promises, - What is the pit of mine ingratitude, - Alas, thou, God of pardon and promises. - - God of terror and God of holiness, - Alas, my sinfulness is a black abyss, - God of terror and God of holiness. - - Thou, God of peace, of joy and delight, - All my tears, all my ignorances, - Thou, God of peace, of joy and delight. - - Thou, O God, knowest all this, all this, - How poor I am, poorer than any man, - Thou, O God, knowest all this, all this. - - And what I have, my God, I give to thee. - - - III - - Slumber dark and deep - Falls across my life; - I will put to sleep - Hope, desire, and strife. - - All things pass away, - Good and evil seem - To my soul to-day - Nothing but a dream; - - I a cradle laid - In a hollow cave, - By a great hand swayed: - Silence, like the grave. - - - IV - - The body's sadness and the languor thereof - Melt and bow me with pity till I could weep, - Ah! when the dark hours break it down in sleep - And the bedclothes score the skin and the hot hands move; - Alert for a little with the fever of day, - Damp still with the heavy sweat of the night that has thinned, - Like a bird that trembles on a roof in the wind: - And the feet that are sorrowful because of the way, - - And the breast that a hand has scarred with a double blow, - And the mouth that as an open wound is red, - And the flesh that shivers and is a painted show, - And the eyes, poor eyes so lovely with tears unshed - For the sorrow of seeing this also over and done: - Sad body, how weak and how punished under the sun! - - - V - - Fairer is the sea - Than the minster high, - Faithful nurse is she, - And last lullaby, - And the Virgin prays - Over the sea's ways. - - Gifts of grief and guerdons - From her bounty come, - And I hear her pardons - Chide her angers home; - Nothing in her is - Unforgivingness. - - She is piteous, - She the perilous! - Friendly things to us - The wave sings to us: - You whose hope is past, - Here is peace at last. - - And beneath the skies, - Brighter-hued than they, - She has azure dyes, - Rose and green and grey. - Better is the sea - Than all fair things or we. - - - - - _From Parallèlement:_ - - IMPRESSION FAUSSE - - Little lady mouse, - Black upon the grey of light; - Little lady mouse, - Grey upon the night. - - Now they ring the bell, - All good prisoners slumber deep; - Now they ring the bell, - Nothing now but sleep. - - Only pleasant dreams, - Love's enough for thinking of; - Only pleasant dreams, - Long live love! - - Moonlight over all, - Someone snoring heavily; - Moonlight over all - In reality. - - Now there comes a cloud, - It is dark as midnight here; - Now there comes a cloud, - Dawn begins to peer. - - Little lady mouse, - Rosy in a ray of blue, - Little lady mouse: - Up now, all of you! - - - - - _From Chansons pour Elle_ - - You believe that there may be - Luck in strangers in the tea: - I believe only in your eyes. - - You believe in fairy-tales, - Days one wins and days one fails: - I believe only in your lies. - - You believe in heavenly powers, - In some saint to whom one prays - Or in some Ave that one says. - - I believe only in the hours, - Coloured with the rosy lights - You rain for me on sleepless nights. - - And so firmly I receive - These for truth, that I believe - That only for your sake I live. - - - - - _From Epigrammes_ - - When we go together, if I may see her again, - Into the dark wood and the rain; - - When we are drunken with air and the sun's delight - At the brink of the river of light; - - When we are homeless at last, for a moment's space - Without city or abiding-place; - - And if the slow good-will of the world still seem - To cradle us in a dream; - - Then, let us sleep the last sleep with no leave-taking, - And God will see to the waking. - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Symbolist Movement in Literature, by -Arthur Symons - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE *** - -***** This file should be named 53849-0.txt or 53849-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/8/4/53849/ - -Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (online soon -in an extended version, also linking to free sources for -education worldwide ... 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Symbolist Movement in Literature - -Author: Arthur Symons - -Release Date: December 31, 2016 [EBook #53849] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE *** - - - - -Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (online soon -in an extended version, also linking to free sources for -education worldwide ... MOOC's, educational materials,...) -Images generously made available by the Internet Archive. - - - - - - -</pre> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -</div> -<h1>THE SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE</h1> - -<h3>BY</h3> - -<h2>ARTHUR SYMONS</h2> - -<h4>AUTHOR of</h4> - -<p class="center"> -<i>"Cities of Italy," "Plays, Acting and Music," "The Romantic</i><br /> - -<i>Movement in English Literature," "Studies in Seven</i><br /> - -<i>Arts," "Colour Studies in Paris,"</i> etc.<br /> - -<i>REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION</i> -</p> - - -<h5>NEW YORK</h5> - -<h5>E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY</h5> - -<h5>681 FIFTH AVENUE</h5> - -<h5>1919</h5> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="caption" style="margin-left: 20%;">CONTENTS</p> - -<p class="smcap" style="margin-left: 20%;"> -<a href="#INTRODUCTION">Introduction</a><br /> -<a href="#BALZAC">Balzac</a><br /> -<a href="#PROSPER_MERIMEE">Prosper Mérimée</a><br /> -<a href="#GERARD_DE_NERVAL">Gérard De Nerval</a><br /> -<a href="#THEOPHILE_GAUTIER">Théophile Gautier</a><br /> -<a href="#GUSTAVE_FLAUBERT">Gustave Flaubert</a><br /> -<a href="#CHARLES_BAUDELAIRE">Charles Baudelaire</a><br /> -<a href="#EDMOND_AND_JULES_DE_GONCOURT">Edmond and Jules De Goncourt</a><br /> -<a href="#VILLIERS_DE_LISLE-ADAM">Villiers de l'Isle-Adam</a><br /> -<a href="#LEON_CLADEL">Léon Cladel</a><br /> -<a href="#A_NOTE_ON_ZOLAS_METHOD">A Note on Zola's Method</a><br /> -<a href="#STEPHANE_MALLARME">Stéphane Mallarmé</a><br /> -<a href="#PAUL_VERLAINE">Paul Verlaine</a><br /> -<a href="#I_JORIS-KARL_HUYSMANS">I. Joris-karl Huysmans</a><br /> -<a href="#II_THE_LATER_HUYSMANS">II. the Later Huysmans</a><br /> -<a href="#ARTHUR_RIMBAUD">Arthur Rimbaud</a><br /> -<a href="#JULES_LAFORGUE">Jules Laforgue</a><br /> -<a href="#MAETERLINCK_AS_A_MYSTIC">Maeterlinck As a Mystic</a><br /> -<a href="#CONCLUSION">Conclusion</a><br /> -<a href="#BIBLIOGRAPHY_AND_NOTES">Bibliography and Notes</a><br /> -<a href="#TRANSLATIONS">Translations</a><br /> -</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h3>THE SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE</h3> - - -<h3>THE SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT</h3> - - -<h4><a id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION</h4> - - -<p>"It is in and through Symbols that man, consciously or unconsciously, -lives, works, and has his being: those ages, moreover, are accounted -the noblest which can the best recognise symbolical worth, and prize it -highest." Carlyle</p> - -<p>Without symbolism there can be no literature; indeed, not even -language. What are words themselves but symbols, almost as arbitrary -as the letters which compose them, mere sounds of the voice to which -we have agreed to give certain significations, as we have agreed to -translate these sounds by those combinations of letters? Symbolism -began with the first words uttered by the first man, as he named -every living thing; or before them, in heaven, when God named the -world into being. And we see, in these beginnings, precisely what -Symbolism in literature really is: a form of expression, at the best -but approximate, essentially but arbitrary, until it has obtained -the force of a convention, for an unseen reality apprehended by the -consciousness. It is sometimes permitted to us to hope that our -convention is indeed the reflection rather than merely the sign of that -unseen reality. We have done much if we have found a recognisable sign.</p> - -<p>"A symbol," says Comte Goblet d'Alviella, in his book on <i>The Migration -of Symbols,</i> "might be defined as a representation which does not aim -at being a reproduction." Originally, as he points out, used by the -Greeks to denote "the two halves of the tablet they divided between -themselves as a pledge of hospitality," it came to be used of every -sign, formula, or rite by which those initiated in any mystery made -themselves secretly known to one another. Gradually the word extended -its meaning, until it came to denote every conventional representation -of idea by form, of the unseen by the visible. "In a Symbol," says -Carlyle, "there is concealment and yet revelation: hence, therefore, by -Silence and by Speech acting together, comes a double significance." -And, in that fine chapter of <i>Sartor Resartus,</i> he goes further, -vindicating for the word its full value: "In the Symbol proper, what we -can call a Symbol, there is ever, more or less distinctly and directly, -some embodiment and revelation of the Infinite; the Infinite is made -to blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, and as it were, -attainable there."</p> - -<p>It is in such a sense as this that the word Symbolism has been used to -describe a movement which, during the last generation, has profoundly -influenced the course of French literature. All such words, used -of anything so living, variable, and irresponsible as literature, -are, as symbols themselves must so often be, mere compromises, mere -indications. Symbolism, as seen in the writers of our day, would have -no value if it were not seen also, under one disguise or another, in -every great imaginative writer. What distinguishes the Symbolism of -our day from the Symbolism of the past; is that it has <i>now</i> become -conscious of itself, in a sense in which it was unconscious even -in Gérard de Nerval, to whom I trace the particular origin of the -literature which I call Symbolist. The forces which mould the thought -of men change, or men's resistance to them slackens; with the change -of men's thought comes a change of literature, alike in its inmost -essence and in its outward form: after the world has starved its soul -long enough in the contemplation and the re-arrangement of material -things, comes the turn of the soul; and with it comes the literature of -which I write in this volume, a literature in which the visible world -is no longer a reality, and the unseen world no longer a dream.</p> - -<p>The great epoch in French literature which preceded this epoch was that -of the offshoot of Romanticism which produced Baudelaire, Flaubert, the -Goncourts, Taine, Zola, Leconte de Lisle. Taine was the philosopher -both of what had gone before him and of what came immediately after; -so that he seems to explain at once Flaubert and Zola. It was the -age of Science, the age of material things; and words, with that -facile elasticity which there is in them, did miracles in the exact -representation of everything that visibly existed, exactly as it -existed. Even Baudelaire, in whom the spirit is always an uneasy guest -at the orgie of life, had a certain theory of Realism which tortures -many of his poems into strange, metallic shapes, and fills them with -imitative odours, and disturbs them with a too deliberate rhetoric of -the flesh? Flaubert, the one impeccable novelist who has ever lived, -was resolute to be the novelist of a world in which art, formal art, -was the only escape from the burden of reality, and in which the soul -was of use mainly as the agent of fine literature. The Goncourts -caught at Impressionism to render the fugitive aspects of a world -which existed only as a thing of flat spaces, and angles, and coloured -movement, in which sun and shadow were the artists; as moods, no less -flitting, were the artists of the merely receptive consciousnesses of -men and women. Zola has tried to build in brick and mortar inside the -covers of a book; he is quite sure that the soul is a nervous fluid, -which he is quite sure some man of science is about to catch for us, as -a man of science has bottled the air, a pretty, blue liquid. Leconte -de Lisle turned the world to stone, but saw, beyond the world, only a -pause from misery in a Nirvana never subtilised to the Eastern ecstasy. -And, with all these writers, form aimed above all things at being -precise, at saying rather than suggesting, at saying what they had to -say so completely that nothing remained over, which it might be the -business of the reader to divine. And so they have expressed, finally, -a certain aspect of the world; and some of them have carried style to -a point beyond which the style that says, rather than suggests, cannot -go. The whole of that movement comes to a splendid funeral in M. de -Heredia's sonnets, in which the literature of form says its last word, -and dies.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, something which is vaguely called Decadence had come into -being. That name, rarely used with any precise meaning, was usually -either hurled as a reproach or hurled back as a defiance. It pleased -some young men in various countries to call themselves Decadents, with -all the thrill of unsatisfied virtue masquerading as uncomprehended -vice. As a matter of fact, the term is in its place only when applied -to style; to that ingenious deformation of the language, in Mallarmé -for instance, which can be compared I with what we are accustomed to -call the Greek and Latin of the Decadence. No doubt perversity of -form and perversity often found together, and, among the lesser men -especially, experiment was carried far, not only in the direction of -style. But a movement which in this sense might be called Decadent -could but have been a straying aside from the main road of literature. -Nothing, not even conventional virtue, is so provincial as conventional -vice and the desire to "bewilder the middle-classes" is itself -middle-class. The interlude, half a mock-interlude, of Decadence, -diverted the attention of the critics while something more serious was -in preparation. That something more serious has crystallised, for the -time, under the form of Symbolism, in which art returns to the one -pathway, leading through beautiful things to the eternal beauty.</p> - -<p>In most of the writers whom I have dealt with as summing up in -themselves all that is best in Symbolism, it will be noticed that the -form is very carefully elaborated, and seems to count for at least -as much as in those writers of whose over-possession by form I have -complained. Here, however, all this elaboration comes from a very -different motive and leads to other ends. There is such a thing as -perfecting form that form may be annihilated. All the art of Verlaine -is in bringing verse to a bird's song, the art of Mallarmé in bringing -verse to the song of an orchestra. In Villiers de l'Isle-Adam drama -becomes an embodiment of spiritual forces, in Maeterlinck not even -their embodiment, but the remote sound of, their voices. It is all -an attempt to spiritualise literature, to evade the old bondage of -rhetoric, the old bondage of exteriority. Description is banished that -beautiful things may be evoked, magically; the regular beat of verse is -broken in order that words may fly, upon subtler wings. Mystery is no -longer feared, as the great mystery in whose midst we are islanded was -feared by those to whom that unknown sea was only a great void. We are -coming closer to nature, as we seem to shrink from it with something -of horror, disdaining to catalogue the trees of the forest. And as we -brush aside the accidents of daily life, in which men and women imagine -that they are alone touching reality, we come closer to humanity, to -everything in humanity that may have begun before the world and may -outlast it.</p> - -<p>Here, then, in this revolt against exteriority, against rhetoric, -against a materialistic tradition; in this endeavour to disengage the -ultimate essence, the soul, of whatever, exists and can be realized by -the consciousness; in this dutiful waiting upon every symbol by which -the soul of things can be made visible, literature, bowed down by so -many burdens, may at last attain liberty, and its authentic speech. -In attaining this liberty, it accepts a heavier burden; for in speaking -to us so intimately, so solemnly, as only religion had hitherto spoken -to us, it becomes itself a kind of religion, with all the duties and -responsibilities of the sacred ritual.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="BALZAC" id="BALZAC">BALZAC</a></h4> - - -<h4>1</h4> - -<p>The first man who has completely understood Balzac is Rodin, and it -has taken Rodin ten years to realise his own conception. France has -refused the statue in which a novelist is represented as a dreamer, -to whom Paris is not so much Paris as Patmos: "the most Parisian of -our novelists," Frenchmen assure you. It is more than a hundred years -since Balzac was born: a hundred years is a long time in which to be -misunderstood with admiration.</p> - -<p>In choosing the name of the <i>Human Comedy</i> for a series of novels in -which, as he says, there is at once "the history and the criticism -of society, the analysis of its evils, and the discussion of its -principles," Balzac proposed to do for the modern world what Dante, -in his <i>Divine Comedy,</i> had done for the world of the Middle Ages. -Condemned to write in prose, and finding his opportunity in that -restriction, he created for himself a form which is perhaps the nearest -equivalent for the epic or the poetic drama, and the only form in -which, at all events, the epic is now possible. The world of Dante was -materially simple compared with the world of the nineteenth century; -the "visible world" had not yet begun to "exist," in its tyrannical -modern sense; the complications of the soul interested only the -Schoolmen, and were a part of theology; poetry could still represent -an age and yet be poetry. But to-day poetry can no longer represent -more than the soul of things; it had taken refuge from the terrible -improvements of civilisation in a divine seclusion, where it sings, -disregarding the many voices of the street. Prose comes offering its -infinite capacity for detail; and it is by the infinity of its detail -that the novel, as Balzac created it, has become the modern epic.</p> - -<p>There had been great novels, indeed, before Balzac, but no great -novelist; and the novels themselves are scarcely what we should to-day -call by that name. The interminable <i>Astrée</i> and its companions form -a link between the <i>fabliaux</i> and the novel, and from them developed -the characteristic eighteenth-century <i>conte,</i> in narrative, letters, -or dialogue, as we see it in Marivaux, Laclos, Crebillon <i>fils,</i> -Crebillon's longer works, including <i>Le Sopha,</i> with their conventional -paraphernalia of Eastern fable, are extremely tedious; but in two -short pieces, <i>La Nuit et le Moment</i> and <i>Le Hasard du Coin du Feu,</i> -he created a model of witty, naughty, deplorably natural comedy, which -to this day is one of the most characteristic French forms of fiction. -Properly, however, it is a form of the drama rather than of the novel. -Laclos, in <i>Les Liaisons Dangereuses,</i> a masterpiece which scandalised -the society that adored Crebillon, because its naked human truth left -no room for sentimental excuses, comes much nearer to prefiguring the -novel (as Stendhal, for instance, is afterward to conceive it), but -still preserves the awkward traditional form of letters. Marivaux had -indeed already seemed to suggest the novel of analysis, but in a style -which has christened a whole manner of writing that precisely which -is least suited to the writing of fiction. Voltaire's <i>contes, La -Religieuse</i> of Diderot, are tracts or satires in which the story is -only an excuse for the purpose. Rousseau, too, has his purpose, even -in <i>La Nouvelle Héloise,</i> but it is a humanising purpose; and with -that book the novel of passion comes into existence, and along with it -the descriptive novel. Yet with Rousseau this result is an accident of -genius; we cannot call him a novelist; and we find him abandoning the -form he has found, for another, more closely personal, which suits him -better. Restif de la Bretonne, who followed Rousseau at a distance, not -altogether wisely, developed the form of half-imaginary autobiography -in <i>Monsieur Nicolas,</i> a book of which the most significant part may be -compared with Hazlitt's <i>Liber Amoris.</i> Morbid and even mawkish as it -is, it has a certain uneasy, unwholesome humanity in its confessions, -which may seem to have set a fashion only too scrupulously followed -by modern French novelists. Meanwhile, the Abbé Prévost's one great -story, <i>Manon Lescaut,</i> had brought for once a purely objective study, -of an incomparable simplicity, into the midst of these analyses of -difficult souls; and then we return to the confession, in the works of -others not novelists: Benjamin Constant, Mme. de Staël, Chateaubriand, -in <i>Adolphe, Corinne, René.</i> At once we are in the Romantic movement, -a movement which begins lyrically among poets, and at first with a -curious disregard of the more human part of humanity.</p> - -<p>Balzac worked contemporaneously with the Romantic movement, but he -worked outside it, and its influence upon him is felt only in an -occasional pseudo-romanticism, like the episode of the pirate in <i>La -Femme de Trente Ans.</i> His vision of humanity was essentially a poetic -vision, but he was a poet whose dreams were facts. Knowing that, as -Mme. Necker has said, "the novel should be the better world," he knew -also that "the novel would be nothing if, in that august lie, it were -not true in details." And in the <i>Human Comedy</i> he proposed to himself -to do for society more than Buffon had done for the animal world.</p> - -<p>"There is but one animal," he declares, in his <i>Avant-Propos,</i> with -a confidence which Darwin has not yet come to justify. But "there -exists, there will always exist, social species, as there are -zoological species." "Thus the work to be done will have a triple -form: men, women, and things; that is to say, human beings and the -material representation which they give to their thought; in short, -man and life." And, studying after nature, "French society will be the -historian, I shall need to be no more than the secretary." Thus will be -written "the history forgotten by so many historians, the history of -manners." But that is not all, for "passion is the whole of humanity." -"In realizing clearly the drift of the composition, it will be seen -that I assign to facts, constant, daily, open, or secret, to the acts -of individual life, to their causes and principles, as much importance -as historians had formerly attached to the events of the public life -of nations." "Facts gathered together and painted as they are, with -passion for element," is one of his definitions of the task he has -undertaken. And in a letter to Mme. de Hanska, he summarises every -detail of his scheme.</p> - -<p>"The <i>Études des Mœurs</i> will represent social effects, without a -single situation of life, or a physiognomy, or a character of man or -woman, or a manner of life, or a profession, or a social zone, or a -district of France, or anything pertaining to childhood, old age, or -maturity, politics, justice, or war, having been forgotten.</p> - -<p>"That laid down, the history of the human heart traced link by link, -the history of society made in all its details, we have the base....</p> - -<p>"Then, the second stage is the <i>Études philosophiques,</i> for after the -<i>effects</i> come the <i>causes.</i> In the <i>Études des Mœurs</i> I shall have -painted the sentiments and their action, life and the fashion of life. -In the <i>Études philosophiques</i> I shall say <i>why the sentiments, on what -the life....</i></p> - -<p>"Then, after the <i>effects</i> and the <i>causes,</i> come the <i>Études -analytiques,</i> to which the <i>Physiologie du mariage</i> belongs, for, after -the <i>effects</i> and the <i>causes,</i> one should seek the <i>principles....</i></p> - -<p>"After having done the poetry, the demonstration, of a whole system, I -shall do the science in the <i>Essai sur les forces humaines.</i> And, on -the bases of this palace I shall have traced the immense arabesque of -the <i>Cent Contes drolatiques</i>!"</p> - -<p>Quite all that, as we know, was not carried out; but there, in its -intention, is the plan; and after twenty years' work the main part of -it, certainly, was carried out. Stated with this precise detail, it -has something of a scientific air, as of a too deliberate attempt upon -the sources of life by one of those systematic French minds which are -so much more logical than facts. But there is one little phrase to be -noted: "La passion est toute l'humanité." All Balzac is in that phrase.</p> - -<p>Another French novelist, following, as he thought, the example of the -<i>Human Comedy,</i> has endeavoured to build up a history of his own time -with even greater minuteness. But <i>Les Rougon-Macquart</i> is no more -than system; Zola has never understood that detail without life is the -wardrobe without the man. Trying to outdo Balzac on his own ground, -he has made the fatal mistake of taking him only on his systematic -side, which in Balzac is subordinate to a great creative intellect, -an incessant, burning thought about men and women, a passionate human -curiosity for which even his own system has no limits. "The misfortunes -of the <i>Birotteaus,</i> the priest and the perfumer," he says, in his -<i>Avant-Propos,</i> taking an example at random, "are, for me, those of -humanity." To Balzac manners are but the vestment of life; it is -life that he seeks; and life, to him (it is his own word) is but the -vestment of thought. Thought is at the root of all his work, a whole -system of thought, in which philosophy is but another form of poetry; -and it is from this root of idea that the <i>Human Comedy</i> springs.</p> - - -<h4>2</h4> - -<p>The two books into which Balzac has put his deepest thought, the two -books which he himself cared for the most, are <i>Séraphita</i> and <i>Louis -Lambert.</i> Of <i>Louis Lambert</i> he said: "I write it for myself and a few -others"; of <i>Séraphita:</i> "My life is in it." "One could write <i>Goriot</i> -any day," he adds; "<i>Séraphita only once</i> in a lifetime." I have never -been able to feel that <i>Séraphita</i> is altogether a success. It lacks -the breadth of life; it is glacial. True, he aimed at producing very -much such an effect; and it is, indeed, full of a strange, glittering -beauty, the beauty of its own snows. But I find in it at the same time -something a little factitious, a sort of romanesque, not altogether -unlike the sentimental romanesque of Novalis; it has not done the -impossible, in humanising abstract speculation, in fusing mysticism and -the novel. But for the student of Balzac it has extraordinary interest; -for it is at once the base and the summit of the <i>Human Comedy.</i> In a -letter to Mme. de Hanska, written in 1837, four years after <i>Séraphita</i> -had been begun, he writes: "I am not orthodox, and I do not believe in -the Roman Church. Swedenborgianism, which is but a repetition, in the -Christian sense, of ancient ideas, is my religion, with this addition: -that I believe in the incomprehensibility of God." <i>Séraphita</i> is a -prose poem in which the most abstract part of that mystical system, -which Swedenborg perhaps materialised too crudely, is presented in a -white light, under a single, superhuman image. In <i>Louis Lambert</i> the -same fundamental conceptions are worked out in the study of a perfectly -human intellect, "an intelligent gulf," as he truly calls it; a sober -and concise history of ideas in their devouring action upon a feeble -physical nature. In these two books we see directly, and not through -the coloured veil of human life, the mind in the abstract of a thinker -whose power over humanity was the power of abstract thought. They show -this novelist, who has invented the description of society, by whom -the visible world has been more powerfully felt than by any other -novelist, striving to penetrate the correspondences which exist between -the human and the celestial existence. He would pursue the soul to its -last resting-place before it takes flight from the body; further, on -its disembodied flight; he would find out God, as he comes nearer and -nearer to finding out the secret of life. And realising, as he does -so profoundly, that there is but one substance, but one ever-changing -principle of life, "one vegetable, one animal, but a continual -intercourse," the world is alive with meaning for him, a more intimate -meaning than it has for others. "The least flower is a thought, a life -which corresponds to some lineaments of the great whole, of which he -has the constant intuition." And so, in his concerns with the world, he -will find spirit everywhere; nothing for him will be inert matter, -everything will have its particle of the universal life. One of those -divine spies, for whom the world has no secrets, he will be neither -pessimist nor optimist; he will accept the world as a man accepts the -woman whom he loves, as much, for her defects as for her virtues. -Loving the world for its own sake, he will find it always beautiful, -equally beautiful in all its parts. Now let us look at the programme -which he traced for the <i>Human Comedy,</i> let us realise it in the light -of this philosophy, and we are at the beginning of a conception of what -the <i>Human Comedy</i> really is.</p> - - -<h4>3</h4> - -<p>This visionary, then, who had apprehended for himself an idea of God, -set himself to interpret human life more elaborately than any one else. -He has been praised for his patient observation; people have thought -they praised him in calling him a realist; it has been discussed how -far his imitation of life was the literal truth of the photograph. -But to Balzac the word realism was an insult. Writing his novels at -the rate of eighteen hours a day, in a feverish solitude, he never had -the time to observe patiently. It is humanity seen in a mirror, the -humanity which comes to the great dreamers, the great poets, humanity -as Shakespeare saw it. And so in him, as in all the great artists, -there is something more than nature, a divine excess. This something -more than nature should be the aim of the artist, not merely the -accident which happens to him against his will. We require of him a -world like our own, but a world infinitely more vigorous, interesting, -profound; more beautiful with that kind of beauty which nature finds -of itself for art. It is the quality of great creative art to give -us so much life that we are almost overpowered by it, as by an air -almost too vigorous to breathe: the exuberance of creation which makes -the Sibyl of Michelangelo something more than human, which makes -Lear something more than human, in one kind or another of divinity.</p> - -<p>Balzac's novels are full of strange problems and great passions turned -aside from nothing which presented itself in nature; and his mind was -always turbulent with the magnificent contrasts and caprices of fate. -A devouring passion of thought burned on all the situations by which -humanity expresses itself, in its flight from the horror of immobility. -To say that the situations which he chose are often romantic is but -to say that he followed the soul and the senses faithfully on their -strangest errands. Our probable novelists of to-day are afraid of -whatever emotion might be misinterpreted in a gentleman. Believing, as -we do now, in nerves and a fatalistic heredity, we have left but little -room for the dignity and disturbance of violent emotion. To Balzac, -humanity had not changed since the days when Œdipus was blind and -Philoctetes cried in the cave; and equally great miseries were still -possible to mortals, though they were French and of the nineteenth -century.</p> - -<p>And thus he creates, like the poets, a humanity more logical than -average life; more typical, more sub-divided among the passions, and -having in its veins an energy almost more than human. He realised, as -the Greeks did, that human life is made up of elemental passions and -necessity; but he was the first to realise that in the modern world -the pseudonym of necessity is money. Money and the passions rule the -world of his <i>Human Comedy.</i></p> - -<p>And, at the root of the passions, determining their action, he saw -"those nervous fluids, or that unknown substance which, in default of -another term, we must call the will." No word returns oftener to his -pen. For him the problem is invariable. Man has a given quantity of -energy; each man a different quantity: how will he spend it? A novel -is the determination in action of that problem. And he is equally -interested in every form of energy, in every egoism, so long as it -is fiercely itself. This pre-occupation with the force, rather than -with any of its manifestations, gives him his singular impartiality, -his absolute lack of prejudice; for it gives him the advantage of an -abstract point of view, the unchanging fulcrum for a lever which turns -in every direction; and as nothing once set vividly in motion by any -form of human activity is without interest for him, he makes every -point of his vast chronicle of human affairs equally interesting to his -readers.</p> - -<p>Baudelaire has observed profoundly that every character in the <i>Human -Comedy</i> has something of Balzac, has genius. To himself, his own genius -was entirely expressed in that word "will." It recurs constantly in his -letters. "Men of will are rare!" he cries. And, at a time when he had -turned night into day for his labour: "I rise every night with a keener -will than that of yesterday." "Nothing wearies me," he says, "neither -waiting nor happiness." He exhausts the printers, whose fingers can -hardly keep pace with his brain; they call him, he reports proudly, "a -man-slayer." And he tries to express himself: "I have always had in me -something, I know not what, which made me do differently from others; -and, with me, fidelity is perhaps no more than pride. Having only -myself to rely upon, I have had to strengthen, to build up that self." -There is a scene in <i>La Cousine Bette</i> which gives precisely Balzac's -own sentiment of the supreme value of energy. The Baron Hulot, ruined -on every side, and by his own fault, goes to Josépha, a mistress who -had cast him off in the time of his prosperity, and asks her to lodge -him for a few days in a garret. She laughs, pities, and then questions -him.</p> - -<p>"'Est-ce vrai, vieux,' reprit-elle, 'que tu as tué ton frère et ton -oncle, ruiné ta famille, surhypothéqué la maison de tes enfants et -mangé la grenouille du gouvernement en Afrique avec la princesse?'</p> - -<p>"Le Baron inclina tristement la tête.</p> - -<p>"'Eh bien, j'aime cela!' s'écria Josépha, qui se leva pleine -d'enthousiasme. 'C'est un <i>brûlage</i> général! c'est sardanapale! c'est -grand! c'est complet! On est une canaille, mais on a du cœur.'"</p> - -<p>The cry is Balzac's, and it is a characteristic part of his genius to -have given it that ironical force by uttering it through the mouth -of a Josépha. The joy of the human organism at its highest point of -activity: that is what interests him supremely. How passionate, how -moving he becomes whenever he has to speak of a real passion, a mania, -whether of a lover for his mistress, of a philosopher for his idea, -of a miser for his gold, of a Jew dealer for masterpieces! His style -clarifies, his words become flesh and blood; he is the lyric poet. And -for him every idealism is equal: the gourmandise of Pons is not less -serious, nor less sympathetic, not less perfectly realised, than the -search of Claës after the Absolute. "The great and terrible clamour of -egoism" is the voice to which he is always attentive; "those eloquent -faces, proclaiming a soul abandoned to an idea as to a remorse," are -the faces with whose history he concerns himself. He drags to light the -hidden joys of the <i>amateur,</i> and with especial delight those that are -hidden deepest, under the most deceptive coverings. He deifies them -for their energy, he fashions the world of his <i>Human Comedy</i> in their -service, as the real world exists, all but passive, to be the pasture -of these supreme egoists.</p> - - -<h4>4</h4> - -<p>In all that he writes of life, Balzac seeks the soul; but it is the -soul as nervous fluid, the executive soul, not the contemplative soul, -that, with rare exceptions, he seeks. He would surprise the motive -force of life: that is his <i>recherche de l'Absolu;</i> he figures it to -himself as almost a substance, and he is the alchemist on its track. -"Can man by thinking find out God?" Or life, he would have added; and -he would have answered the question with at least a Perhaps.</p> - -<p>And of this visionary, this abstract thinker, it must be said that his -thought translates itself always into terms of life. Pose before him -a purely mental problem, and he will resolve it by a scene in which -the problem literally works itself out. It is the quality proper to -the novelist, but no novelist ever employed this quality with such -persistent activity, and at the same time subordinated faction so -constantly to the idea. With him action has always a mental basis, is -never suffered to intrude for its own sake. He prefers that an episode -should seem in itself tedious rather than it should have an illogical -interest.</p> - -<p>It may be, for he is a Frenchman, that his episodes are sometimes too -logical. There are moments when he becomes unreal because he wishes to -be too systematic, that is, to be real by measure. He would never have -understood the method of Tolstoi, a very stealthy method of surprising -life. To Tolstoi life is always the cunning enemy whom one must lull -asleep, or noose by an unexpected lasso. He brings in little detail -after little detail, seeming to insist on the insignificance of each, -in order that it may pass almost unobserved, and be realised only after -it has passed. It is his way of disarming the suspiciousness of life.</p> - -<p>But Balzac will make no circuit, aims at an open and an unconditional -triumph over nature. Thus, when he triumphs, he triumphs signally; and -action, in his books, is perpetually crystallising into some phrase, -like the single lines of Dante, or some brief scene, in which a whole -entanglement comes sharply and suddenly to a luminous point. I will -give no instance, for I should have to quote from every volume. I -wish rather to remind myself that there are times when the last fine -shade of a situation seems to have escaped. Even then, the failure is -often more apparent than real, a slight bungling in the machinery of -illusion. Look through the phrase, and you will find the truth there, -perfectly explicit on the other side of it.</p> - -<p>For it cannot be denied, Balzac's style, as style, is imperfect. It -has life, and it has an idea, and it has variety; there are moments -when it attains a rare and perfectly individual beauty; as when, in <i>Le -Cousin Pons,</i> we read of "cette prédisposition aux recherches qui fait -faire à un savant germanique cent lieues dans ses guêtres pour trouver -une vérité qui le regard en riant, assise à la marge du puits, sous le -jasmin de la cour." But I am far less sure that a student of Balzac -would recognise him in this sentence than that he would recognise the -writer of this other: "Des larmes de pudeur, qui roulèrent entre les -beaux cils de Madame Hulot, arrêtèrent net le garde national." It is -in such passages that the failure in style is equivalent to a failure -in psychology. That his style should lack symmetry, subordination, the -formal virtues of form, is, in my eyes, a less serious fault. I have -often considered whether, in the novel, perfect form is a good, or even -a possible thing, if the novel is to be what Balzac made it, history -added to poetry. A novelist with style will not look at life with an -entirely naked vision. He sees through coloured glasses. Human life -and human manners are too various, too moving, to be brought into the -fixity of a quite formal order. There will come a moment, constantly, -when style must suffer, or the closeness and clearness of narration -must be sacrificed, some minute exception of action or psychology must -lose its natural place, or its full emphasis. Balzac, with his rapid -and accumulating mind, without the patience oft selection, and without -the desire to select where selection means leaving out something -good in itself, if not good in its place, never hesitates, and his -parenthesis comes in. And often it is into these parentheses that he -puts the profoundest part of his thought.</p> - -<p>Yet, ready as Balzac is to neglect the story for the philosophy, -whenever it seems to him necessary to do so, he would never have -admitted that a form of the novel is possible in which the story shall -be no more than an excuse for the philosophy. That was because he was -a great creator, and not merely a philosophical thinker; because he -dealt in flesh and blood, and knew that the passions in action can -teach more to the philosopher, and can justify the artist more fully, -than all the unacting intellect in the world. He knew that though life -without thought was no more than the portion of a dog, yet thoughtful -life was more than lifeless thought, and the dramatist more than -the commentator. And I cannot help feeling assured that the latest -novelists without a story, whatever other merits they certainly have, -are lacking in the power to create characters, to express a philosophy -in action; and that the form which they have found, however valuable it -may be, is the result of this failure, and not either a great refusal -or a new vision.</p> - - -<h4>5</h4> - -<p>The novel as Balzac conceived it has created the modern novel, but no -modern novelist has followed, for none has been able to follow, Balzac -on his own lines. Even those who have tried to follow him most closely -have, sooner or later, branched off in one direction or another, most -in the direction indicated by Stendhal. Stendhal has written one book -which is a masterpiece, unique in its kind, <i>Le Rouge et le Noir;</i> a -second, which is full of admirable things, <i>Le Chartreuse de Parme;</i> -a book of profound criticism, <i>Racine et Shakspeare;</i> and a cold and -penetrating study of the physiology of love, <i>De l'Amour,</i> by the side -of which Balzac's <i>Physiologie du Mariage</i> is a mere <i>jeu d'esprit.</i> -He discovered for himself, and for others after him, a method of -unemotional, minute, slightly ironical analysis, which has fascinated -modern minds, partly because it has seemed to dispense with those -difficulties of creation, of creation in the block, which the triumphs -of Balzac have only accentuated. Goriot, Valérie Marneffe, Pons, -Grandet, Madame de Mortsauf even, are called up before us after the -same manner as Othello or Don Quixote; their actions express them so -significantly that they seem to be independent of their creator; Balzac -stakes all upon each creation, and leaves us no choice but to accept or -reject each as a whole, precisely as we should a human being. We do not -know all the secrets of their consciousness, any more than we know all -the secrets of the consciousness of our friends. But we have only so -say "Valérie!" and the woman is before us. Stendhal, on the contrary, -undresses Julien's soul in public with a deliberate and fascinating -effrontery. There is not a vein of which he does not trace the course, -not a wrinkle to which he does not point, not a nerve which he does -not touch to the quick. We know everything that passed through his -mind, to result probably in some significant inaction. And at the end -of the book we know as much about that particular intelligence as the -anatomist knows about the body which he has dissected. But mean-while -the life has gone out of the body; and have we, after all, captured a -living soul?</p> - -<p>I should be the last to say that Julien Sorel is not a creation, but -he is not a creation after the order of Balzac; it is a difference -of kind; and if we look carefully at Frédéric Moreau, and Madame -Gervaisais, and the Abbé Mouret, we shall see that these also, -profoundly different as Flaubert and Goncourt and Zola are from -Stendhal, are yet more profoundly, more radically, different from the -creations of Balzac. Balzac takes a primary passion, puts it into a -human body, and sets it to work itself out in visible action. But since -Stendhal, novelists have persuaded themselves that the primary passions -are a little common, or noisy, or a little heavy to handle, and they -have concerned themselves with passions tempered by reflection, and the -sensations of elaborate brains. It was Stendhal who substituted the -brain for the heart, as the battle-place of the novel; not the brain -as Balzac conceived it, a motive-force of action, the mainspring of -passion, the force by which a nature directs its accumulated energy; -but a sterile sort of brain, set at a great distance from the heart, -whose rhythm is too faint to disturb it. We have been intellectualising -upon Stendhal ever since, until the persons of the modern novel have -come to resemble those diaphanous jelly-fish, with balloon-like heads -and the merest tufts of bodies, which float up and down in the Aquarium -at Naples.</p> - -<p>Thus, coming closer, as it seems, to what is called reality, in this -banishment of great emotions, and this attention upon the sensations, -modern analytic novelists are really getting further and further from -that life which is the one certain thing in the world. Balzac employs -all his detail to call up a tangible world about his men and women, -not, perhaps, understanding the full power of detail as psychology, as -Flaubert is to understand it; but, after all, his detail is only the -background of the picture; and there, stepping out of the canvas, as -the sombre people of Velazquez step out of their canvases at the Prado, -is the living figure, looking into your eyes with eyes that respond to -you like a mirror.</p> - -<p>The novels of Balzac are full of electric fluid. To take up one of -them is to feel the shock of life, as one feels it on touching certain -magnetic hands. To turn over volume after volume is like wandering -through the streets of a great city, at that hour of the night when -human activity is at its full. There is a particular kind of excitement -inherent in the very aspect of a modern city, of London or Paris; in -the mere sensation of being in its midst, in the sight of all those -active and fatigued faces which pass so rapidly; of those long and -endless streets, full of houses, each of which is like the body of a -multiform soul, looking out through the eyes of many windows. There is -something intoxicating in the lights, the movement of shadows under the -lights, the vast and billowy sound of that shadowy movement. And there -is something more than this mere unconscious action upon the nerves. -Every step in a great city is a step into an unknown world. A new -future is possible at every street corner. I never know, when I go out -into one of those crowded streets, but that the whole course of my life -may be changed before I return to the house I have quitted.</p> - -<p>I am writing these lines in Madrid, to which I have come suddenly, -after a long quiet in Andalusia; and I feel already a new pulse in my -blood, a keener consciousness of life, and a sharper human curiosity. -Even in Seville I, knew that I should see to-morrow, in the same -streets, hardly changed since the Middle Ages, the same people that I -had seen to-day. But here there are new possibilities, all the exciting -accidents of the modern world, of a population always changing, of -a city into which civilisation has brought all its unrest. And as -I walk in these broad, windy streets and see these people, whom I -hardly recognise for Spaniards, so awake and so hybrid are they, I -have felt the sense of Balzac coming back into my veins. At Cordova he -was unthinkable; at Cadiz I could realise only his large, universal -outlines, vague as the murmur of the sea; here I feel him, he speaks -the language I am talking, he sums up the life in whose midst I find -myself.</p> - -<p>For Balzac is the equivalent of great cities. He is bad reading for -solitude, for he fills the mind with the nostalgia of cities. When a -man speaks to me familiarly of Balzac I know already something of the -man with whom I have to do. "The physiognomy of women does not begin -before the age of thirty," he has said; and perhaps before that age no -one can really understand Balzac. Few young people care for him, for -there is nothing in him that appeals to the senses except through the -intellect. Not many women care for him supremely, for it is part of -his method to express sentiments through facts, and not facts through -sentiments. But it is natural that he should be the favourite reading -of men of the world, of those men of the world who have the distinction -of their kind; for he supplies the key of the enigma which they are -studying.</p> - - -<h4>6</h4> - -<p>The life of Balzac was one long labour, in which time, money, and -circumstances were all against him. In 1835 he writes: "I have lately -spent twenty-six days in my study without leaving it. I took the air -only at that window which dominates Paris, which I mean to dominate." -And he exults in the labour: "If there is any glory in that, I alone -could accomplish such a feat." He symbolises the course of his life -in comparing it to the sea beating against a rock: "To-day one flood, -to-morrow another, bears me along with it. I am dashed against a rock, -I recover myself and go on to another reef." "Sometimes it seems to me -that my brain is on fire. I shall die in the trenches of the intellect."</p> - -<p>Balzac, like Scott, died under the weight of his debts; and it would -seem, if one took him at his word, that the whole of the <i>Human Comedy</i> -was written for money. In the modern world, as he himself realised more -clearly than any one, money is more often a symbol than an entity, and -it can be the symbol of every desire. For Balzac money was the key -of his earthly paradise. It meant leisure to visit the woman whom he -loved, and at the end it meant the possibility of marrying her.</p> - -<p>There were only two women in Balzac's life: one, a woman much older -than himself, of whom he wrote, on her death, to the other: "She was -a mother, a friend, a family, a companion, a counsel, she made the -writer, she consoled the young man, she formed his taste, she wept like -a sister, she laughed, she came every day, like a healing slumber, to -put sorrow to sleep." The other was Mme. de Hanska, whom he married in -1850, three months before his death. He had loved her for twenty years; -she was married, and lived in Poland; it was only at rare intervals -that he was able to see her, and then very briefly; but his letters to -her, published since his death, are a simple, perfectly individual, -daily record of a great passion. For twenty years he existed on a -divine certainty without a future, and almost without a present. But we -see the force of that sentiment passing into his work; <i>Séraphita</i> is -its ecstasy, everywhere is its human shadow; it refines his strength, -it gives him surprising intuitions, it gives him all that was wanting -to his genius. Mme. de Hanska is the heroine of the <i>Human Comedy,</i> as -Beatrice is the heroine of the <i>Divine Comedy.</i></p> - -<p>A great lover, to whom love, as well as every other passion and the -whole visible world, was an idea, a flaming spiritual perception, -Balzac enjoyed the vast happiness of the idealist. Contentedly, -joyously, he sacrificed every petty enjoyment to the idea of love, the -idea of fame, and to that need of the organism to exercise its forces, -which is the only definition of genius. I do not know, among the lives -of men of letters, a life better filled, or more appropriate. A young -man who, for a short time, was his secretary, declared: "I would not -live your life for the fame of Napoleon and of Byron combined!" The -Comte de Gramont did not realise, as the world in general does not -realise, that, to the man of creative energy, creation is at once a -necessity and a joy, and to the lover, hope in absence is the elixir -of life. Balzac tasted more than all earthly pleasures as he sat there -in his attic, creating the world over again, that he might lay it at -the feet of a woman. Certainly to him there was no tedium in life, for -there was no hour without its vivid employment, and no moment in which -to perceive the most desolate of all certainties, that hope is in the -past. His death was as fortunate as his life; he died at the height of -his powers, at the height of his fame, at the moment of the fulfilment -of his happiness, and perhaps of the too sudden relief of that delicate -burden.</p> - -<p>1899.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="PROSPER_MERIMEE" id="PROSPER_MERIMEE">PROSPER MÉRIMÉE</a></h4> - - -<h4>1</h4> - - -<p>Stendhal has left us a picture of Mérimée as "a young man in a grey -frock-coat, very ugly, and with a turned-up nose.... This young man -had something insolent and extremely unpleasant about him. His eyes, -small and without expression, had always the same look, and this look -was ill-natured.... Such was my first impression of the best of my -present friends. I am not too sure of his heart, but I am sure of his -talents. It is M. le Comte Gazul, now so well known; a letter from him, -which came to me last week, made me happy for two days. His mother has -a good deal of French wit and a superior intelligence. Like her son, -it seems to me that she might give way to emotion once a year." There, -painted by a clear-sighted and disinterested friend, is a picture of -Mérimée almost from his own point of view, or at least as he would -himself have painted the picture. How far is it, in its insistence on -the <i>attendrissement une fois par an,</i> on the subordination of natural -feelings to a somewhat disdainful aloofness, the real Mérimée?</p> - -<p>Early in life, Mérimée adopted his theory, fixed his attitude, and to -the end of his life he seemed, to those about him, to have walked along -the path he had chosen, almost without a deviation. He went to England -at the age of twenty-three, to Spain four years later, and might seem -to have been drawn naturally to those two countries, to which he was -to return so often, by natural affinities of temper and manner. It -was the English manner that he liked, that came naturally to him; the -correct, unmoved exterior, which is a kind of positive strength, not to -be broken by any onslaught of events or emotions; and in Spain he found -an equally positive animal acceptance of things as they are, which -satisfied his profound, restrained, really Pagan senusality, Pagan -in the hard, eighteenth-century sense. From the beginning he was a -student, of art, of history, of human nature, and we find him enjoying, -in his deliberate, keen way, the studied diversions of the student; -body and soul each kept exactly in its place, each provided for without -partiality. He entered upon literature by a mystification, <i>Le Théâtre -de Clara Gazul,</i> a book of plays supposed to be translated from a -living Spanish dramatist; and he followed it by <i>La Guzla,</i> another -mystification, a book of prose ballads supposed to be translated -from the Illyrian. And these mystifications, like the forgeries of -Chatterton, contain perhaps the most sincere, the most undisguised -emotion which he ever permitted himself to express; so secure did he -feel of the heart behind the pearl necklace of the <i>décolletée</i> Spanish -actress, who travesties his own face in the frontispiece to the one, -and so remote from himself did he feel the bearded gentleman to be, who -sits cross-legged on the ground, holding his lyre or <i>guzla,</i> in the -frontispiece to the other. Then came a historical novel, the <i>Chronique -du Règne de Charles IX.,</i> before he discovered, as if by accident, -precisely what it was he was meant to do: the short story. Then he -drifted into history, became Inspector of Ancient Monuments, and helped -to save Vézelay, among other good deeds toward art, done in his cold, -systematic, after all satisfactory manner. He travelled at almost -regular intervals, not only in Spain and England, but in Corsica, -in Greece and Asia Minor, in Italy, in Hungary, in Bohemia, usually -with a definite, scholarly object, and always with an alert attention -to everything that came in his way, to the manners of people, their -national characters, their differences from one another. An intimate -friend of the Countess de Montijo, the mother of the Empress Eugénie, -he was a friend, not a courtier, at the court of the Third Empire. -He was elected to the Academy, mainly for his <i>Études sur l'Histoire -Romaine,</i> a piece of dry history, and immediately scandalised his -supporters by publishing a story, <i>Arsène Guillot,</i> which was taken for -a veiled attack on religion and on morals. Soon after, his imagination -seemed to flag; he abandoned himself, perhaps a little wearily, more -and more to facts, to the facts of history and learning; learned -Russian, and translated Poushkin and Tourguenieff; and died in 1870, -at Cannes, perhaps less satisfied with himself than most men who have -done, in their lives, far less exactly what they have intended to do.</p> - -<p>"I have theories about the very smallest things—gloves, boots, and the -like," says Mérimée in one of his letters; <i>des idées très-arrêtées,</i> -as he adds with emphasis in another. Precise opinions lead easily to -prejudices, and Mérimée, who prided himself on the really very logical -quality of his mind, put himself somewhat deliberately into the hands -of his prejudices. Thus he hated religion, distrusted priests, would -not let himself be carried away by any instinct of admiration, would -not let himself do the things which he had the power to do, because -his other, critical self came mockingly behind him, suggesting that -very few things were altogether worth doing. "There is nothing that I -despise and even detest so much as humanity in general," he confesses -in a letter; and it is with a certain self-complacency that he defines -the only kind of society in which he found himself at home: "(1) -With unpretentious people whom I have known a long time; (2) in a -Spanish <i>venta,</i> with muleteers and peasant women of Andalusia." One -day, as he finds himself in a pensive mood, dreaming of a woman, -he translates for her some lines of Sophocles, into verse, "English -verse, you understand, for I abhor French verse." The carefulness with -which he avoids received opinions shows a certain consciousness of -those opinions, which in a more imaginatively independent mind would -scarcely have found a place. It is not only for an effect, but more and -more genuinely, that he sets his acquirements as a scholar above his -accomplishments as an artist. Clearing away, as it seemed to him, every -illusion from before his eyes, he forgot the last illusion of positive -people: the possibility that one's eyes may be short-sighted.</p> - -<p>Mérimée realises a type which we are accustomed to associate almost -exclusively with the eighteenth century, but of which our own time can -offer us many obscure examples. It is the type of the <i>esprit fort:</i> -the learned man, the choice, narrow artist, who is at the same time the -cultivated sensualist. To such a man the pursuit of women is part of -his constant pursuit of human experience, and of the document, which -is the summing up of human experience. To Mérimée history itself was -a matter of detail. "In history, I care only for anecdotes," he says -in the preface to the <i>Chronique du Règne de Charles IX.</i> And he adds: -"It is not a very noble taste; but I confess to my shame, I would -willingly give Thucydides for the authentic memoirs of Aspasia or of -a slave of Pericles; for only memoirs, which are the familiar talk -of an author with his reader, afford those portraits of <i>man</i> which -amuse and interest me." This curiosity of mankind above all things, -and of mankind at home, or in private actions, not necessarily of any -import to the general course of the world, leads the curious searcher -naturally to the more privately interesting and the less publicly -important half of mankind. Not scrupulous in arriving at any end by the -most adaptable means, not disturbed by any illusions as to the physical -facts of the universe, a sincere and grateful lover of variety, -doubtless an amusing companion with those who amused him, Mérimée -found much of his entertainments and instruction, at all events in his -younger years, in that "half world" which he tells us he frequented -"very much out of curiosity, living in it always as in a foreign -country." Here, as elsewhere, Mérimée played the part of the amateur. -He liked anecdotes, not great events, in his history; and he was -careful to avoid any too serious passions in his search for sensations. -There, no doubt, for the sensualist, is happiness, if he can resign -himself to it. It is only serious passions which make anybody -unhappy; and Mérimée was carefully on the lookout against a possible -unhappiness. I can imagine him ending every day with satisfaction, and -beginning every fresh day with just enough expectancy to be agreeable, -at that period of his life when he was writing the finest of his -stories, and dividing the rest of his leisure between the drawing-rooms -and the pursuit of uneventful adventures.</p> - -<p>Only, though we are <i>automates autant qu'-esprit,</i> as Pascal tells us, -it is useless to expect that what is automatic in us should remain -invariable and unconditioned. If life could be lived on a plan, and -for such men on such a plan, if first impulses and profound passions -could be kept entirely out of one's own experience, and studied only -at a safe distance, then, no doubt, one could go on being happy, in -a not too heroic way. But, with Mérimée as with all the rest of the -world, the scheme breaks down one day, just when a reasonable solution -to things seems to have been arrived at. Mérimée had already entered -on a peaceable enough <i>liaison</i> when the first letter came to him from -the <i>Inconnue</i> to whom he was to write so many letters, for nine years -without seeing her, and then for thirty years more after he had met -her, the last letter being written but two hours before his death. -These letters, which we can now read in two volumes, have a delicately -insincere sincerity which makes every letter a work of art, not because -he tried to make it so, but because he could not help seeing the form -simultaneously with the feeling, and writing genuine love-letters with -an excellence almost as impersonal as that of his stories. He begins -with curiosity, which passes with singular rapidity into a kind of -self-willed passion; already in the eighth letter, long before he has -seen her, he is speculating which of the two will know best how to -torture the other: that is, as he views it, love best. "We shall never -love one another really," he tells her, as he begins to hope for the -contrary. Then he discovers, for the first time, and without practical -result, "that it is better to have illusions than to have none at all." -He confesses himself to her, sometimes reminding her: "You will never -know either all the good or all the evil that I have in me. I have -spent my life in being praised for qualities which I do not possess, -and calumniated for defects which are not mine." And, with a strange, -weary humility, which is the other side of his contempt for most things -and people, he admits: "To you I am like an old opera, which you are -obliged to forget, in order to see it again with any pleasure." He, who -has always distrusted first impulses, finds himself telling her (was -she really so like him, or was he arguing with himself?): "You always -fear first impulses; do not you see that they are the only ones which -are worth anything and which always succeed?" Does he realise, unable -to change the temperament which he has partly made for himself, that -just there has been his own failure?</p> - -<p>Perhaps of all love-letters, these of Mérimée show us love triumphing -over the most carefully guarded personality. Here the obstacle is -not duty, nor circumstance, nor a rival; but (on her side as on his, -it would seem) a carefully trained natural coldness, in which action, -and even for the most part feeling, are relinquished to the control -of second thoughts. A habit of repressive irony goes deep: Mérimée -might well have thought himself secure against the outbreak of an -unconditional passion. Yet here we find passion betraying itself, -often only by bitterness, together with a shy, surprising tenderness, -in this curious lovers' itinerary, marked out with all the customary -sign-posts, and leading, for all its wilful deviations, along the -inevitable road.</p> - -<p>It is commonly supposed that the artist, by the habit of his -profession, has made for himself a sort of cuirass of phrases against -the direct attack of emotion, and so will suffer less than most people -if he should fall into love, and things should not go altogether -well with him. Rather, he is the more laid open to attack, the more -helplessly entangled when once the net has been cast over him. He lives -through every passionate trouble, not merely with the daily emotions of -the crowd, but with the whole of his imagination. Pain is multiplied -to him by the force of that faculty by which he conceives delight. What -is most torturing in every not quite fortunate love is memory, and the -artist becomes an artist by his intensification of memory. Mérimée has -himself defined art as exaggeration <i>à propos.</i> Well, to the artist his -own life is an exaggeration not <i>à propos,</i> and every hour dramatises -for him its own pain and pleasure, in a tragic comedy of which he is -the author and actor and spectator. The practice of art is a sharpening -of the sensations, and, the knife once sharpened, does it cut into -one's hand less deeply because one is in the act of using it to carve -wood?</p> - -<p>And so we find Mérimée, the most impersonal of artists, and one of -those most critical of the caprices and violences of fate, giving in to -an almost obvious temptation, an anonymous correspondence, a mysterious -unknown woman, and passing from stage to stage of a finally very -genuine love-affair, which kept him in a fluttering agitation for more -than thirty years. It is curious to note that the little which we know -of this <i>Inconnue</i> seems to mark her out as the realisation of a type -which had always been Mérimée's type of woman. She has the "wicked -eyes" of all his heroines, from the Mariquita of his first attempt in -literature, who haunts the Inquisitor with "her great black eyes, like -the eyes of a young cat, soft and wicked at once." He finds her at the -end of his life, in a novel of Tourguenieff, "one of those diabolical -creatures whose coquetry is the more dangerous because it is capable -of passion." Like so many artists, he has invented his ideal before he -meets it, and must have seemed almost to have fallen in love with his -own creation. It is one of the privileges of art to create nature, as, -according to a certain mystical doctrine, you can actualise, by sheer -fixity of contemplation, your mental image of a thing into the thing -itself. The <i>Inconnue</i> was one of a series, the rest imaginary; and -her power over Mérimée, we can hardly doubt, came not only from her -queer likeness of temperament to his, but from the singular, flattering -pleasure which it must have given him to find that he had invented with -so much truth to nature.</p> - - -<h4>2</h4> - -<p>Mérimée as a writer belongs to the race of Laclos and of Stendhal, -a race essentially French; and we find him representing, a little -coldly, as it seemed, the claims of mere unimpassioned intellect, at -work on passionate problems, among those people of the Romantic period -to whom emotion, evident emotion, was everything. In his subjects he -is as "Romantic" as Victor Hugo or Gautier; he adds, even, a peculiar -flavour of cruelty to the Romantic ingredients. But he distinguishes -sharply, as French writers before him had so well known how to do, -between the passion one is recounting and the moved or unmoved way -in which one chooses to tell it. To Mérimée art was a very formal -thing, almost a part of learning; it was a thing to be done with a -clear head, reflectively, with a calm mastery of even the most vivid -material. While others, at that time, were intoxicating themselves -with strange sensations, hoping that "nature would take the pen out -of their hands and write," just at the moment when their own thoughts -became least coherent, Mérimée went quietly to work over something a -little abnormal which he had found in nature, with as disinterested, as -scholarly, as mentally reserved an interest as if it were one of those -Gothic monuments which he inspected to such good purpose, and, as it -has seemed to his biographer, with so little sympathy. His own emotion, -so far as it is roused, seems to him an extraneous thing, a thing to be -concealed, if not a little ashamed of. It is the thing itself he wishes -to give you, not his feelings about it; and his theory is that if the -thing itself can only be made to stand and speak before the reader, the -reader will supply for himself all the feeling that is needed, all the -feeling that would be called out in nature by a perfectly clear sight -of just such passions in action. It seems to him bad art to paint the -picture, and to write a description of the picture as well.</p> - -<p>And his method serves him wonderfully up to a certain point, and then -leaves him, without his being well aware of it, at the moment even when -he has convinced himself that he has realised the utmost of his aim. At -a time when he had come to consider scholarly dexterity as the most -important part of art, Mérimée tells us that <i>La Vénus d'Ille</i> seemed -to him the best story he had ever written. He has often been taken at -his word, but to take him at his word is to do him an injustice. <i>La -Vénus d'Ille</i> is a modern setting of the old story of the Ring given to -Venus, and Mérimée has been praised for the ingenuity with which he has -obtained an effect of supernatural terror, while leaving the way open -for a material explanation of the supernatural. What he has really done -is to materialise a myth, by accepting in it precisely what might be a -mere superstition, the form of the thing, and leaving out the spiritual -meaning of which that form was no more than a temporary expression. The -ring which the bridegroom sets on the finger of Venus, and which the -statue's finger closes upon, accepting it, symbolises the pact between -love and sensuality, the lover's abdication of all but the physical -part of love; and the statue taking its place between husband and wife -on the marriage-night, and crushing life out of him in an inexorable -embrace, symbolises the merely natural destruction which that granted -prayer brings with it, as a merely human Messalina takes her lover on -his own terms, in his abandonment of all to Venus. Mérimée sees a cruel -and fantastic superstition, which he is afraid of seeming to take too -seriously, which he prefers to leave as a story of ghosts or bogies, -a thing at which we are to shiver as at a mere twitch on the nerves, -while our mental confidence in the impossibility of what we cannot -explain is preserved for us by a hint at a muleteer's vengeance. "Have -I frightened you?" says the man of the world, with a reassuring smile. -"Think about it no more; I really meant nothing."</p> - -<p>And yet, does he after all mean nothing? The devil, the old pagan -gods, the spirits of evil incarnated under every form, fascinated him; -it gave him a malign pleasure to set them at their evil work among -men, while, all the time, he mocks them and the men who believed in -them. He is a materialist, and yet he believes in at least a something -evil, outside the world, or in the heart of it, which sets humanity -at its strange games, relentlessly. Even then he will not surrender -his doubts, his ironies, his negations. Is he, perhaps, at times, -the atheist who fears that, after all, God may exist, or at least who -realises how much he would fear him if he did exist?</p> - -<p>Mérimée had always delighted in mystifications; he was always on his -guard against being mystified himself, either by nature or by his -fellow-creatures. In the early "Romantic" days he had had a genuine -passion for various things: "local colour," for instance. But even then -he had invented it by a kind of trick, and, later on, he explains what -a poor thing "local colour" is, since it can so easily be invented -without leaving one's study. He is full of curiosity, and will go far -to satisfy it, regretting "the decadence," in our times, "of energetic -passions, in favour of tranquillity and perhaps of happiness." These -energetic passions he will find, indeed, in our own times, in Corsica, -in Spain, in Lithuania, really in the midst of a very genuine and -profoundly studied "local colour," and also, under many disguises, in -Parisian drawing-rooms. Mérimée prized happiness, material comfort, the -satisfaction of one's immediate desires, very highly, and it was his -keen sense of life, of the pleasures of living, that gave him some -of his keenness in the realisation of violent death, physical pain, -whatever disturbs the equilibrium of things with unusual emphasis. -Himself really selfish, he can distinguish the unhappiness of others -with a kind of intuition which is not sympathy, but which selfish -people often have: a dramatic consciousness of how painful pain must -be, whoever feels it. It is not pity, though it communicates itself to -us, often enough, as pity. It is the clear-sighted sensitiveness of a -man who watches human things closely, bringing them home to himself -with the deliberate, essaying art of an actor who has to represent a -particular passion in movement.</p> - -<p>And always in Mérimée there is this union of curiosity with -indifference: the curiosity of the student, the indifference of the -man of the world. Indifference, in him, as in the man of the world, -is partly an attitude, adopted for its form, and influencing the -temperament just so much as gesture always influences emotion. The -man who forces himself to appear calm under excitement teaches his -nerves to follow instinctively the way he has shown them. In time -he will not merely seem calm but will be calm, at the moment when he -learns that a great disaster has befallen him. But, in Mérimée, was -the indifference even as external as it must always be when there is -restraint, when, therefore, there is something to restrain? Was there -not in him a certain drying up of the sources of emotion, as the man of -the world came to accept almost the point of view of society, reading -his stories to a little circle of court ladies, when, once in a while, -he permitted himself to write a story? And was not this increase of -well-bred indifference, now more than ever characteristic, almost the -man himself, the chief reason why he abandoned art so early, writing -only two or three short stories during the last twenty-five years of -his life, and writing these with a labour which by no means conceals -itself?</p> - -<p>Mérimée had an abstract interest in, almost an enthusiasm for, -facts; facts for their meaning, the light they throw on psychology. -He declines to consider psychology except through its expression in -facts, with an impersonality far more real than that of Flaubert. The -document, historical or social, must translate itself into sharp action -before he can use it; not that he does not see, and appreciate better -than most others, all there is of significance in the document itself; -but his theory of art is inexorable. He never allowed himself to write -as he pleased, but he wrote always as he considered the artist should -write. Thus he made for himself a kind of formula, confining himself, -as some thought, within too narrow limits, but, to himself, doing -exactly what he set himself to do, with all the satisfaction of one who -is convinced of the justice of his aim and confident of his power to -attain it.</p> - -<p>Look, for instance, at his longest, far from his best work, <i>La -Chronique du Règne de Charles IX.</i> Like so much of his work, it has -something of the air of a <i>tour de force,</i> not taken up entirely for -its own sake. Mérimée drops into a fashion, half deprecatingly, as if -he sees through it, and yet, as with merely mundane elegance, with -a resolve to be more scrupuously exact than its devotees. "Belief," -says some one in this book, as if speaking for Mérimée, "is a precious -gift which has been denied me." Well, he will do better, without -belief, than those who believe. Written under a title which suggests -a work of actual history, it is more than possible that the first -suggestion of this book really came, as he tells us in the preface, -from the reading of "a large number of memoirs and pamphlets relating -to the end of the sixteenth century." "I wished to make an epitome of -my reading," he tells us, "and here is the epitome." The historical -problem attracted him, that never quite explicable Massacre of St. -Bartholomew, in which there was precisely the violence of action and -uncertainty of motive which he liked to set before him at the beginning -of a task in literature. Probable, clearly defined people, in the dress -of the period, grew up naturally about this central motive; humour -and irony have their part; there are adventures, told with a sword's -point of sharpness, and in the fewest possible words; there is one of -his cruel and loving women, in whom every sentiment becomes action, by -some twisted feminine logic of their own. It is the most artistic, the -most clean-cut, of historical novels; and yet this perfect neatness of -method suggests a certain indifference on the part of the writer, as -if he were more interested in doing the thing well than in doing it.</p> - -<p>And that, in all but the very best of his stories (even, perhaps, -in <i>Arsène Guillot</i> only not in such perfect things as <i>Carmen,</i> as -<i>Mateo Falcone),</i> is what Mérimée just lets us see, underneath an -almost faultless skill of narrative. An incident told by Mérimée at -his best gathers about it something of the gravity of history, the -composed way in which it is told helping to give it the equivalent of -remoteness, allowing it not merely to be, but, what is more difficult, -to seem classic in its own time. "Magnificent things, things after my -own heart—that is to say, Greek in their truth and simplicity," he -writes in a letter, referring to the tales of Poushkin. The phrase is -scarcely too strong to apply to what is best in his own work. Made -out of elemental passions, hard, cruel, detached as it were from -their own sentiments, the stories that he tells might in other hands -become melodramas: <i>Carmen,</i> taken thoughtlessly out of his hands, has -supplied the libretto to the most popular of modern light operas. And -yet, in his severe method of telling, mere outlines, it seems, told -with an even stricter watch over what is significantly left out than -over what is briefly allowed to be said in words, these stories sum up -little separate pieces of the world, each a little world in itself. -And each is a little world which he has made his own, with a labor at -last its own reward, and taking life partly because he has put into -it more of himself than the mere intention of doing it well. Mérimée -loved Spain, and <i>Carmen,</i> which, by some caprice of popularity, is -the symbol of Spain to people in general, is really, to those who -know Spain well, the most Spanish thing that has been written since -<i>Gil Blas.</i> All the little parade of local colour and philology, the -appendix on the <i>Calo</i> of the gipsies, done to heighten the illusion, -has more significance than people sometimes think. In this story -all the qualities of Mérimée come into agreement; the student of -human passions, the traveller, the observer, the learned man, meet -in harmony; and, in addition, there is the <i>aficionado,</i> the true -<i>amateur,</i> in love with Spain and the Spaniards.</p> - -<p>It is significant that at the reception of Mérimée at the Académie -Française in 1845, M. Etienne thought it already needful to say: -"Do not pause in the midst of your career; rest is not permitted to -your talent." Already Mérimée was giving way to facts, to facts in -themselves, as they come into history, into records of scholarship. -We find him writing, a little dryly, on Catiline, on Cæsar, on Don -Pedro the Cruel, learning Russian, and translating from it (yet, while -studying the Russians before all the world, never discovering the -mystical Russian soul), writing learned articles, writing reports. He -looked around on contemporary literature, and found nothing that he -could care for. Stendhal was gone, and who else was there to admire? -Flaubert, it seemed to him, was "wasting his talent under the pretence -of realism." Victor Hugo was "a fellow with the most beautiful figures -of speech at his disposal," who did not take the trouble to think, but -intoxicated himself with his own words. Baudelaire made him furious, -Renan filled him with pitying scorn. In the midst of his contempt, he -may perhaps have imagined that he was being left behind. For whatever -reason, weakness or strength, he could not persuade himself that it -was worth while to strive for anything any more. He died probably at -the moment when he was no longer a fashion, and had not yet become a -classic.</p> - -<p>1901.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="GERARD_DE_NERVAL" id="GERARD_DE_NERVAL">GÉRARD DE NERVAL</a></h4> - - -<h4>1</h4> - -<p>This is the problem of one who lost the whole world and gained his own -soul.</p> - -<p>"I like to arrange my life as if it were a novel," wrote Gérard de -Nerval, and, indeed, it is somewhat difficult to disentangle the -precise facts of an existence which was never quite conscious where -began and where ended that "overflowing of dreams into real life," of -which he speaks. "I do not ask of God," he said, "that he should change -anything in events themselves, but that he should change me in regard -to things, so that I might have the power to create my own universe -about me, to govern my dreams, instead of enduring them." The prayer -was not granted, in its entirety; and the tragedy of his life lay in -the vain endeavour to hold back the irresistible empire of the unseen, -which it was the joy of his life to summon about him. Briefly, we -know that Gérard Labrunie (the name de Nerval was taken from a little -piece of property, worth some 1500 francs, which he liked to imagine -had always been in the possession of his family) was born at Paris, -May 22, 1808. His father was surgeon-major; his mother died before he -was old enough to remember her, following the <i>Grande Armée</i> on the -Russian campaign; and Gérard was brought up, largely under the care of -a studious and erratic uncle, in a little village called Montagny, near -Ermenonville. He was a precocious schoolboy, and by the age of eighteen -had published six little collections of verses. It was during one of -his holidays that he saw, for the first and last time, the young girl -whom he calls Adrienne, and whom, under many names, he loved to the -end of his life. One evening she had come from the château to dance -with the young peasant girls on the grass. She had danced with Gérard, -he had kissed her cheek, he had crowned her hair with laurels, he had -heard her sing an old song telling of the sorrows of a princess whom -her father had shut in a tower because she had loved. To Gérard it -seemed that already he remembered her, and certainly he was never to -forget her. After-wards, he heard that Adrienne had taken the veil; -then, that she was dead. To one who had realised that it is "we, the -living, who walk in a world of phantoms," death could not exclude hope; -and when, many years later, he fell seriously and fantastically in love -with a little actress called Jenny Colon, it was because he seemed to -have found, in that blonde and very human person, the re-incarnation of -the blonde Adrienne.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile Gérard was living in Paris, among his friends the Romantics, -writing and living in an equally desultory fashion. <i>Le bon Gérard</i> -was the best loved, and, in his time, not the least famous, of the -company. He led, by choice, now in Paris, now across Europe, the life -of a vagabond, and more persistently than others of his friends who -were driven to it by need. At that time, when it was the aim of every -one to be as eccentric as possible, the eccentricities of Gérard's life -and thought seemed, on the whole, less noticeable than those of many -really quite normal persons. But with Gérard there was no pose; and -when, one day, he was found in the Palais-Royal, leading a lobster -at the end of a blue ribbon (because, he said, it does not bark, and -knows the secrets of the sea), the visionary had simply lost control of -his visions, and had to be sent to Dr. Blanche's asylum at Montmartre. -He entered March 21, 1841, and came out, apparently well again, on -the 21st of November. It would seem that this first access of madness -was, to some extent, the consequence of the final rupture with Jenny -Colon; on June 5, 1842, she died and it was partly in order to put as -many leagues of the earth as possible between him and that memory that -Gérard set out, at the end of 1842, for the East. It was also in order -to prove to the world, by his consciousness of external things, that -he had recovered his reason. While he was in Syria, he once more fell -in love with a new incarnation of Adrienne, a young Druse, Saléma, the -daughter of a Sheikh of Lebanon; and it seems to have been almost by -accident that he did not marry her. He returned to Paris at the end -of 1843 or the beginning of 1844, and for the next few years he lived -mostly in Paris, writing charming, graceful, remarkably sane articles -and books and wandering about the streets, by day and night, in a -perpetual dream from which, now and again, he was somewhat rudely -awakened. When, in the spring of 1853, he went to see Heine, for whom -he was doing an admirable prose translation of his poems, and told him -he had come to return the money he had received in advance, because -the times were accomplished, and the end of the world, announced by -the Apocalypse, was at hand, Heine sent for a cab, and Gérard found -himself at Dr. Dubois' asylum, where he remained two months. It was on -coming out of the asylum that he wrote <i>Sylvie,</i> a delightful idyl, -chiefly autobiographical, one of his three actual achievements. On -August 27, 1853, he had to be taken to Dr. Blanche's asylum at Passy, -where he remained till May 27, 1854. Thither, after a month or two -spent in Germany, he returned on August 8, and on October 19 he came -out for the last time, manifestly uncured. He was now engaged on the -narrative of his own madness, and the first part of <i>Le Rêve et la Vie</i> -appeared in the <i>Revue de Paris</i> of January I, 1855. On the 20th he -came into the office of the review, and showed Gautier and Maxime du -Camp an apron-string which he was carrying in his pocket. "It is the -girdle," he said, "that Madame de Maintenon wore when she had <i>Esther</i> -performed at Saint-Cyr." On the 24th he wrote to a friend: "Come and -prove my identity at the police-station of the Châtelet." The night -before he had been working at his manuscript in a pot-house of Les -Halles, and had been arrested as a vagabond. He was used to such little -misadventures, but he complained of the difficulty of writing. "I set -off after an idea," he said, "and lose myself; I am hours in finding -my way back. Do you know I can scarcely write twenty lines a day, the -darkness comes about me so close!" He took out the apron-string. "It -is the garter of the Queen of Sheba," he said. The snow was freezing -on the ground, and on the night of the 25th, at three in the morning, -the landlord of a "penny doss" in the Rue de la Vieille-Lanterne, a -filthy alley lying between the quays and the Rue de Rivoli, heard -some one knocking at the door, but did not open, on account of the -cold. At dawn, the body of Gérard de Nerval was found hanging by the -apron-string to a bar of the window.</p> - -<p>It is not necessary to exaggerate the importance of the half-dozen -volumes which make up the works of Gérard de Nerval. He was not a -great writer; he had moments of greatness; and it is the particular -quality of these moments which is of interest for us. There is the -entertaining, but not more than entertaining, <i>Voyage en Orient;</i> there -is the estimable translation of <i>Faust,</i> and the admirable versions -from Heine; there are the volumes of short stories and sketches, of -which even <i>Les Illuminés,</i> in spite of the promise of its title, is -little more than an agreeable compilation. But there remain three -compositions: the sonnets, <i>Le Rêve et la Vie,</i> and <i>Sylvie;</i> of which -<i>Sylvie</i> is the most objectively achieved, a wandering idyl, full of -pastoral delight, and containing some folk-songs of Valois, two of -which have been translated by Rossetti; <i>Le Rêve et la Vie</i> being the -most intensely personal, a narrative of madness, unique as madness -itself; and the sonnets, a kind of miracle, which may be held to have -created something at least of the method of the later Symbolist. These -three compositions, in which alone Gérard is his finest self, all -belong to the periods when he was, in the eyes of the world, actually -mad. The sonnets belong to two of these periods, <i>Le Rêve et la Vie</i> to -the last; <i>Sylvie</i> was written in the short interval between the two -attacks in the early part of 1853. We have thus the case of a writer, -graceful and elegant when he is sane, but only inspired, only really -wise, passionate, collected, only really master of himself, when he -is insane. It may be worth looking at a few of the points which so -suggestive a problem presents to us.</p> - - -<h4>2</h4> - -<p>Gérard de Nerval lived the transfigured inner life of the dreamer. "I -was very tired of life!" he says. And like so many dreamers, who have -all the luminous darkness of the universe in their brains, he found -his most precious and uninterrupted solitude in the crowded and more -sordid streets of great cities. He who had loved the Queen of Sheba, -and seen the seven Elohims dividing the world, could find nothing more -tolerable in mortal conditions, when he was truly aware of them, than -the company of the meanest of mankind, in whom poverty and vice, and -the hard pressure of civilisation, still leave some of the original -vivacity of the human comedy. The real world seeming to be always so -far from him, and a sort of terror of the gulfs holding him, in spite -of himself, to its flying skirts, he found something at all events -realisable, concrete, in these drinkers of Les Halles, these vagabonds -of the Place du Carrousel, among whom he so often sought refuge. It was -literally, in part, a refuge. During the day he could sleep, but night -wakened him, and that restlessness, which the night draws out in those -who are really under lunar influences, set his feet wandering, if only -in order that his mind might wander the less. The sun, as he mentions, -never appears in dreams; but, with the approach of night, is not every -one a little readier to believe in the mystery lurking behind the world?</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 15%;"> -Crains, dans le mur aveugle, un regard qui t'épie!<br /> -</p> - -<p>he writes in one of his great sonnets; and that fear of the invisible -watchfulness of nature was never absent from him. It is one of the -terrors of human existence that we may be led at once to seek and so -shun solitude; unable to bear the mortal pressure if its embrace, -unable to endure the nostalgia of its absence. "I think man's happiest -when he forgets himself," says an Elizabethan dramatist; and, with -Gérard, there was Adrienne to forget, and Jenny Colon the actress, -and the Queen of Sheba. But to have drunk of the cup of dreams is to -have drunk of the cup of eternal memory. The past, and, as it seemed -to him, the future were continually with him; only the present fled -continually from under his feet. It was only by the effort of this -contact with people who lived so sincerely in the day, the minute, -that he could find even a temporary foothold. With them, at least, he -could hold back all the stars, and the darkness beyond them, and the -interminable approach and disappearance of all the ages, if only for -the space between tavern and tavern, where he could open his eyes on so -frank an abandonment to the common drunkenness of most people in this -world, here for once really living the symbolic intoxication of their -ignorance.</p> - -<p>Like so many dreamers of illimitable dreams, it was the fate of -Gérard to incarnate his ideal in the person of an actress. The fatal -transfiguration of the footlights, in which reality and the artificial -change places with so fantastic a regularity, has drawn many moths into -its flame, and will draw more, as long as men persist in demanding -illusion of what is real, and reality in what is illusion. The Jenny -Colons of the world are very simple, very real, if one will but refrain -from assuming them to be a mystery. But it is the penalty of all -imaginative lovers to create for themselves the veil which hides from -them the features of the beloved. It is their privilege, for it is -incomparably more entrancing to fancy oneself in love with Isis than -to know that one is in love with Manon Lescaut. The picture of Gérard, -after many hesitations, revealing to the astonished Jenny that she is -the incarnation of another, the shadow of a dream, that she has been -Adrienne and is about to be the Queen of Sheba; her very human little -cry of pure incomprehension, <i>Mais vous ne m'aimez pas!</i> and her -prompt refuge in the arms of the <i>jeune premier ridé,</i> if it were not -of the acutest pathos, would certainly be of the most quintessential -comedy. For Gérard, so sharp an awakening was but like the passage from -one state to another, across that little bridge of one step which lies -between heaven and hell, to which he was so used in his dreams. It gave -permanency to the trivial, crystallising it, in another than Stendhal's -sense; and when death came, changing mere human memory into the terms -of eternity, the darkness of the spiritual world was lit with a new -star, which was henceforth the wandering, desolate guide of so many -visions. The tragic figure of Aurélia, which comes and goes through -all the labyrinths of dream, is now seen always "as if lit up by a -lightning-flash, pale and dying, hurried away by dark horsemen."</p> - -<p>The dream or doctrine of the re-incarnation of souls, which has given -so much consolation to so many questioners of eternity, was for -Gérard (need we doubt?) a dream rather than a doctrine, but one of -those dreams which are nearer to a man than his breath. "This vague -and hopeless love," he writes in <i>Sylvie,</i> "inspired by an actress, -which night by night took hold of me at the hour of the performance, -leaving me only at the hour of sleep, had its germ in the recollection -of Adrienne, flower of the night, unfolding under the pale rays of -the moon, rosy and blonde phantom, gliding over the green grass, half -bathed in white mist.... To love a nun under the form of an actress! -... and if it were the very same! It is enough to drive one mad!" Yes, -<i>il y a de quoi devenir fou,</i> as Gérard had found; but there was also, -in this intimate sense of the unity, perpetuity, and harmoniously -recurring rhythm of nature, not a little of the inner substance -of wisdom. It was a dream, perhaps refracted from some broken, -illuminating angle by which madness catches unseen light, that revealed -to him the meaning of his own superstition, fatality, malady: "During -my sleep, I had a marvelous vision. It seemed to me that the goddess -appeared before me, saying to me: 'I am the same as Mary, the same as -thy mother, the same also whom, under all forms, thou hast always -loved. At each of thine ordeals I have dropt yet one more of the masks -with which I veil my countenance, and soon thou shalt see me as I am!'" -And in perhaps his finest sonnet, the mysterious <i>Artémis,</i> we have, -under other symbols, and with the deliberate inconsequence of these -sonnets, the comfort and despair of the same faith.</p> - -<p class="p2" style="margin-left: 15%;"> -La Treizième revient... C'est encor la première;<br /> -Et c'est toujours la seule,—ou c'est le seul moment:<br /> -Car es-tu reine, ô toi! la première ou dernière?<br /> -Es-tu roi, toi le seul ou le dernier amant?...<br /> -<br /> -Aimez qui vous aima du berceau dans la bière;<br /> -Celle que j'aimai seul m'aime encor tendrement;<br /> -C'est la mort—ou la morte ... Ô délice! ô tourment!<br /> -La Rose qu'elle tient, c'est la Rose trémière.<br /> -<br /> -Sainte napolitaine aux mains pleines de feux,<br /> -Rose au cœur violet, fleur de sainte Gudule;<br /> -As-tu trouvé ta croix dans le désert cieux?<br /> -<br /> -Roses blanches, tombez! vous insultez nos dieux:<br /> -Tombez, fantômes blancs, de votre ciel qui brûle:<br /> -—La Sainte de l'abîme est plus sainte à mes yeux!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="p2">Who has not often meditated, above all what artist, on the slightness, -after all, of the link which holds our faculties together in that sober -health of the brain which we call reason? Are there not moments when -that link seems to be worn down to so fine a tenuity that the wing of -a passing dream might suffice to snap it? The consciousness seems, -as it were, to expand and contract at once, into something too wide -for the universe, and too narrow for the thought of self to find room -within it. Is it that the sense of identity is about to evaporate, -annihilating all, or is it that a more profound identity, the identity -of the whole sentient universe, has been at last realised? Leaving the -concrete world on these brief voyages, the fear is that we may not have -strength to return, or that we may lose the way back. Every artist -lives a double life, in which he is for the most part conscious of the -illusions of the imagination. He is conscious also of the illusions of -the nerves, which he shares with every man of imaginative mind. Nights -of insomnia, days of anxious waiting, the sudden shock of an event, and -one of these common disturbances may be enough to jangle the tuneless -bells of one's nerves. The artist can distinguish these causes of -certain of his moods from those other causes which come to him because -he is an artist, and are properly concerned with that invention which -is his own function. Yet is there not some danger that he may come -to confuse one with the other, that he may "lose the thread" which -conducts him through the intricacies of the inner world?</p> - -<p>The supreme artist, certainly, is the furthest of all men from this -danger; for he is the supreme intelligence. Like Dante, he can pass -through hell unsinged. With him, imagination is vision; when he looks -into the darkness, he sees. The vague dreamer, the insecure artist and -the uncertain mystic at once, sees only shadows, not recognising their -outlines. He is mastered by the images which have come at his call; he -has not the power which chains them for his slaves. "The kingdom of -Heaven suffers violence," and the dreamer who has gone tremblingly into -the darkness is in peril at the hands of those very real phantoms who -are the reflection of his fear.</p> - -<p>The madness of Gérard de Nerval, whatever physiological reasons may -be rightly given for its outbreak, subsidence, and return, I take to -have been essentially due to the weakness and not the excess of his -visionary quality, to the insufficiency of his imaginative energy, and -to his lack of spiritual discipline. He was an unsystematic mystic; -his "Tower of Babel in two hundred volumes," that medley of books of -religion, science, astrology, history, travel, which he thought would -have rejoiced the heart of Pico della Mirandola, of Meursius, or of -Nicholas of Cusa, was truly, as he says, "enough to drive a wise man -mad." "Why not also," he adds, "enough to make a madman wise?" But -precisely because it was this <i>amas bizarre,</i> this jumble of the -perilous secrets in which wisdom is so often folly, and folly so often -wisdom. He speaks vaguely of the Cabbala; the Cabbala would have been -safety to him, as the Catholic Church would have been, or any other -reasoned scheme of things. Wavering among intuitions, ignorances, -half-truths, shadows of falsehood, now audacious, now hesitating, -he was blown hither and thither by conflicting winds, a prey to the -indefinite.</p> - -<p><i>Le Rêve et la Vie,</i> the last fragments of which were found in his -pockets after his suicide, scrawled on scraps of paper, interrupted -with Cabbalistic signs and "a demonstration of the Immaculate -Conception by geometry," is a narrative of a madman's visions by the -madman himself, yet showing, as Gautier says, "cold reason seated -by the bedside of hot fever, hallucination analysing itself by a -supreme philosophic effort." What is curious, yet after all natural, -is that part of the narrative seems to be contemporaneous with what -it describes, and part subsequent to it; so that it is not as when De -Quincey says to us, such or such was the opium-dream that I had on such -a night; but as if the opium-dreamer had begun to write down his dream -while he was yet within its coils. "The descent into hell," he calls it -twice; yet does he not also write: "At times I imagined that my force -and my activity were doubled; it seemed to me that I knew everything, -understood everything; and imagination brought me infinite pleasures. -Now that I have recovered what men call reason, must I not regret -having lost them?" But he had not lost them; he was still in that state -of double consciousness which he describes in one of his visions, -when, seeing people dressed in white, "I was astonished," he says, "to -see them all dressed in white; yet it seemed to me that this was an -optical illusion." His cosmical visions are at times so magnificent -that he seems to be creating myths; and it is with a worthy ingenuity -that he plays the part he imagines to be assigned to him in his astral -influences.</p> - -<p>"First of all I imagined that the persons collected in the garden (of -the madhouse) all had some influence on the stars, and that the one who -always walked round and round in a circle regulated the course of the -sun. An old man, who was brought there at certain hours of the day, and -who made knots as he consulted his watch, seemed to me to be charged -with the notation of the course of the hours. I attributed to myself an -influence over the course of the moon, and I believed that this star -had been struck by the thunderbolt of the Most High, which had traced -on its face the imprint of the mask which I had observed.</p> - -<p>"I attributed a mystical signification to the conversations of the -warders and of my companions. It seemed to me that they were the -representatives of all the races of the earth, and that we had -undertaken between us to re-arrange the course of the stars, and to -give a wider development to the system. An error, in my opinion, had -crept into the general combination of numbers, and thence came all the -ills of humanity. I believed also that the celestial spirits had taken -human forms, and assisted at this general congress, seeming though they -did to be concerned with but ordinary occupations. My own part seemed -to me to be the re-establishment of universal harmony by Cabbalistic -art, and I had to seek a solution by evoking the occult forces of -various religions."</p> - -<p>So far we have, no doubt, the confusions of madness, in which what may -indeed be the symbol is taken for the thing itself. But now observe -what follows:</p> - -<p>"I seemed to myself a hero living under the very eyes of the gods; -everything in nature assumed new aspects, and secret voices came to me -from the plants, the trees, animals, the meanest insects, to warn and -to encourage me. The words of my companions had mysterious messages, -the sense of which I alone understood; things without form and without -life lent themselves to the designs of my mind; out of combinations -of stones, the figures of angles, crevices, or openings, the shape of -leaves, out of colours, odours, and sounds, I saw unknown harmonies -come forth. 'How is it,' I said to myself, 'that I can possibly have -lived so long outside Nature, without identifying myself with her! -All things five, all things are in motion, all things correspond; the -magnetic rays emanating from myself or others traverse without obstacle -the infinite chain of created things: a transparent network covers the -world, whose loose threads communicate more and more closely with the -planets and the stars. Now a captive upon the earth, I hold converse -with the starry choir, which is feelingly a part of my joys and -sorrows.'"</p> - -<p>To have thus realised that central secret of the mystics, from -Pythagoras onwards, the secret which the Smaragdine Tablet of Hermes -betrays in its "As things are below, so are they above"; which Boehme -has classed in his teaching of "signatures," and Swedenborg has -systematised in his doctrine of "correspondences"; does it matter very -much that he arrived at it by way of the obscure and fatal initiation -of madness? Truth, and especially that soul of truth which is poetry, -may be reached by many roads; and a road is not necessarily misleading -because it is dangerous or forbidden. Here is one who has gazed at -light till it has blinded him; and for us all that is important is -that he has seen something, not that his eyesight has been too weak -to endure the pressure of light overflowing the world from beyond the -world.</p> - - -<h4>3</h4> - -<p>And here we arrive at the fundamental principle which is at once -the substance and the æsthetics of the sonnets "composed," as he -explains, "in that state of meditation which the Germans would call -supernaturalistic.'" In one, which I will quote, he is explicit, and -seems to state a doctrine.</p> - -<p class="p2"> -VERS DORÉS<br /> -<br /> -Homme, libre penseur! te crois-tu seul pensant<br /> -Dans ce monde où la vie éclate en toute chose?<br /> -Des forces que tu tiens ta liberté dispose,<br /> -Mais de tous tes conseils l'univers est absent.<br /> -Respecte dans la bête un esprit agissant:<br /> -Chaque fleur est une âme à la Nature éclose;<br /> -Un mystère d'amour dans le métal repose;<br /> -"Tout est sensible!" Et tout sur ton être est puissant.<br /> -<br /> -Crains, dans le mur aveugle, un regard qui t'épie!<br /> -A la matière même un verbe est attaché ...<br /> -Ne la fais pas servir à quelque usage impie!<br /> -<br /> -Souvent dans l'être obscur habite un Dieu caché;<br /> -Et comme un œil naissant couvert par ses paupières,<br /> -Un pur esprit s'accroît sous l'écorce des pierres!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="p2">But in the other sonnets, in <i>Artémis,</i> which I have quoted, in <i>El -Desdichado, Myrtho,</i> and the rest, he would seem to be deliberately -obscure; or at least, his obscurity results, to some extent, from the -state of mind which he describes in <i>Le Rêve et la Vie:</i> "I then saw, -vaguely drifting into form, plastic images of antiquity, which outlined -themselves, became definite, and seemed to represent symbols, of which -I only seized the idea with difficulty." Nothing could more precisely -represent the impression made by these sonnets, in which, for the first -time in French, words are used as the ingredients of an evocation, as -themselves not merely colour and sound, but symbol. Here are words -which create an atmosphere by the actual suggestive quality of their -syllables, as, according to the theory of Mallarmé, they should do; -as, in the recent attempts of the Symbolists, writer after writer has -endeavoured to lure them into doing. Persuaded, as Gérard was, of the -sensitive unity of all nature, he was able to trace resemblances where -others saw only divergences; and the setting together of unfamiliar -and apparently alien things, which comes so strangely upon us in his -verse, was perhaps an actual sight of what it is our misfortune not -to see. His genius, to which madness had come as the liberating, the -precipitating, spirit, disengaging its finer essence, consisted in a -power of materialising vision, whatever is most volatile and unseizable -in vision and without losing the sense of mystery, or that quality -which gives its charm to the intangible. Madness, then, in him, had -lit up, as if by lightning-flashes, the hidden links of distant and -divergent things; perhaps in somewhat the same manner as that in which -a similarly new, startling, perhaps over-true sight of things is gained -by the artificial stimulation of haschisch, opium, and those other -drugs by which vision is produced deliberately, and the soul, sitting -safe within the perilous circle of its own magic, looks out on the -panorama which either rises out of the darkness before it, or drifts -from itself into the darkness. The very imagery of these sonnets is -the imagery which is known to all dreamers of bought dreams. <i>Rose au -cœur violet, fleur de sainte Gudule; le Temple au péristyle immense; -la grotte où nage la syrène:</i> the dreamer of bought dreams has seen -them all. But no one before Gérard realised that such things as these -might be the basis of almost a new æsthetics. Did he himself realise -all that he had done, or was it left for Mallarmé to theorise upon what -Gérard had but divined?</p> - -<p>That he made the discovery, there is no doubt; and we owe to the -fortunate accident of madness one of the foundations of what may be -called the practical æsthetics of Symbolism. Look again at that sonnet -<i>Artémis,</i> and you will see in it not only the method of Mallarmé, but -much of the most intimate manner of Verlaine. The first four lines, -with their fluid rhythm, their repetitions and echoes, their delicate -evasions, might have been written by Verlaine; in the later part the -firmness of the rhythms and the jewelled significance of the words are -like Mallarmé at his finest, so that in a single sonnet we may fairly -claim to see a fore-shadowing of the styles of Mallarmé and Verlaine -at once. With Verlaine the resemblance goes, perhaps, no further; with -Mallarmé it goes to the very roots, the whole man being, certainly, his -style.</p> - -<p>Gérard de Nerval, then, had divined, before all the world, that poetry -should be a miracle; not a hymn to beauty, nor the description of -beauty, nor beauty's mirror; but beauty itself, the colour, fragrance, -and form of the imagined flower, as it blossoms again out of the page. -Vision, the over-powering vision, had come to him beyond, if not -against, his will; and he knew that vision is the root out of which the -flower must grow. Vision had taught him symbol, and he knew that it is -by symbol alone that the flower can take visible form. He knew that -the whole mystery of beauty can never be comprehended by the crowd, -and that while clearness is a virtue of style, perfect explicitness -is not a necessary virtue. So it was with disdain, as well as with -confidence, that he allowed these sonnets to be overheard. It was -enough for him to say:</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 15%;"> -J'ai rêvé dans la grotte où nage la syrène;<br /> -</p> - -<p>and to speak, it might be, the siren's language, remembering her. "It -will be my last madness," he wrote, "to believe myself a poet: let -criticism cure me of it." Criticism, in his own day, even Gautier's -criticism, could but be disconcerted by a novelty so unexampled. It -is only now that the best critics in France are beginning to realise -how great in themselves, and how great in their influence, are these -sonnets, which, forgotten by the world for nearly fifty years, have all -the while been secretly bringing new æsthetics into French poetry.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="THEOPHILE_GAUTIER" id="THEOPHILE_GAUTIER">THÉOPHILE GAUTIER</a></h4> - - -<h4>1</h4> - -<p>Gautier has spoken for himself in a famous passage of <i>Mademoiselle de -Maupin</i>: "I am a man of the Homeric age; the world in which I live is -not my world, and I understand nothing of the society which surrounds -me. For me Christ did not come; I am as much a pagan as Alcibiades or -Phidias. I have never plucked on Golgotha the flowers of the Passion, -and the deep stream that flows from the side of the Crucified and sets -a crimson girdle about the world, has never washed me in its flood; my -rebellious body will not acknowledge the supremacy of the soul, and my -flesh will not endure to be mortified. I find the earth as beautiful as -the sky, and I think that perfection of form is virtue. I have no gift -for spirituality; I prefer a statue to a ghost, full noon to twilight. -Three things delight me: gold, marble, and purple; brilliance, -solidity, colour.... I have looked on love in the light of antiquity, -and as a piece of sculpture more or less perfect.... All my life I have -been concerned with the form of the flagon, never with the quality of -its contents." That is part of a confession of faith, and it is spoken -with absolute sincerity. Gautier knew himself, and could tell the truth -about himself as simply, as impartially, as if he had been describing -a work of art. Or is he not, indeed, describing a work of art? Was not -that very state of mind, that finished and limited temperament, a thing -which he had collaborated with nature in making, with an effective -heightening of what was most natural to him, in the spirit of art?</p> - -<p>Gautier saw the world as mineral, as metal, as pigment, as rock, tree, -water, as architecture, costume, under sunlight, gas, in all the -colours that light can bring out of built or growing things; he saw it -as contour, movement; he saw all that a painter sees, when the painter -sets himself to copy, not to create. He was the finest copyist who ever -used paint with a pen. Nothing that can be expressed in technical terms -escaped him; there were no technical terms which he could not reduce -to an orderly beauty. But he absorbed all this visible world with the -hardly discriminating impartiality of the retina; he had no moods, was -not to be distracted by a sentiment, heard no voices, saw nothing but -darkness, the negation of day, in night. He was tirelessly attentive, -he had no secrets of his own and could keep none of naturels. He could -describe every ray of the nine thousand precious stones in the throne -of Ivan the Terrible, in the Treasury of the Kremlin; but he could tell -you nothing of one of Maeterlinck's bees.</p> - -<p>The five senses made Gautier for themselves, that they might become -articulate. He speaks for them all with a dreadful unconcern. All his -words are in love with matter, and they enjoy their lust and have no -recollection. If the body did not dwindle and expand to some ignoble -physical conclusion; if wrinkles did not creep yellowing up women's -necks, and the fire in a man's blood did not lose its heat; he would -always be content. Everything that he cared for in the world was to be -had, except, perhaps, rest from striving after it; only, everything -would one day come to an end, after a slow spoiling. Decrepit, -colourless, uneager things shocked him, and it was with an acute, -almost disinterested pity that he watched himself die.</p> - -<p>All his life Gautier adored life, and all the processes and forms of -life. A pagan, a young Roman, hard and delicate, with something of -cruelty in his sympathy with things that could be seen and handled, -he would have hated the soul, if he had ever really apprehended it, -for its qualifying and disturbing power upon the body. No other modern -writer, no writer perhaps, has described nakedness with so abstract a -heat of rapture: like d'Albert when he sees Mlle, de Maupin for the -first and last time, he is the artist before he is the lover, and he -is the lover while he is the artist. It was above all things the human -body whose contours and colours he wished to fix for eternity, in the -"robust art" of "verse, marble, onyx, enamel." And it was not the body -as a frail, perishable thing, and a thing to be pitied, that he wanted -to perpetuate; it was the beauty of life itself, imperishable at least -in its recurrence.</p> - -<p>He loved imperishable things: the body, as generation after generation -refashions it, the world, as it is restored and rebuilt, and then -gems, and hewn stone, and carved ivory, and woven tapestry. He loved -verse for its solid, strictly limited, resistant form, which, while -prose melts and drifts about it, remains unalterable, indestructible. -Words, he knew, can build as strongly as stones, and not merely rise -to music, like the walls of Troy, but be themselves music as well as -structure. Yet, as in visible things he cared only for hard outline -and rich colour, so in words too he had no love of half-tints, and was -content to do without that softening of atmosphere which was to be -prized by those who came after him as the thing most worth seeking. -Even his verse is without mystery; if he meditates, his meditation has -all the fixity of a kind of sharp, precise criticism.</p> - -<p>What Gautier saw he saw with unparalleled exactitude; he allows himself -no poetic license or room for fine phrases; has his eye always on the -object, and really uses the words which best describe it, whatever -they may be. So his books of travel are guide-books, in addition to -being other things; and not by any means "states of soul" or states -of nerves. He is willing to give you information, and able to give -it to you without deranging his periods. The little essay on Leonardo -is an admirable piece of artistic divination, and it is also a clear, -simple, sufficient account of the man, his temperament, and his way of -work. The study of Baudelaire, reprinted in the <i>édition définitive</i> -of the "Fleurs du Mal," remains the one satisfactory summing up, it -is not a solution, of the enigma which Baudelaire personified; and it -is almost the most coloured and perfumed thing in words which he ever -wrote. He wrote equally well about cities, poets, novelists, painters, -or sculptors; he did not understand one better than the other, or feel -less sympathy for one than for another. He, the "parfait magicien -ès lettres françaises," to whom faultless words came in faultlessly -beautiful order, could realise, against Balzac himself, that Balzac -had a style: "he possesses, though he did not think so, a style, and a -very beautiful style, the necessary, inevitable, mathematical style of -his ideas." He appreciated Ingres as justly as he appreciated El Greco; -he went through the Louvre, room by room, saying the right thing about -each painter in turn. He did not say the final thing; he said nothing -which we have to pause and think over before we see the whole of its -truth or apprehend the whole of its beauty. Truth, in him, comes to -us almost literally through the eyesight, and with the same beautiful -clearness as if it were one of those visible things which delighted him -most: gold, marble, and purple; brilliance, solidity, colour.</p> - -<p>1902.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="GUSTAVE_FLAUBERT" id="GUSTAVE_FLAUBERT">GUSTAVE FLAUBERT</a></h4> - - -<p><i>Salammbô</i> is an attempt, as Flaubert, himself his best critic, has -told us, to "perpetuate a mirage by applying to antiquity the methods -of the modern novel." By the modern novel he means the novel as he -had reconstructed it; he means <i>Madame Bovary.</i> That perfect book is -perfect because Flaubert had, for once, found exactly the subject -suited to his method, had made his method and his subject one. On his -scientific side Flaubert is a realist, but there is another, perhaps -a more intimately personal side, on which he is lyrical, lyrical in -a large, sweeping way. The lyric poet in him made <i>La Tentation de -Saint-Antoine,</i> the analyst made <i>L'Education Sentimentale;</i> but in -<i>Madame Bovary</i> we find the analyst and the lyric poet in equilibrium. -It is the history of a woman, as carefully observed as any story -that has ever been written, and observed in surroundings of the most -ordinary kind. But Flaubert finds the romantic material which he -loved, the materials of beauty, in precisely that temperament which he -studies so patiently and so cruelly. Madame Bovary is a little woman, -half vulgar and half hysterical, incapable of a fine passion; but her -trivial desires, her futile aspirations after second-rate pleasures and -second-hand ideals, give to Flaubert all that he wants: the opportunity -to create beauty out of reality. What is common in the imagination of -Madame Bovary becomes exquisite in Flaubert's rendering of it, and by -that counterpoise of a commonness in the subject he is saved from any -vague ascents of rhetoric in his rendering of it.</p> - -<p>In writing <i>Salammbô</i> Flaubert set himself to renew the historical -novel, as he had renewed the novel of manners. He would have admitted, -doubtless, that perfect success in the historical novel is impossible, -by the nature of the case. We are at best only half conscious of -the reality of the things about us, only able to translate them -approximately into any form of art. How much is left over, in the -closest transcription of a mere line of houses in a street, of a -passing steamer, of one's next-door neighbour, of the point of view -of a foreigner looking along Piccadilly, of one's own state of mind, -moment by moment, as one walks from Oxford Circus to the Marble -Arch? Think, then, of the attempts to reconstruct no matter what -period of the past, to distinguish the difference in the aspect of -a world perhaps bossed with castles and ridged with ramparts, to -two individualities encased within chain-armour! Flaubert chose his -antiquity wisely: a period of which we know too little to confuse us, -a city of which no stone is left on another, the minds of Barbarians -who have left us no psychological documents. "Be sure I have made -no fantastic Carthage," he says proudly, pointing to his documents: -Ammianus Marcellinus, who has furnished him with "the <i>exact</i> form of a -door"; the Bible and Theophrastus, from which he obtains his perfumes -and his precious stones; Gesenius, from whom he gets his Punic names; -the <i>Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions.</i> "As for the temple -of Tanit, I am sure of having reconstructed it as it was, with the -treatise of the Syrian Goddess, with the medals of the Duc de Luynes, -with what is known of the temple at Jerusalem, with a passage of St. -Jerome, quoted by Seldon (<i>De Diis Syriis</i>), with the plan of the -temple of Gozzo, which is quite Carthaginian, and best of all, with -the ruins of the temple of Thugga, which I have seen myself, with my -own eyes, and of which no traveller or antiquarian, so far as I know, -has ever spoken." But that, after all, as he admits (when, that is, he -has proved point by point his minute accuracy to all that is known of -ancient Carthage, his faithfulness to every indication which can serve -for his guidance, his patience in grouping rather, than his daring in -the invention of action and details), that is not the question. "I -care little enough for archæology! If the colour is not uniform, if -the details are out of keeping, if the manners do not spring from the -religion and the actions from the passions, if the characters are not -consistent, if the costumes are not appropriate to the habits and the -architecture to the climate, if, in a word, there is not harmony, I am -in error. If not, no."</p> - -<p>And there, precisely, is the definition of the one merit which can -give a historical novel the right to exist, and at the same time -a definition of the merit which sets <i>Salammbô</i> above all other -historical novels. Everything in the book is strange, some of it -might easily be bewildering, some revolting; but all is in harmony. -The harmony is like that of Eastern music, not immediately conveying -its charm, or even the secret of its measure, to Western ears; but a -monotony coiling perpetually upon itself, after a severe law of its -own. Or rather, it is like a fresco, painted gravely in hard, definite -colours, firmly detached from a background of burning sky; a procession -of Barbarians, each in the costume of his country, passes across the -wall; there are battles, in which elephants fight with men; an army -besieges a great city, or rots to death in a defile between mountains; -the ground is paved with dead men; crosses, each bearing its living -burden, stand against the sky; a few figures of men and women appear -again and again, expressing by their gestures the soul of the story.</p> - -<p>Flaubert himself has pointed, with his unerring self-criticism, to -the main defect of his book: "The pedestal is too large for the -statue." There should have been, as he says, a hundred pages more -about Salammbô. He declares: "There is not in my book an isolated or -gratuitous description; all are useful to my characters, and have an -influence, near or remote, on the action." This is true, and yet, -all the same, the pedestal is too large for the statue. Salammbô, -"always surrounded with grave and exquisite things," has something -of the somnambulism which enters into the heroism of Judith; she has -a hieratic beauty, and a consciousness as pale and vague as the moon -whom she worships. She passes before us, "her body saturated with -perfumes," encrusted with jewels like an idol, her head turreted with -violet hair, the gold chain tinkling between her ankles; and is hardly -more than an attitude, a fixed gesture, like the Eastern women whom -one sees passing, with oblique eyes and mouths painted into smiles, -their faces curiously traced into a work of art, in the languid -movements of a pantomimic dance. The soul behind those eyes? the -temperament under that at times almost terrifying mask? Salammbô is as -inarticulate for us as the serpent, to whose drowsy beauty, capable of -such sudden awakenings, hers seems half akin; they move before us in a -kind of hieratic pantomime, a coloured, expressive thing, signifying -nothing. Mâtho, maddened with love, "in an invincible stupor, like -those who have drunk some draught of which they are to die," has the -same somnambulistic life; the prey of Venus, he has an almost literal -insanity, which, as Flaubert reminds us, is true to the ancient view -of that passion. He is the only quite vivid person in the book, and -he lives with the intensity of a wild beast, a life "blinded alike" -from every inner and outer interruption to one or two fixed ideas. The -others have their places in the picture, fall into their attitudes -naturally, remain so many coloured outlines for us. The illusion is -perfect; these people may not be the real people of history, but at -least they have no self-consciousness, no Christian tinge in their -minds.</p> - -<p>"The metaphors are few, the epithets definite," Flaubert tells us, -of his style in this book, where, as he says, he has sacrificed less -"to the amplitude of the phrase and to the period," than in <i>Madame -Bovary.</i> The movement here is in briefer steps, with a more earnest -gravity, without any of the engaging weakness of adjectives. The style -is never archaic, it is absolutely simple, the precise word being put -always for the precise thing; but it obtains a dignity, a historical -remoteness, by the large seriousness of its manner, the absence of -modern ways of thought, which, in <i>Madame Bovary,</i> bring with them an -instinctively modern cadence.</p> - -<p><i>Salammbô</i> is written with the severity of history, but Flaubert notes -every detail visually, as a painter notes the details of natural -things. A slave is being flogged under a tree: Flaubert notes the -movement of the thong as it flies, and tells us: "The thongs, as they -whistled through the air, sent the bark of the plane trees flying." -Before the battle of the Macar, the Barbarians are awaiting the -approach of the Carthaginian army. First "the Barbarians were surprised -to see the ground undulate in the distance." Clouds of dust rise and -whirl over the desert, through which are seen glimpses of horns, and, -as it seems, wings. Are they bulls or birds, or a mirage of the -desert? The Barbarians watch intently. "At last they made out several -transverse bars, bristling with uniform points. The bars became denser, -larger; dark mounds swayed from side to side; suddenly square bushes -came into view; they were elephants and lances. A single shout, 'The -Carthaginians!' arose." Observe how all that is seen, as if the eyes, -unaided by the intelligence, had found out everything for themselves, -taking in one indication after another, instinctively. Flaubert puts -himself in the place of his characters, not so much to think for them -as to see for them.</p> - -<p>Compare the style of Flaubert in each of his books, and you will -find that each book has its own rhythm, perfectly appropriate to its -subject-matter. The style, which has almost every merit and hardly -a fault, becomes what it is by a process very different from that -of most writers careful of form. Read Chateaubriand, Gautier, even -Baudelaire, and you will find that the aim of these writers has been -to construct a style which shall be adaptable to every occasion, -but without structural change; the cadence is always the same. The -most exquisite word-painting of Gautier can be translated rhythm for -rhythm into English, without difficulty; once you have mastered -the tune, you have merely to go on; every verse will be the same. -But Flaubert is so difficult to translate because he has no fixed -rhythm; his prose keeps step with no regular march-music. He invents -the rhythm of every sentence, he changes his cadence with every mood -or for the convenience of every fact. He has no theory of beauty in -form apart from what it expresses. For him form is a living thing, -the physical body of thought, which it clothes and interprets. "If I -call stones blue, it is because blue is the precise word, believe me," -he replies to Sainte-Beuve's criticism. Beauty comes into his words -from the precision with which they express definite things, definite -ideas, definite sensations. And in his book, where the material is so -hard, apparently so unmalleable, it is a beauty of sheer exactitude -which fills it from end to end, a beauty of measure and order, seen -equally in the departure of the doves of Carthage at the time of their -flight into Sicily, and in the lions feasting on the corpses of the -Barbarians, in the defile between the mountains.</p> - -<p>1901.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="CHARLES_BAUDELAIRE" id="CHARLES_BAUDELAIRE">CHARLES BAUDELAIRE</a></h4> - - -<p>Baudelaire is little known and much misunderstood in England. Only one -English writer has ever done him justice, or said anything adequate -about him. As long ago as 1862 Swinburne introduced Baudelaire to -English readers: in the columns of the <i>Spectator</i>, it is amusing to -remember. In 1868 he added a few more words of just and subtle praise -in his book on Blake, and in the same year wrote the magnificent elegy -on his death, <i>Ave atque Vale.</i> There have been occasional outbreaks' -of irrelevant abuse or contempt, and the name of Baudelaire (generally -misspelled) is the journalist's handiest brickbat for hurling at random -in the name of respectability. Does all this mean that we are waking -up, over here, to the consciousness of one of the great literary forces -of the age, a force which has been felt in every other country but ours?</p> - -<p>It would be a useful influence for us. Baudelaire desired perfection, -and we have never realised that perfection is a thing to aim at. He -only did what he could do supremely well, and he was in poverty all -his life, not because he would not work, but because he would work -only at certain things, the things which he could hope to do to his -own satisfaction. Of the men of letters of our age he was the most -scrupulous. He spent his whole life in writing one book of verse (out -of which all French poetry has come since his time), one book of prose -in which prose becomes a fine art, some criticism which is the sanest, -subtlest, and surest which his generation produced, and a translation -which is better than a marvellous original. What would French poetry -be to-day if Baudelaire had never existed? As different a thing from -what it is as English poetry would be without Rossetti. Neither of -them is quite among the greatest poets, but they are more fascinating -than the greatest, they influence more minds. And Baudelaire was an -equally great critic. He discovered Poe, Wagner, and Manet. Where -even Sainte-Beuve, with his vast materials, his vast general talent -for criticism, went wrong in contemporary judgments, Baudelaire was -infallibly right. He wrote neither verse nor prose with ease, but -he would not permit himself to write either without inspiration. His -work is without abundance, but it is without waste. It is made out -of his whole intellect and all his nerves. Every poem is a train of -thought and every essay is the record of sensation. This "romantic" -had something classic in his moderation, moderation which becomes at -times as terrifying as Poe's logic. To "cultivate one's hysteria" so -calmly, and to affront the reader <i>(Hypocrite lecteur, mon semblable, -mon frère)</i> as a judge rather than as a penitent; to be a casuist in -confession; to be so much a moralist, with so keen a sense of the -ecstasy of evil: that has always bewildered the world, even in his -own country, where the artist is allowed to live as experimentally as -he writes. Baudelaire lived and died solitary, secret, a confessor of -sins who has never told the whole truth, <i>le mauvais moine</i> of his own -sonnet, an ascetic of passion, a hermit of the brothel.</p> - -<p>To understand, not Baudelaire, but what we can of him, we must read, -not only the four volumes of his collected works, but every document -in Crépet's <i>Œuvres Posthumes,</i> and above all, the letters, and -these have only now been collected into a volume, under the care of -an editor who has done more for Baudelaire than any one since Crépet. -Baudelaire put into his letters only what he cared to reveal of himself -at a given moment: he has a different angle to distract the sight of -every observer; and let no one think that he knows Baudelaire when he -has read the letters to Poulet-Malassis, the friend and publisher, to -whom he showed his business side, or the letters to la Présidente, the -touchstone of his <i>spleen et idéal,</i> his chief experiment in the higher -sentiments, Some of his carefully hidden virtues peep out at moments, -it is true, but nothing that everybody has not long been aware of. -We hear of his ill-luck with money, with proof-sheets, with his own -health. The tragedy of the life which he chose, as he chose all things -(poetry, Jeanne Duval, the "artificial paradises") deliberately, is -made a little clearer to us; we can moralise over it if we like. But -the man remains baffling, and will probably never be discovered.</p> - -<p>As it is, much of the value of the book consists in those glimpses -into his mind and intentions which he allowed people now and then to -see. Writing to Sainte-Beuve, to Flaubert, to Soulary, he sometimes -lets out, through mere sensitiveness to an intelligence capable of -understanding him, some little interesting secret. Thus it is to -Sainte-Beuve that he defines and explains the origin and real meaning -of the <i>Petits Poèmes en Prose: Faire cent bagatelles laborieuses qui -exigent une bonne humeur constante (bonne humeur nécessaire, même -pour traiter des sujets tristes), une excitation bizarre qui a besoin -de spectacles, de foules, de musiques, de réverbères même, voilà ce -que j'ai voulu faire!</i> And, writing to some obscure person, he will -take the trouble to be even more explicit, <i>us</i> in this symbol of -the sonnet: <i>Avez-vous observé qu'un morceau de ciel aperçu par un -soupirail, ou entre deux cheminées, deux rochers, ou par une arcade, -donnait une idée plus profonde de l'infini que le grand panorama vu du -haut d'une montagne?</i> It is to another casual person that he speaks out -still more intimately (and the occasion of his writing is some thrill -of gratitude towards one who had at last done "a little justice," not -to himself, but to Manet): <i>Eh bien! on m'accuse, moi, d'imiter Edgar -Poe! Savez-vous pourquoi j'ai si patiemment traduit Poe? Parce qu'il -me resemblait. La première fois que j'ai ouvert un livre de lui, j'ai -vu avec épouvante et ravissement, non seulement des sujets rêvés par -moi, mais des phrases, pensées par moi, et écrites par lui, vingt ans -auparavant.</i> It is in such glimpses as these that we see something of -Baudelaire in his letters.</p> - -<p>1906.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="EDMOND_AND_JULES_DE_GONCOURT" id="EDMOND_AND_JULES_DE_GONCOURT">EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT</a></h4> - - -<p>My first visit to Edmond de Goncourt was in May, 1892. I remember my -immense curiosity about that "House Beautiful," at Auteuil, of which I -had heard so much, and my excitement as I rang the bell, and was shown -at once into the garden, where Goncourt was just saying good-bye to -some friends. He was carelessly dressed, without a collar, and with -the usual loosely knotted large white scarf rolled round his neck. -He was wearing a straw hat, and it was only afterwards that I could -see the fine sweep of the white hair, falling across the forehead. I -thought him the most distinguished-looking man of letters I had ever -seen; for he had at once the distinction of race, of fine breeding, and -of that delicate artistic genius which, with him, was so intimately -a part of things beautiful and distinguished. He had the eyes of an -old eagle; a general air of dignified collectedness; a rare, and a -rarely charming, smile, which came out, like a ray of sunshine, in the -instinctive pleasure of having said a witty or graceful thing to which -one's response had been immediate. When he took me indoors, into that -house which was a museum, I noticed the delicacy of his hands, and the -tenderness with which he handled his treasures, touching them as if he -loved them, with little, unconscious murmurs: <i>Quel goût! quel goût!</i> -These rose-coloured rooms, with their embroidered ceilings, were filled -with cabinets of beautiful things, Japanese carvings, and prints (the -miraculous "Plongeuses"!), always in perfect condition (<i>Je cherche le -beau</i>); albums had been made for him in Japan, and in these he inserted -prints, mounting others upon silver and gold paper, which formed a sort -of frame. He showed me his eighteenth-century designs, among which I -remember his pointing out one (a Chardin, I think) as the first he had -ever bought; he had been sixteen at the time, and he bought it for -twelve francs.</p> - -<p>When we came to the study, the room in which he worked, he showed me -all of his own first editions, carefully bound, and first editions -of Flaubert, Baudelaire, Gautier, with those, less interesting to me, -of the men of later generations. He spoke of himself and his brother -with a serene pride, which seemed to me perfectly dignified and -appropriate; and I remember his speaking (with a parenthetic disdain -of the <i>brouillard Scandinave,</i> in which it seemed to him that France -was trying to envelop herself; at the best it would be but <i>un mauvais -brouillard</i>) of the endeavour which he and his brother had made to -represent the only thing worth representing, <i>le vie vécue, la vraie -vérité.</i> As in painting, he said, all depends on the way of seeing, -<i>l'optique:</i> out of twenty-four men who will describe what they have -all seen, it is only the twenty-fourth who will find the right way of -expressing it. "There is a true thing I have said in my journal," he -went on. "The thing is, to find a lorgnette" (and he put up his hands -to his eyes, adjusting them carefully) "through which to see things. -My brother and I invented a lorgnette, and the young men have taken it -from us."</p> - -<p>How true that is, and how significantly it states just what is most -essential in the work of the Goncourts! It is a new way of seeing, -literally a new way of seeing, which they have invented; and it is in -the invention of this that they have invented that "new language" of -which purists have so long, so vainly, and so thanklessly complained. -You remember that saying of Masson, the mask of Gautier, in <i>Charles -Demailly:</i> "I am a man for whom the visible world exists." Well, that -is true, also, of the Goncourts; but in a different way.</p> - -<p>"The delicacies of fine literature," that phrase of Pater always comes -into my mind when I think of the Goncourts; and indeed Pater seems to -me the only English writer who has ever handled language at all in -their manner or spirit. I frequently heard Pater refer to certain of -their books, to <i>Madame Gervaisais,</i> to <i>L'Art du XVIII<sup>e</sup> -Siècle,</i> to <i>Chérie;</i> with a passing objection to what he called the -"immodesty" of this last book, and a strong emphasis in the assertion -that "that was how it seemed to him a book should be written." I -repeated this once to Goncourt, trying to give him some idea of what -Patera work was like; and he lamented that his ignorance of English -prevented him from what he instinctively realised would be so intimate -an enjoyment. Pater was of course far more scrupulous, more limited, in -his choice of epithet, less feverish in his variations of cadence; and -naturally so, for he dealt with another subject-matter and was careful -of another kind of truth. But with both there was that passionately -intent preoccupation with "the delicacies of fine literature"; both -achieved a style of the most personal sincerity: <i>tout grand écrivain -de tous les temps,</i> said Goncourt, <i>ne se reconnaît absolument qu'à -cela, c'est qu'il a une langue personnelle, une langue dont chaque -page, chaque ligne, est signée, pour le lecteur lettré, comme si son -nom était au has de cette page, de cette ligne:</i> and this style, in -both, was accused, by the "literary" criticism of its generation, of -being insincere, artificial, and therefore reprehensible.</p> - -<p>It is difficult, in speaking of Edmond de Goncourt, to avoid -attributing to him the whole credit of the work which has so long borne -his name alone. That is an error which he himself would never have -pardoned. <i>Mon frère et moi</i> was the phrase constantly on his lips, and -in his journal, his prefaces, he has done full justice to the vivid and -admirable qualities of that talent which, all the same, would seem to -have been the lesser, the more subservient, of the two. Jules, I think, -had a more active sense of life, a more generally human curiosity; -for the novels of Edmond, written since his brother's death, have, in -even that excessively specialised world of their common observation, -a yet more specialised choice and direction. But Edmond, there is no -doubt, was in the strictest sense the writer; and it is above all for -the qualities of its writing that the work of the Goncourts will live. -It has been largely concerned with truth—truth to the minute details -of human character, sensation, and circumstance, and also of the -document, the exact words, of the past; but this devotion to fact, to -the curiosities of fact, has been united with an even more persistent -devotion to the curiosities of expression. They have invented a new -language: that was the old reproach against them; let it be their -distinction. Like all writers of an elaborate carefulness, they have -been accused of sacrificing both truth and beauty to deliberate -eccentricity. Deliberate their style certainly was; eccentric it may, -perhaps, sometimes have been; but deliberately eccentric, no. It was -their belief that a writer should have a personal style, a style as -peculiar to himself as his handwriting; and indeed I seem to see -in the handwriting of Edmond de Goncourt just the characteristics -of his style. Every letter is formed carefully, separately, with a -certain elegant stiffness; it is beautiful, formal, too regular in the -"continual slight novelty" of its form to be quite clear at a glance: -very personal, very distinguished writing.</p> - -<p>It may be asserted that the Goncourts are not merely men of genius, -but are perhaps the typical men of letters of the close of our -century. They have all the curiosities and the acquirements, the new -weaknesses and the new powers, that belong to our age; and they sum -up in themselves certain theories, aspirations, ways of looking at -things, notions of literary duty and artistic conscience, which have -only lately become at all actual, and some of which owe to them their -very origin. To be not merely novelists (inventing a new kind of -novel), but historians; not merely historians, but the historians of -a particular century, and of what was intimate and what is unknown in -it; to be also discriminating, indeed innovating critics of art, but -of a certain section of art, the eighteenth century, in France and in -Japan; to collect pictures and <i>bibelots,</i> beautiful things, always -of the French and Japanese eighteenth century: these excursions in so -many directions, with their audacities and their careful limitations, -their bold novelty and their scrupulous exactitude in detail, are -characteristic of what is the finest in the modern conception of -culture and the modern ideal in art. Look, for instance, at the -Goncourts' view of history. <i>Quand les civilisations commencent, -quand les peuples se forment, l'histoire est drame ou geste.... Les -siècles qui out précédé notre siècle ne demandaient à l'historien -que le personnage de l'homme, et le portrait de son génie.... Le -XIX<sup>e</sup> siècle demande l'homme qui était cet homme d'État, cet -homme de guerre, ce poète, ce peintre, ce grand homme de science ou de -métier. L'âme qui était en cet acteur, le cœur qui a vécu derrière -cet esprit, il les exige et les réclame; et s'il ne peut recueillir -tout cet être moral, toute la vie intérieure, il commande du moins -qu'on lui en apporte une trace, un jour, un lambeau, une relique.</i> From -this theory, this conviction, came that marvellous series of studies -in the eighteenth century in France <i> (La Femme au XVIII<sup>e</sup> -Siècle, Portraits intimes du XVIII<sup>e</sup> Siècle, La du Barry,</i> -and the others), made entirely out of documents, autograph letters, -scraps of costume, engravings, songs, the unconscious self-revelations -of the time, forming, as they justly say, <i>l'histoire intime; c'est -ce roman vrai que la postérité appellera peut-être un jour l'histoire -humaine.</i> To be the bookworm and the magician; to give the actual -documents, but not to set barren fact by barren fact; to find a soul -and a voice in documents, to make them more living and more charming -than the charm of life itself: that is what the Goncourts have done. -And it is through this conception of history that they have found their -way to that new conception of the novel which has revolutionised the -entire art of fiction.</p> - -<p><i>Aujourd'hui,</i> they wrote, in 1864, in the preface to <i>Germinie -Lacerteux, que le Roman s'élargit et grandit, qu'il commence à être la -grande forme sérieuse, passionnée, vivante, de l'étude littéraire et -de l'enquête sociale, qu'il devient, par l'analyse et par la recherche -psychologique, l'Histoire morale contemporaine, aujourd'hui que le -Roman s'est imposé les devoirs de la science, il peut en revendiquer -les libertés et les franchises. Te public aime les romans faux,</i> is -another brave declaration in the same preface; <i>ce roman est un roman -vrai.</i> But what, precisely, is it that the Goncourts understood by -<i>un roman vrai?</i> The old notion of the novel was that it should be -an entertaining record of incidents or adventures told for their own -sake; a plain, straightforward narrative of facts, the aim being to -produce as nearly as possible an effect of continuity, of nothing -having been omitted, the statement, so to speak, of a witness on -oath; in a word, it is the same as the old notion of history, <i>drame -ou geste.</i> That is not how the Goncourts apprehend life, or how they -conceive it should be rendered. As in the study of history they seek -mainly the <i>inédit,</i> caring only to record that, so it is the <i>inédit</i> -of life that they conceive to be the main concern, the real "inner -history." And for them the <i>inédit</i> of life consists in the noting of -the sensations; it is of the sensations that they have resolved to -be the historians; not of action, nor of emotion, properly speaking, -nor of moral conceptions, but of an inner life which is all made up -of the perceptions of the senses. It is scarcely too paradoxical to -say that they are psychologists for whom the soul does not exist. One -thing, they know, exists: the sensation flashed through the brain, -the image on the mental retina. Having found that, they bodily omit -all the rest as of no importance, trusting to their instinct of -selection, of retaining all that really matters. It is the painter's -method, a selection made almost visually; the method of the painter who -accumulates detail on detail, in his patient, many-sided observation -of his subject, and then omits everything which is not an essential -part of the <i>ensemble</i> which he sees. Thus the new conception of what -the real truth of things consist in has brought with it, inevitably, -an entirely new form, a breaking up of the plain, straightforward -narrative into chapters, which are generally quite disconnected, and -sometimes of less than a page in length. A very apt image of this new, -curious manner of narrative has been found, somewhat maliciously, by -M. Lemaître. <i>Un homme qui marche à l'intérieur d'une maison, si nous -regardons du dehors, apparaît successivement à chaque fenêtre, et dans -les intervalles nous échappe. Ces fenêtres, ce sont les chapitres de -MM. de Goncourt. Encore,</i> he adds, <i>y a-t-il plusieurs de ces fenêtres -où l'homme que nous attendions ne passe point.</i> That, certainly, is -the danger of the method. No doubt the Goncourts, in their passion -for the <i>inédit,</i> leave out certain things because they are obvious, -even if they are obviously true and obviously important; that is the -defect of their quality. To represent life by a series of moments, -and to choose these moments for a certain subtlety and rarity in -them, is to challenge grave perils. Nor are these the only perils -which the Goncourts have constantly before them. There are others, -essential to their natures, to their preferences. And, first of all, -as we may see on every page of that miraculous <i>Journal,</i> which will -remain, doubtless, the truest, deepest, most poignant piece of human -history that they have ever written, they are sick men, seeing life -through the medium of diseased nerves. <i>Notre œuvre entier,</i> writes -Edmond de Goncourt, <i>reposa sur la maladie nerveuse; les peintures -de la maladie, nous les avons tirées de nous-mêmes, et, à force de -nous disséquer, nous sommes arrivés à une sensitivité supra-aiguë -que blessaient les infiniment petits de la vie.</i> This unhealthy -sensitiveness explains much, the singular merits as well as certain -shortcomings or deviations, in their work. The Goncourts' vision of -reality might almost be called an exaggerated sense of the truth of -things; such a sense as diseased nerves inflict upon one, sharpening -the acuteness of every sensation; or somewhat such a sense as one -derives from haschisch, which simply intensifies, yet in a veiled and -fragrant way, the charm or the disagreeableness of outward things, the -notion of time, the notion of space. What the Goncourts paint is the -subtler poetry of reality, its unusual aspects, and they evoke it, -fleetingly, like Whistler; they do not render it in hard outline, like -Flaubert, like Manet. As in the world of Whistler, so in the world -of the Goncourts, we see cities in which there are always fire-works -at Cremorne, and fair women reflected beautifully and curiously in -mirrors. It is a world which is extraordinarily real; but there is -choice, there is curiosity, in the aspect of reality which it presents.</p> - -<p>Compare the descriptions, which form so large a part of the work of the -Goncourts, with those of Théophile Gautier, who may reasonably be said -to have introduced the practice of eloquent writing about places, and -also the exact description of them. Gautier describes miraculously, but -it is, after all, the ordinary observation carried to perfection, or, -rather, the ordinary pictorial observation. The Goncourts only tell you -the things that Gautier leaves out; they find new, fantastic points of -view, discover secrets in things, curiosities of beauty, often acute, -distressing, in the aspects of quite ordinary places. They see things -as an artist, an ultra-subtle artist of the impressionist kind, might -see them; seeing them indeed always very consciously with a deliberate -attempt upon them, in just that partial, selecting, creative way -in which an artist looks at things for the purpose of painting a -picture. In order to arrive at their effects, they shrink from no -sacrifice, from no excess; slang, neologism, forced construction, -archaism, barbarous epithet, nothing comes amiss to them, so long as -it tends to render a sensation. Their unique care is that the phrase -should live, should palpitate, should be alert, exactly expressive, -super-subtle in expression; and they prefer indeed a certain perversity -in their relations with language, which they would have not merely a -passionate and sensuous thing, but complex with all the curiosities of -a delicately depraved instinct. It is the accusation of the severer -sort of French critics that the Goncourts have invented a new language; -that the language which they use is no longer the calm and faultless -French of the past. It is true; it is their distinction; it is the most -wonderful of all their inventions: in order to render new sensations, a -new vision of things, they have invented a new language.</p> - -<p>1894, 1896.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="VILLIERS_DE_LISLE-ADAM" id="VILLIERS_DE_LISLE-ADAM">VILLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM</a></h4> - - -<p class="center"><i>A chacun son infini</i></p> - - -<h4>1</h4> - -<p>Count Philippe Auguste Mathias de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam was born at -St. Brieuc, in Brittany, November 28, 1838; he died at Paris, under the -care of the Frères Saint-Jean-de-Dieu, August 19, 1889. Even before -his death, his life had become a legend, and the legend is even now -not to be disentangled from the actual occurrences of an existence so -heroically visionary. The Don Quixote of idealism, it was not only in -philosophical terms that life, to him, was the dream, and the spiritual -world the reality; he lived his faith, enduring what others called -reality with contempt, whenever, for a moment, he becomes conscious of -it. The basis of the character of Villiers was pride, and it was pride -which covered more than the universe. And this pride, first of all, -was the pride of race.</p> - -<p>Descendant of the original Rodolphe le Bel, Seigneur de Villiers -(1067), through Jean de Villiers and Maria de l'Isle and their son -Pierre the first Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, a Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, -born in 1384, had been Marshal of France under Jean-sans-Peur, Duke -of Burgundy; he took Paris during the civil war, and after being -imprisoned in the Bastille, reconquered Pontoise from the English, -and helped to reconquer Paris. Another Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, born -in 1464, Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, defended -Rhodes against 200,000 Turks for a whole year, in lone of the most -famous sieges in history; it was he who obtained from Charles V. the -concession of the isle of Malta for his Order, henceforth the Order of -the Knights of Malta.</p> - -<p>For Villiers, to whom time, after all, was but a metaphysical -abstraction, the age of the Crusaders had not passed. From a descendant -of the Grand Master of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, the -nineteenth century demanded precisely the virtues which the sixteenth -century had demanded of that ancestor. And these virtues were all -summed up in one word, which, in its double significance, single to -him, covered the whole attitude of life: the word "nobility." No word -returns oftener to the lips in speaking of what is most characteristic -in his work, and to Villiers moral and spiritual nobility seemed but -the inevitable consequence of that other kind of nobility by which he -seemed to himself still a Knight of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. -It was his birthright.</p> - -<p>To the aristocratic conception of things, nobility of soul is indeed a -birthright, and the pride with which this gift of nature is accepted -is a pride of exactly the opposite kind to that democratic pride -to which nobility of soul is a conquest, valuable in proportion to -its difficulty. This duality, always essentially aristocratic and -democratic, typically Eastern and Western also, finds its place in -every theory of religion, philosophy, and the ideal life. The pride -of <i>being,</i> the pride of <i>becoming:</i> these are the two ultimate -contradictions set before every idealist. Villiers' choice, inevitable -indeed, was significant. In this measure, it must always be the choice -of the artist, to whom, in his contemplation of life, the means is -often so much more important than the end. That nobility of soul which -comes without effort, which comes only with an unrelaxed diligence over -oneself, that I should be I: there can at least be no comparison of its -beauty with the stained and dusty onslaught on a never quite conquered -fort of the enemy, in a divided self. And, if it be permitted to choose -among degrees of sanctity, that, surely, is the highest in which a -natural genius for such things accepts its own attainment with the -simplicity of a birthright.</p> - -<p>And the Catholicism of Villiers was also a part of his inheritance. -His ancestors had fought for the Church, and Catholicism was still -a pompous flag, under which it was possible to fight on behalf of -the spirit, against that materialism which is always, in one way or -another, atheist. Thus he dedicates one of his stories to the Pope, -chooses ecclesiastical splendours by preference among the many -splendours of the world which go to make up his stage-pictures, and is -learned in the subtleties of the Fathers. The Church is his favourite -symbol of austere intellectual beauty; one way, certainly, by which the -temptations of external matter may be vanquished, and a way, also, by -which the desire of worship may be satisfied.</p> - -<p>But there was also, in his attitude towards the mysteries of the -spiritual world, that "forbidden" curiosity which had troubled the -obedience of the Templars, and which came to him, too, as a kind of -knightly quality. Whether or not he was actually a Cabbalist, questions -of magic began, at an early age, to preoccupy him, and, from the first -wild experiment of <i>Isis</i> to the deliberate summing up of <i>Axël,</i> the -"occult" world finds its way into most of his pages.</p> - -<p>Fundamentally, the belief of Villiers is the belief common to all -Eastern mystics.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> "Know, once for all, that there is for thee no -other universe than that conception thereof which is reflected at -the bottom of thy thoughts." "What is knowledge but a recognition?" -Therefore, "forgetting for ever that which was the illusion of -thyself," hasten to become "an intelligence freed from the bonds and -the desires of the present moment." "Become the flower of thyself! Thou -art but what thou thinkest: therefore think thyself eternal." "Man, if -thou cease to limit in thyself a thing, that is, to desire it, if, so -doing, thou withdraw thyself from it, it will follow thee, woman-like, -as the water fills the place that is offered to it in the hollow of the -hand. For thou possessest the real being of all things, in thy pure -will, and thou art the God that thou art able to become."</p> - -<p>To have accepted the doctrine which thus finds expression in <i>Axël,</i> -is to have accepted this among others of its consequences: "Science -states, but does not explain: she is the oldest offspring of the -chimeras; all the chimeras, then, on the same terms as the world (the -oldest of them!), are <i>something more</i> than nothing!" And in <i>Elën</i> -there is a fragment of conversation between two young students, which -has its significance also:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p><i>"Goetze.</i> There's my philosopher in full flight to the -regions of the sublime! Happily we have Science, which is a -torch, dear mystic; we will analyse your sun, if the planet -does not burst into pieces sooner than it has any right to!</p> - -<p><i>Samuel.</i> Science will not suffice. Sooner or later you will -end by coming to your knees.</p> - -<p><i>Goetze. </i> Before what?</p> - -<p><i>Samuel. </i> Before the darkness!"</p></blockquote> - -<p>Such avowals of ignorance are possible only from the height of a great -intellectual pride. Villiers' revolt against Science, so far as Science -is materialistic, and his passionate curiosity in that chimera's flight -towards the invisible, are one and the same impulse of a mind to which -only mind is interesting. <i>Toute cette vieille Extériorité, maligne, -compiquée, inflexible,</i> that illusion which Science accepts for the one -reality: it must be the whole effort of one's consciousness to escape -from its entanglements, to dominate it, or to ignore it, and one's art -must be the building of an ideal world beyond its access, from which -one may indeed sally out, now and again, in a desperate enough attack -upon the illusions in the midst of which men live.</p> - -<p>And just that, we find, makes up the work of Villiers, work which -divides itself roughly into two divisions: one, the ideal world, or the -ideal in the world (<i>Axël, Elën, Morgane, Isis,</i> some of the <i>contes,</i> -and, intermediary, <i>La Révolte</i>); the other, satire, the mockery of -reality (<i>L'Eve Future,</i> the <i>Contes Cruels, Tribulat Bonhomet</i>). It is -part of the originality of Villiers that the two divisions constantly -flow into one another; the idealist being never more the idealist than -in his buffooneries.</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> "I am far from sure," wrote Verlaine, "that the philosophy -of Villiers will not one day become the formula of our century."</p></div> - - -<h4>2</h4> - -<p><i>Axël</i> is the Symbolist drama, in all its uncompromising conflict with -the "modesty" of Nature and the limitations of the stage. It is the -drama of the soul, and at the same time it is the most pictorial of -dramas; I should define its manner as a kind of spiritual romanticism. -The earlier dramas, <i>Elën, Morgane,</i> are fixed at somewhat the same -point in space; <i>La Révolte,</i> which seems to anticipate <i>The Doll's -House,</i> shows us an aristocratic Ibsen, touching reality with a certain -disdain, certainly with far less skill, certainly with far more beauty. -But <i>Axël,</i> meditated over during a lifetime, shows us Villiers' ideal -of his own idealism.</p> - -<p>The action takes place, it is true, in this century, but it takes -place in corners of the world into which the modern spirit has not -yet passed; this <i>Monastère de Religieuses-trinitaires, le cloître de -Sainte Appolodora, situé sur les confins du littoral de l'ancienne -Flandre française,</i> and the <i>très vieux château fort, le burg -des margraves d'Auërsperg, isolé au milieu du Schwartzwald.</i> The -characters, Axël d'Auërsperg, Eve Sara Emmanuèle de Maupers, Maître -Janus, the Archidiacre, the Commandeur Kaspar d'Auërsperg, are at -once more and less than human beings: they are the types of different -ideals, and they are clothed with just enough humanity to give form to -what would otherwise remain disembodied spirit. The religious ideal, -the occult ideal, the worldly ideal, the passionate ideal, are all -presented, one after the other, in these dazzling and profound pages; -Axël is the disdainful choice from among them, the disdainful rejection -of life itself, of the whole illusion of life, "since infinity alone is -not a deception." And Sara? Sara is a superb part of that life which is -rejected, which she herself comes, not without reluctance, to reject. -In that motionless figure, during the whole of the first act silent but -for a single "No," and leaping into a moment's violent action as the -act closes, she is the haughtiest woman in literature. But she is a -woman, and she desires life, finding it in Axël. Pride, and the woman's -devotion to the man, aid her to take the last cold step with Axël, in -the transcendental giving up of life at the moment when life becomes -ideal.</p> - -<p>And the play is written, throughout, with a curious solemnity, a -particular kind of eloquence, which makes no attempt to imitate the -level of the speech of every day, but which is a sort of ideal language -in which beauty is aimed at as exclusively as if it were written in -verse. The modern drama, under the democratic influence of Ibsen, -the positive influence of Dumas <i>fils,</i> has limited itself to the -expression of temperaments in the one case, of theoretic intelligences -in the other, in as nearly as possible the words which the average man -would use for the statement of his emotions and ideas. The form, that -is, is degraded below the level of the characters whom it attempts to -express; for it is evident that the average man can articulate only a -small enough part of what he obscurely feels or thinks; and the theory -of Realism is that his emotions and ideas are to be given only in so -far as the words at his own command can give them. Villiers, choosing -to concern himself only with exceptional characters, and with them -only in the absolute, invents for them a more elaborate and a more -magnificent speech than they would naturally employ, the speech of -their thoughts, of their dreams.</p> - -<p>And it is a world thought or dreamt in some more fortunate atmosphere -than that in which we live, that Villiers has created for the final -achievement of his abstract ideas. I do not doubt that he himself -always lived in it, through all the poverty of the precipitous Rue -des Martyrs. But it is in <i>Axël,</i> and in <i>Axël</i> only, that he has made -us also inhabitants of that world. Even in <i>Elën</i> we are spectators, -watching a tragical fairy play (as if <i>Fantasio</i> became suddenly in -deadly earnest), watching some one else's dreams. <i>Axël</i> envelops us in -its own atmosphere; it is as if we found ourselves on a mountain top on -the other side of the clouds, and without surprise at finding ourselves -there.</p> - -<p>The ideal, to Villiers, being the real, spiritual beauty being -the essential beauty, and material beauty its reflection, or its -revelation, it is with a sort of fury that he attacks the materialising -forces of the world: science, progress, the worldly emphasis on -"facts," on what is "positive," "serious," "respectable." Satire, with -him, is the revenge of beauty upon ugliness, the persecution of the -ugly; it is not merely social satire, it is a satire on the material -universe by one who believes in a spiritual universe. Thus it is the -only laughter of our time which is fundamental, as fundamental as that -of Swift or Rabelais. And this lacerating laughter of the idealist -is never surer in its aim than when it turns the arms of science -against itself, as in the vast buffoonery of <i>L'Eve Future.</i> A Parisian -wit, sharpened to a fineness of irony such as only wit which is also -philosophy can attain, brings in another method of attack; humour, -which is almost English, another; while again satire becomes tragic, -fantastic, macabre. In those enigmatic "tales of the grotesque and -arabesque," in which Villiers rivals Poe on his own ground, there is, -for the most part, a multiplicity of meaning which is, as it is meant -to be, disconcerting. I should not like to say how far Villiers does -not, sometimes, believe in his own magic.</p> - -<p>It is characteristic of him, at all events, that he employs what we -call the supernatural alike in his works of pure idealism and in his -works of sheer satire. The moment the world ceased to be the stable -object, solidly encrusted with houses in brick and stone, which it is -to most of its so temporary inhabitants, Villiers was at home. When -he sought the absolute beauty, it was beyond the world that he found -it; when he sought horror, it was a breath blowing from an invisible -darkness which brought it to his nerves; when he desired to mock the -pretensions of knowledge of or ignorance, it was always with the unseen -that his tragic buffoonery made familiar.</p> - -<p>There is, in everything which Villiers wrote, a strangeness, certainly -both instinctive and deliberate, which seems to me to be the natural -consequence of that intellectual pride which, as I have pointed out, -was at the basis of his character. He hated every kind of mediocrity: -therefore he chose to analyse exceptional souls, to construct -exceptional stories, to invent splendid names, and to evoke singular -landscapes. It was part of his curiosity in souls to prefer the complex -to the simple, the perverse to the straightforward, the ambiguous to -either. His heroes are incarnations of spiritual pride, and their -tragedies are the shock of spirit against matter, the invasion of -spirit by matter, the temptation of spirit by spiritual evil. They seek -the absolute, and find death; they seek wisdom, find love, and fall -into spiritual decay; they seek reality, and find crime; they seek -phantoms, and find themselves. They are on the borders of a wisdom too -great for their capacity; they are haunted by dark powers, instincts -of ambiguous passions; they are too lucid to be quite sane in their -extravagances; they have not quite systematically transposed their -dreams into actions And his heroines, when they are not, like <i>L'Eve -Future,</i> the vitalised mechanism of an Edison, have the solemnity of -dead people, and a hieratic speech. <i>Songe, des cœurs condamnés à ce -supplice, de ne pas m'aimer!</i> says Sara, in <i>Axël. Je ne l'aime pas, -ce jeune homme. Qu'ai-je donc fait à Dieu?</i> says Elën. And their voice -is always like the voice of Elën: "I listened attentively to the sound -of her voice; it was tactiturn, subdued, like the murmur of the river -Lethe, flowing through the region of shadows." They have the immortal -weariness of beauty, they are enigmas to themselves, they desire, and -know not why they refrain, they do good and evil with the lifting of an -eyelid, and are innocent and guilty of all the sins of the earth.</p> - -<p>And these strange inhabitants move in as strange a world. They are the -princes and châtelaines of ancient castles lost in the depths of the -Black Forest; they are the last descendants of a great race about to -come to an end; students of magic, who have the sharp and swift swords -of the soldier; enigmatic courtesans, at the table of strange feasts; -they find incalculable treasures, <i>tonnantes et sonnantes cataractes -d'or liquide,</i> only to disdain them. All the pomp of the world -approaches them, that they may the better abnegate it, or that it may -ruin them to a deeper degree of their material hell. And we see them -always at the moment of a crisis, before the two ways of a decision, -hesitating in the entanglements of a great temptation. And this casuist -of souls will drag forth some horribly stunted or horribly overgrown -soul from under its obscure covering, setting it to dance naked before -our eyes. He has no mercy on those who have no mercy on themselves.</p> - -<p>In the sense in which that word is ordinarily used, Villiers has no -pathos. This is enough to explain why he can never, in the phrase he -would have disliked so greatly, "touch the popular heart." His mind is -too abstract to contain pity, and it is in his lack of pity that he -seems to put himself outside humanity. <i>A chacun son infini,</i> he has -said, and in the avidity of his search for the infinite he has no mercy -for the blind weakness which goes stumbling over the earth, without so -much as knowing that the sun and stars are overhead. He sees only the -gross multitude, the multitude which has the contentment of the slave. -He cannot pardon stupidity, for it is incomprehensible to him. He sees, -rightly, that stupidity is more criminal than vice; if only because -vice is curable, stupidity incurable. But he does not realise, as the -great novelists have realised, that stupidity can be pathetic, and that -there is not a peasant, nor even a self-satisfied bourgeois, in whom -the soul has not its part, in whose existence it is not possible to be -interested.</p> - -<p>Contempt, noble as it may be, anger, righteous though it may be, cannot -be indulged in without a certain lack of sympathy; and lack of sympathy -comes from a lack of patient understanding. It is certain that the -destiny of the greater part of the human race is either infinitely -pathetic or infinitely ridiculous. Under which aspect, then, shall -that destiny, and those obscure fractions of humanity, be considered? -Villiers was too sincere an idealist, too absolute in his idealism, to -hesitate. "As for living," he cries, in that splendid phrase of <i>Axël,</i> -"our servants will do that for us!" And, in the <i>Contes Cruels,</i> there -is this not less characteristic expression of what was always his -mental attitude: "As at the play, in a central stall, one sits out, so -as not to disturb one's neighbours—out of courtesy, in a word—some -play written in a wearisome style and of which one does not like the -subject, so I lived, out of politeness": <i>je vivais par politesse.</i> -In this haughtiness towards life, in this disdain of ordinary human -motives and ordinary human beings, there is at once the distinction and -the weakness of Villiers. And he has himself pointed the moral against -himself in these words of the story which forms the epilogue to the -<i>Contes Cruels:</i> "When the forehead alone contains the existence of a -man, that man is enlightened only from above his head; then his jealous -shadow, prostrate under him, draws him by the feet, that it may drag -him down into the invisible."</p> - - -<h4>3</h4> - -<p>All his life Villiers was a poor man; though, all his life, he was -awaiting that fortune which he refused to anticipate by any mean -employment. During most of his life, he was practically an unknown man. -Greatly loved, ardently admired, by that inner circle of the men who -have made modern French literature, from Verlaine to Maeterlinck, he -was looked upon by most people as an amusing kind of madman, a little -dangerous, whose ideas, as they floated freely over the café-table, it -was at times highly profitable to steal. For Villiers talked his works -before writing them, and sometimes he talked them instead of writing -them, in his too royally spendthrift way. To those who knew him he -seemed genius itself, and would have seemed so if he had never written -a line; for he had the dangerous gift of a personality which seems to -have already achieved all that it so energetically contemplates. But -personality tells only within hands' reach; and Villiers failed even -to startle, failed even to exasperate, the general reader. That his -<i>Premières Poésies,</i> published at I the age of nineteen, should have -brought him fame was hardly to be expected, remarkable, especially in -its ideas, as that book is. Nor was it to be expected of the enigmatic -fragment of a romance, <i>Isis</i> (1862), anticipating, as it does, by so -long a period, the esoteric and spiritualistic romances which were to -have their vogue. But <i>Elën</i> (1864) and <i>Morgane</i> (1865), those two -poetic dramas in prose, so full of distinction, of spiritual rarity; -but two years later, <i>Claire Lenoir</i> (afterwards incorporated in one -of his really great books, <i>Tribulat Bonhomet</i>), with its macabre -horror; but <i>La Révolte</i> (1870), for Villiers so "actual," and which -had its moments of success when it was revived in 1896 at the Odéon; -but <i>Le Nouveau Monde</i> (1880), a drama which, by some extraordinary -caprice, won a prize; but <i>Les Contes Cruels</i> (1880), that collection -of masterpieces, in which the essentially French <i>conte</i> is outdone -on its own ground! It was not till 1886 that Villiers ceased to be an -unknown writer, with the publication of that phosphorescent buffoonery -of science, that vast parody of humanity, <i>L'Eve Future. Tribulat -Bonhomet</i> (which he himself denned as <i>bouffonnerie énorme et sombre, -couleur du siècle</i>) was to come, in its final form, and the superb poem -in prose <i>Akëdysséril;</i> and then, more and more indifferent collections -of stories, in which Villiers, already dying, is but the shadow of -himself: <i>L'Amour Suprême</i> (1886), <i>Histoires Insolites</i> (1888), -<i>Nouveaux Contes Cruels</i> (1888). He was correcting the proofs of <i>Axël</i> -when he died; the volume was published in 1890, followed by <i>Propos -d'au-delà,</i> and a series of articles, <i>Chez les Passants.</i> Once dead, -the fame which had avoided him all his life began to follow him; he had -<i>une belle presse</i> at his funeral.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, he had been preparing the spiritual atmosphere of the new -generation. Living among believers in the material world, he had been -declaring, not in vain, his belief in the world of the spirit; living -among Realists and Parnassians, he had been creating a new form of art, -the art of the Symbolist drama, and of Symbolism in fiction. He had -been lonely all his life, for he had been living in his own lifetime, -the life of the next generation. There was but one man among his -contemporaries to whom he could give, and from whom he could receive, -perfect sympathy. That man was Wagner. Gradually the younger men came -about him; at the end he was not lacking in disciples.</p> - -<p>And after all, the last word of Villiers is faith; faith against the -evidence of the senses, against the negations of materialistic science, -against the monstrous paradox of progress, against his own pessimism -in the face of these formidable enemies. He affirms; he "believes in -soul, is very sure of God"; requires no witness to the spiritual world -of which he is always the inhabitant; and is content to lose his way -in the material world, brushing off its mud from time to time with a -disdainful gesture, as he goes on his way (to apply a significant word -of Pater) "like one on a secret errand."</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="LEON_CLADEL" id="LEON_CLADEL">LÉON CLADEL</a></h4> - - -<p>I hope that the life of Léon Cladel by his daughter Judith, which -Lemerre has brought out in a pleasant volume, will do something for the -fame of one of the most original writers of our time. Cladel had the -good fortune to be recognised in his lifetime by those whose approval -mattered most, beginning with Baudelaire, who discovered him before -he had printed his first book, and helped to teach him the craft of -letters. But so exceptional an artist could never be popular, though he -worked in living stuff and put the whole savour of his countryside into -his tragic and passionate stories. A peasant, who writes about peasants -and poor people, with a curiosity of style which not only packs his -vocabulary with difficult words, old or local, and with unheard of -rhythms, chosen to give voice to some never yet articulated emotion, -but which drives him into oddities of printing, of punctuation, of the -very shape of his accents! A page of Cladel has a certain visible -uncouthness, and at first this seems in keeping with his matter; but -the uncouthness, when you look into it, turns out to be itself a -refinement, and what has seemed a confused whirl, an improvisation, to -be the result really of reiterated labour, whose whole aim has been to -bring the spontaneity of the first impulse back into the laboriously -finished work.</p> - -<p>In this just, sensitive, and admirable book, written by one who has -inherited a not less passionate curiosity about life, but with more -patience in waiting upon it, watching it, noting its surprises, we -have a simple and sufficient commentary upon the books and upon the -man. The narrative has warmth and reserve, and is at once tender -and clear-sighted. <i>J'entrevois nettement,</i> she says with truth, -<i>combien seront précieux pour les futurs historiens de la littérature -du xix<sup>e</sup> siècle, les mémoires tracés au contact immédiat -de l'artiste, exposés de ses faits et gestes particuliers, de ses -origines, de la germination de ses croyances et de son talent; ses -critiques à venir y trouveront de solides matériaux, ses admirateurs -un aliment à leur piété et les philosophes un des aspects de l'Ame -française.</i></p> - -<p>The man is shown to us, <i>les élans de cette âme toujours grondante -et fulgurante comme une forge, et les nuances de ce fiévreux visage -d'apôtre, brun, fin et sinueux,</i> and we see the inevitable growth, -out of the hard soil of Quercy and out of the fertilising contact of -Paris and Baudelaire, of this whole literature, these books no less -astonishing than their titles: <i>Ompdrailles-le-Tombeau-des-Lutteurs, -Celui de la Croix-aux-Bœufs, La Fête Votive de -Saint-Bartholomée-Porte-Glaive.</i> The very titles are an excitement. I -can remember how mysterious and alluring they used to seem to me when -I first saw them on the cover of what was perhaps his best book, <i>Les -Va-Nu-Pieds.</i></p> - -<p>It is by one of the stories, and the shortest, in <i>Les Va-Nu-Pieds,</i> -that I remember Cladel. I read it when I was a boy, and I cannot think -of it now without a shiver. It is called <i>L'Hercule,</i> and it is about -a Sandow of the streets, a professional strong man, who kills himself -by an overstrain; it is not a story at all, it is the record of an -incident, and there is only the strong man in it and his friend the -zany, who makes the jokes while the strong man juggles with bars and -cannon-balls. It is all told in a breath, without a pause, as if -someone who had just seen it poured it out in a flood of hot words. -Such vehemence, such pity, such a sense of the cruelty of the spectacle -of a man driven to death like a beast, for a few pence and the pleasure -of a few children; such an evocation of the sun and the streets and -this sordid tragic thing happening to the sound of drum and cymbals; -such a vision in sunlight of a barbarous and ridiculous and horrible -accident, lifted by the telling of it into a new and unforgettable -beauty, I have never felt or seen in any other story of a like -grotesque tragedy. It realises an ideal, it does for once what many -artists have tried and failed to do; it wrings the last drop of agony -out of that subject which it is so easy to make pathetic and effective. -Dickens could not have done it, Bret Harte could not have done it, -Kipling could not do it: Cladel did it only once, with this perfection.</p> - -<p>Something like it he did over and over again, with unflagging -vehemence, with splendid variations, in stories of peasants and -wrestlers and thieves and prostitutes. They are all, as his daughter -says, epic; she calls them Homeric, but there is none of the Homeric -simplicity in this tumult of coloured and clotted speech, in which the -language is tortured to make it speak. The comparison with Rabelais -is nearer. <i>La recherche du terme vivant, sa mise en valeur et en -saveur, la surabondance des vocables puisés à toutes sources ... la -condensation de l'action autour de ces quelques motifs éternels de -l'épopée: combat, ripaille, palabre et luxure,</i> there, as she sees -justly, are links with Rabelais. Goncourt, himself always aiming at an -impossible closeness of written to spoken speech, noted with admiration -<i>la vraie photographie de la parole avec ses tours, ses abbreviations -ses ellipses, son essoufflement presque.</i> Speech out of breath, that -is what Cladel's is always; his words, never the likely ones, do not -so much speak as cry, gesticulate, overtake one another. <i>L'âme de -Léon Cladel,</i> says his daughter, <i>était dans un constant et flamboyant -automne.</i> Something of the colour and fever of autumn is in all he -wrote. Another writer since Cladel, who has probably never heard of -him, has made heroes of peasants and vagabonds. But Maxim Gorki makes -heroes of them, consciously, with a mental self-assertion, giving them -ideas which he has found in Nietzsche. Cladel put into all his people -some of his own passionate way of seeing "scarlet," to use Barbey -d'Aurevilly's epithet: <i>un rural écarlate.</i> Vehement and voluminous, -he overflowed: his whole aim as an artist, as a pupil of Baudelaire, -was to concentrate, to hold himself back; and the effort added impetus -to the checked overflow. To the realists he seemed merely extravagant; -he saw certainly what they could not see; and his romance was always a -fruit of the soil. The artist in him, seeming to be in conflict with -the peasant, fortified, clarified the peasant, extracted from that hard -soil a rare fruit. You see in his face an extraordinary mingling of the -peasant, the visionary, and the dandy: the long hair and beard, the -sensitive mouth and nose, the fierce brooding eyes, in which wildness -and delicacy, strength and a kind of stealthiness, seem to be grafted -on an inflexible peasant stock.</p> - -<p>1906.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="A_NOTE_ON_ZOLAS_METHOD" id="A_NOTE_ON_ZOLAS_METHOD">A NOTE ON ZOLA'S METHOD</a></h4> - - -<p>The art of Zola is based on certain theories, on a view of humanity -which he has adopted as his formula. As a deduction from his formula, -he takes many things in human nature for granted, he is content to -observe at second-hand; and it is only when he comes to the filling-up -of his outlines, the <i>mise-en-scène,</i> that his observation becomes -personal, minute, and persistent. He has thus succeeded in being at -once unreal where reality is most essential, and tediously real where a -point-by-point reality is sometimes unimportant. The contradiction is -an ingenious one, which it may be interesting to examine in a little -detail, and from several points of view.</p> - -<p>And, first of all, take L'<i>Assommoir,</i> no doubt the most characteristic -of Zola's novels, and probably the best; and, leaving out for the -present the broader question of his general conception of humanity, -let us look at Zola's manner of dealing with his material, noting by -the way certain differences between his manner and that of Goncourt, -of Flaubert, with both of whom he has so often been compared, and -with whom he wishes to challenge comparison. Contrast <i>L'Assommoir</i> -with <i>Germinie Lacerteux,</i> which, it must be remembered, was written -thirteen years earlier. Goncourt, as he incessantly reminds us, was -the first novelist in France to deliberately study the life of the -people, after precise documents; and <i>Germinie Lacerteux</i> has this -distinction, among others, that it was a new thing. And it is done -with admirable skill; I as a piece of writing, as a work of art, it is -far superior to Zola. But, certainly, Zola's work has a mass and bulk, -a <i>fougue,</i> a <i>portée,</i> which Goncourt's lacks; and it has a savour -of plebeian flesh which all the delicate art of Goncourt could not -evoke. Zola sickens you with it; but there it is. As in all his books, -but more than in most, there is something greasy, a smear of eating -and drinking; the pages, to use his own phrase, <i>grasses des lichades -du lundi.</i> In <i>Germinie Lacerteux</i> you never forget that Goncourt -is an aristocrat; in <i>L'Assommoir</i> you never forget that Zola is a -bourgeois. Whatever Goncourt touches becomes, by the mere magic of his -touch, charming, a picture; Zola is totally destitute of charm. But -how, in <i>L'Assommoir,</i> he drives home to you the horrid realities of -these narrow, uncomfortable lives! Zola has made up his mind that he -will say everything, without omitting a single item, whatever he has -to say; thus, in <i>L'Assommoir,</i> there is a great feast which lasts for -fifty pages, beginning with the picking of the goose, the day before, -and going on to the picking of the goose's bones, by a stray marauding -cat, the night after. And, in a sense, he does say everything; and -there, certainly, is his novelty, his invention. He observes with -immense persistence, but his observation, after all, is only that of -the man in the street; it is simply carried into detail, deliberately. -And, while Goncourt wanders away sometimes into arabesques, indulges in -flourishes, so finely artistic is his sense of words and of the things -they represent, so perfectly can he match a sensation or an impression -by its figure in speech, Zola, on the contrary, never finds just the -right word, and it is his persistent fumbling for it which produces -these miles of description; four pages describing how two people went -upstairs, from the ground floor to the sixth story, and then two pages -afterwards to describe how they came downstairs again. Sometimes, by -his prodigious diligence and minuteness, he succeeds in giving you the -impression; often, indeed; but at the cost of what <i>ennui</i> to writer -and reader alike! And so much of it all is purely unnecessary, has -no interest in itself and no connection with the story: the precise -details of Lorilleux's chain-making, bristling with technical terms: -it was <i>la colonne</i> that he made, and only that particular kind of -chain; Goujet's forge, and the machinery in the shed next door; and -just how you cut out zinc with a large pair of scissors. When Goncourt -gives you a long description of anything, even if you do not feel -that it helps on the story very much, it is such a beautiful thing in -itself, his mere way of writing it is so enchanting, that you find -yourself wishing it longer, at its longest. But with Zola, there is no -literary interest in the—writing, apart from its clear and coherent -expression of a given thing; and these interminable descriptions have -no extraneous, or, if you will, implicit interest, to save them from -the charge of irrelevancy; they sink by their own weight. Just as -Zola's vision is the vision of the average man, so his vocabulary, -with all its technicology, remains mediocre, incapable of expressing -subtleties, incapable of a really artistic effect. To find out in a -slang dictionary that a filthy idea can be expressed by an ingeniously -filthy phrase in <i>argot,</i> and to use that phrase, is not a great feat, -or, on purely artistic grounds, altogether desirable. To go to a -chainmaker and learn the trade name of the various kinds of chain which -he manufactures, and of the instruments with which he manufactures -them, is not an elaborate process, or one which can be said to pay you -for the little trouble which it no doubt takes. And it is not well to -be too cerïain after all that Zola is always perfectly accurate in his -use of all this manifold knowledge. The slang, for example; he went to -books for it, in books he found it, and no one will ever find some of -it but in books. However, my main contention is that Zola's general -use of words is, to be quite frank, somewhat ineffectual. He tries -to do what Flaubert did, without Flaubert's tools, and without the -craftsman's hand at the back of the tools. His fingers are too thick; -they leave a blurred line. If you want merely weight, a certain kind of -force, you get it; but no more.</p> - -<p>Where a large part of Zola's merit lies, in his persistent attention -to detail, one finds also one of his chief defects. He cannot leave -well alone; he cannot omit; he will not take the most obvious fact -for granted. <i>Il marcha le premier, elle le suivit,</i> well, of course, -she followed him, if he walked first: why mention the fact? That -beginning of a sentence is absolutely typical; it is impossible for -him to refer, for the twentieth time, to some unimportant character, -without giving name and profession, not one or the other, but both, -invariably both. He tells us particularly that a room is composed of -four walls, that a table stands on its four legs. And he does not -appear to see the difference between doing that and doing as Flaubert -does, namely, selecting precisely the detail out of all others which -renders or consorts with the scene in hand, and giving that detail -with an ingenious exactness. Here, for instance, in <i>Madame Bovary,</i> -is a characteristic detail in the manner of Flaubert: <i>Huit jours -après, comme elle étendait du linge dans sa cour, elle fut prise d'un -crachement de sang, et le lendemain, tandis que Charles avait le dos -tourné pour fermer le rideau de la fenêtre, elle dit: "Ah! mon Dieu!" -poussa un soupir et s'évanouit. Elle était morte.</i> Now that detail, -brought in without the slightest emphasis, of the husband turning his -back at the very instant that his wife dies, is a detail of immense -psychological value; it indicates to us, at the very opening of the -book, just the character of the man about whom we are to read so much. -Zola would have taken at least two pages to say that, and, after all, -he would not have said it. He would have told you the position of the -chest of drawers in the room, what wood the chest of drawers was made -of, and if it had a little varnish knocked off at the corner of the -lower cornice, just where it would naturally be in the way of people's -feet as they entered the door. He would have told you how Charles leant -against the other corner of the chest of drawers, and that the edge of -the upper cornice left a slight dent in his black frock-coat, which -remained visible half an hour afterwards. But that one little detail, -which Flaubert selects from among a thousand, that, no, he would never -have given us that!</p> - -<p>And the language in which all this is written, apart from the -consideration of language as a medium, is really not literature at -all, in any strict sense. I am not, for the moment, complaining of -the colloquialism and the slang. Zola has told us that he has, in -<i>L'Assommoir,</i> used the language of the people in order to render the -people with a closer truth. Whether he has done that or not is not -the question. The question is, that he does not give one the sense of -reading good literature, whether he speaks in Delvau's <i>langue verte,</i> -or according to the Academy's latest edition of classical French. His -sentences have no rhythm; they give no pleasure to the ear; they carry -no sensation to the eye. You hear a sentence of Flaubert, and you see a -sentence of Goncourt, like living things, with forms and voices. But a -page of Zola lies dull and silent before you; it draws you by no charm, -it has no meaning until you have read the page that goes before and the -page that comes after. It is like cabinet-makers' work, solid, well -fitted together, and essentially made to be used.</p> - -<p>Yes, there is no doubt that Zola writes very badly, worse than any -other French writer of eminence. It is true that Balzac, certainly one -of the greatest, does, in a sense, write badly; but his way of writing -badly is very different from Zola's, and leaves you with the sense of -quite a different result. Balzac is too impatient with words; he cannot -stay to get them all into proper order, to pick and choose among them. -Night, the coffee, the wet towel, and the end of six hours' labour -are often too much for him; and his manner of writing his novels on -the proof-sheets, altering and expanding as fresh ideas came to him -on each re-reading, was not a way of doing things which can possibly -result in perfect writing. But Balzac sins from excess, from a feverish -haste, the very extravagance of power; and, at all events, he "sins -strongly." Zola sins meanly, he is penuriously careful, he does the -best he possibly can; and he is not aware that his best does not answer -all requirements. So long as writing is clear and not ungrammatical, it -seems to him sufficient. He has not realised that without charm there -can be no fine literature, as there can be no perfect flower without -fragrance.</p> - -<p>And it is here that I would complain, not as a matter of morals, -but as a matter of art, of Zola's obsession by what is grossly, -uninterestingly filthy. There is a certain simile in <i>L'Assommoir,</i> -used in the most innocent connection, in connection with a bonnet, -which seems to me the most abjectly dirty phrase which I have ever -read. It is one thing to use dirty words to describe dirty things: -that may be necessary, and thus unexceptionable. It is another thing -again, and this, too, may well be defended on artistic grounds, to be -ingeniously and wittily indecent. But I do not think a real man of -letters could possibly have used such an expression as the one I am -alluding to or could so meanly succumb to certain kinds of prurience -which we find in Zola's work. Such a scene as the one in which Gervaise -comes home with Lantier, and finds per husband lying drunk asleep in -his own vomit, might certainly be explained and even excused, though -few more disagreeable things were ever written, on the ground of the -psychological importance which it undoubtedly has, and the overwhelming -way in which it drives home the point which it is the writer's business -to make. But the worrying way in which <i>le derrière</i> and <i>le ventre</i> -are constantly kept in view, without the slightest necessity, is quite -another thing. I should not like to say how often the phrase "sa nudité -de jolie fille" occurs in Zola. Zola's nudities always remind me of -those which you can see in the <i>Foire au pain d'épice</i> at Vincennes, by -paying a penny and looking through a peep-hole. In the laundry scenes, -for instance in <i>L'Assommoir,</i> he is always reminding you that the -laundresses have turned up their sleeves, or undone a button or two of -their bodices. His eyes seem eternally fixed on the inch or two of bare -flesh that can be seen; and he nudges your elbow at every moment, to -make sure that you are looking too. Nothing may be more charming than a -frankly sensuous description of things which appeal to the senses; but -can one imagine anything less charming, less like art, than this prying -eye glued to the peep-hole in the Gingerbread Fair?</p> - -<p>Yet, whatever view may be taken of Zola's work in literature, there is -no doubt that the life of Zola is a model lesson, and might profitably -be told in one of Dr. Smiles's edifying biographies. It may even be -brought as a reproach against the writer of these novels, in which -there are so many offences against the respectable virtues, that he -is too good a bourgeois, too much the incarnation of the respectable -virtues, to be a man of genius. If the finest art comes of the -intensest living, then Zola has never had even a chance of doing the -greatest kind of work. It is his merit and his misfortune to have lived -entirely in and for his books, with a heroic devotion to his ideal of -literary duty which would merit every praise if we had to consider -simply the moral side of the question. So many pages of copy a day, so -many hours of study given to mysticism, or Les Halles; Zola has always -had his day's work marked out before him, and he has never swerved -from it. A recent life of—Zola tells us something about his way of -getting up a subject. "Immense preparation had been necessary for the -<i>Faute de l'Abbé Mouret.</i> Mountains of note-books were heaped up on -his table, and for months Zola was plunged in the study of religious -works. All the mystical part of the book, and notably the passages -having reference to the cultus of Mary, was taken from the works of -the Spanish Jesuits. The <i>Imitation of Jesus Christ</i> was largely -drawn upon, many passages being copied almost word for word into -the novel—much as in <i>Clarissa Harlowe,</i> that other great realist, -Richardson, copied whole passages from the Psalms. The description -of life in a grand seminary was given him by a priest who had been -dismissed from ecclesiastical service. The little church of Sainte -Marie des Batignolles was regularly visited."</p> - -<p>How commendable all that is, but, surely, how futile! Can one conceive -of a more hopeless, a more ridiculous task, than that of setting to -work on a novel of ecclesiastical life as if one were cramming for -an examination in religious knowledge? Zola apparently imagines that -he can master mysticism in a fortnight, as he masters the police -regulations of Les Halles. It must be admitted that he does wonders -with his second-hand information, alike in regard to mysticism and Les -Halles. But he succeeds only to a certain point, and that point lies -on the nearer side of what is really meant by success. Is not Zola -himself, at his moments, aware of this? A letter written in 1881, and -printed in Mr. Sherard's life of Zola, from which I have just quoted, -seems to me very significant.</p> - -<p>"I continue to work in a good state of mental equilibrium. My novel -<i>(Pot-Bouille)</i> is certainly only a task requiring precision and -clearness. No <i>bravoura,</i> not the least lyrical treat. It does not -give me any warm satisfaction, but it amuses me like a piece of -mechanism with a thousand wheels, of which it is my duty to regulate -the movements with the most minute care. I ask myself the question: Is -it good policy, when one feels that one has passion in one, to check -it, or even to bridle it? If one of my books is destined to become -immortal, it will, I am sure, be the most passionate one."</p> - -<p><i>Est-elle en marbre ou non, la Vénus de Milo?</i> said the Parnassians, -priding themselves on their muse with her <i>peplum bien sculpté.</i> Zola -will describe to you the exact shape and the exact smell of the rags -of his naturalistic muse; but has she, under the tatters, really a -human heart? In the whole of Zola's works, amid all his exact and -impressive descriptions of misery, all his endless annals of the poor, -I know only one episode which brings tears to the eyes, the episode -of the child-martyr Lalie in L'<i>Assommoir.</i> "A piece of mechanism -with a thousand wheels," that is indeed the image of this immense and -wonderful study of human life, evolved out of the brain of a solitary -student who knows life only by the report of his documents, his -friends, and, above all, his formula.</p> - -<p>Zola has denned art, very aptly, as nature seen through a temperament. -The art of Zola is nature seen through a formula. This professed -realist is a man of theories who studies life with a conviction that -he will find there such and such things which he has read about in -scientific books. He observes, indeed, with astonishing minuteness, but -he observes in support of preconceived ideas. And so powerful is his -imagination that he has created a whole world which has no existence -anywhere but in his own brain, and he has placed there imaginary -beings, so much more logical than life, in the midst of surroundings -which are themselves so real as to lend almost a semblance of reality -to the embodied formulas who inhabit them.</p> - -<p>It is the boast of Zola that he has taken up art at the point where -Flaubert left it, and that he has developed that art in its logical -sequence. But the art of Flaubert, itself a development from Balzac, -had carried realism, if not in <i>Madame Bovary,</i> at all events in -<i>L'Education Sentimentale,</i> as far as realism can well go without -ceasing to be art. In the grey and somewhat sordid history of Frédéric -Moreau there is not à touch of romanticism, not so much as a concession -to style, a momentary escape of the imprisoned lyrical tendency. -Everything is observed, everything is taken straight from life: realism -sincere, direct, implacable, reigns from end to end of the book. But -with what consummate art all this mass of observation is disintegrated, -arranged, composed! with what infinite delicacy it is manipulated in -the service of an unerring sense of construction! And Flaubert has no -theory, has no prejudices, has only a certain impatience with human -imbecility. Zola, too, gathers his documents, heaps up his mass of -observation, and then, in this unhappy "development" of the principles -of art which produced <i>L'Education Sentimentale,</i> flings everything -pell-mell into one overflowing <i>pot-au-feu.</i> The probabilities of -nature and the delicacies of art are alike drowned beneath a flood of -turbid observation, and in the end one does not even feel convinced -that Zola really knows his subject. I remember once hearing M. -Huysmans, with his look and tone of subtle, ironical malice, describe -how Zola, when he was writing <i>La Terre,</i> took a drive into the country -in a victoria, to see the peasants. The English papers once reported -an interview in which the author of <i>Nana,</i> indiscreetly questioned -as to the amount of personal observation he had put into the book, -replied that he had lunched with an actress of the Variétés. The reply -was generally taken for a joke, but the lunch was a reality, and it -was assuredly a rare experience in the life of solitary diligence to -which we owe so many impersonal studies in life. Nor did Zola, as he -sat silent by the side of Mlle. X., seem to be making much use of -the opportunity. The language of the miners in <i>Germinal,</i> how much -of local colour is there in that? The interminable additions and -divisions, the extracts from a financial gazette, in <i>L'Argent,</i> how -much of the real temper and idiosyncrasy of the financier do they -give us? In his description of places, in his <i>mise-en-scène,</i> Zola -puts down what he sees with his own eyes, and, though it is often -done at utterly disproportionate length, it is at all events done -with exactitude. But in the far more important observation of men and -women, he is content with second-hand knowledge, the knowledge of a man -who sees the world through a formula. Zola sees in humanity <i>la bête -humaine.</i> He sees the beast in all its transformations, but he sees -only the beast. He has never looked at life impartially, he has never -seen it as it is. His realism is a distorted idealism, and the man who -considers himself the first to paint humanity as it really is will be -remembered in the future as the most idealistic writer of his time.</p> - -<p>1893.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="STEPHANE_MALLARME" id="STEPHANE_MALLARME">STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ</a></h4> - - -<h4>1</h4> - - -<p>Stéphane Mallarmé was one of those who love literature too much to -write it except by fragments; in whom the desire of perfection brings -its own defeat. With either more or less ambition he would have done -more to achieve himself; he was always divided between an absolute aim -at the absolute, that is, the unattainable, and a too logical disdain -for the compromise by which, after all, literature is literature. -Carry the theories of Mallarmé to a practical conclusion, multiply -his powers in a direct ratio, and you have Wagner. It is his failure -not to be Wagner. And, Wagner having existed, it was for him to be -something more, to complete Wagner. Well, not being able to be that, it -was a matter of sincere indifference to him whether he left one or two -little, limited masterpieces of formal verse and prose, the more or -the less. It was "the work" that he dreamed of, the new art, more than -a new religion, whose precise form in the world he was never quite able -to settle.</p> - -<p><i>Un auteur difficile,</i> in the phrase of M. Catulle Mendès, it has -always been to what he himself calls "a labyrinth illuminated by -flowers" that Mallarmé has felt it due to their own dignity to invite -his readers. To their own dignity, and also to his. Mallarmé was -obscure, not so much because he wrote differently, as because he -thought differently, from other people. His mind was elliptical, and, -relying with undue confidence on the intelligence of his readers, he -emphasised the effect of what was unlike other people in his mind by -resolutely ignoring even the links of connection that existed between -them. Never having aimed at popularity, he never needed, as most -writers need, to make the first advances. He made neither intrusion -upon nor concession to those who, after all, were not obliged to read -him. And when he spoke, he considered it neither needful nor seemly -to listen in order to hear whether he was heard. To the charge of -obscurity he replied, with sufficient disdain, that there are many -who do not know how to read—except the newspaper, he adds, in one of -those disconcerting, oddly-printed parentheses, which make his work, -to those who rightly apprehend it, so full of wise limitations, so -safe from hasty or seemingly final conclusions. No one in our time -has more significantly vindicated the supreme right of the artist in -the aristocracy of letters; wilfully, perhaps, not always wisely, but -nobly, logically. Has not every artist shrunk from that making of -himself "a motley to the view," that handing over of his naked soul -to the laughter of the multitude? But who, in our time, has wrought -so subtle a veil, shining on this side, where the few are, a thick -cloud on the other, where are the many? The oracles have always had -the wisdom to hide their secrets in the obscurity of many meanings, or -of what has seemed meaningless; and might it not, after all, be the -finest epitaph for a self-respecting man of letters to be able to say, -even after the writing of many books: I have kept my secret, I have not -betrayed myself to the multitude?</p> - -<p>But to Mallarmé, certainly, there might be applied the significant -warning of Rossetti:</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 15%;"> -Yet woe to thee if once thou yield<br /> -Unto the act of doing nought!<br /> -</p> - -<p>After a life of persistent devotion to literature, he has left enough -poems to make a single small volume (less, certainly, than a hundred -poems in all), a single volume of prose, a few pamphlets, and a prose -translation of the poems of Poe. It is because among these there are -masterpieces, poems which are among the most beautiful poems written in -our time, prose which has all the subtlest qualities of prose, that, -quitting the abstract point of view, we are forced to regret the fatal -enchantments, fatal for him, of theories which are so greatly needed -by others, so valuable for our instruction, if we are only a little -careful in putting them into practice.</p> - -<p>In estimating the significance of Stéphane Mallarmé, it is necessary -to take into account not only his verse and prose, but, almost more -than these, the Tuesdays of the Rue de Rome, in which he gave himself -freely to more than one generation. No one who has ever climbed -those four flights of stairs will have forgotten the narrow, homely -interior, elegant with a sort of scrupulous Dutch comfort; the heavy, -carved furniture, the tall clock, the portraits, Manet's, Whistler's, -on the walls; the table on which the china bowl, odorous with -tobacco, was pushed from hand to hand; above all, the rocking-chair, -Mallarmé's, from which he would rise quietly, to stand leaning his -elbow on the mantelpiece, while one hand, the hand which did not -hold the cigarette, would sketch out one of those familiar gestures: -<i>un peu de prêtre, un peu de danseuse</i> (in M. Rodenbach's admirable -phrase), <i>avec lesquels il avait l'air chaque fois d'entrer dans la -conversation, comme on entre en scène.</i> One of the best talkers of -our time, he was, unlike most other fine talkers, harmonious with his -own theories in giving no monologues, in allowing every liberty to -his guests, to the conversation; in his perfect readiness to follow -the slightest indication, to embroider upon any frame, with any -material presented to him. There would have been something almost of -the challenge of the improvisatore in this, easily moved alertness of -mental attitude, had it not been for the singular gentleness with -which Mallarmé's intelligence moved, in these considerable feats, with -the half-apologetic negligence of the perfect acrobat. He seemed to be -no more than brushing the dust off your own ideas, settling, arranging -them a little, before he gave them back to you, surprisingly luminous. -It was only afterwards that you realised how small had been your own -part in the matter, as well as what it meant to have enlightened -without dazzling you. But there was always the feeling of comradeship, -the comradeship of a master, whom, while you were there at least, -you did not question; and that very feeling lifted you, in your own -estimation, nearer to art.</p> - -<p>Invaluable, it seems to me, those Tuesdays must have been to the young -men of two generations who have been making French literature; they -were unique, certainly, in the experience of the young Englishman -who was always so cordially received there, with so flattering a -cordiality. Here was a house in which art, literature, was the very -atmosphere, a religious atmosphere; and the master of the house, in his -just a little solemn simplicity, a priest. I never heard the price -of a book mentioned, or the number of thousand francs which a popular -author had been paid for his last volume; here, in this one literary -house, literature was unknown as a trade. And, above all, the questions -that were discussed were never, at least, in Mallarmé's treatment, in -his guidance of them, other than essential questions, considerations -of art in the abstract of literature before it coagulates into a book, -of life as its amusing and various web spins the stuff of art. When, -indeed, the conversation, by some untimely hazard, drifted too near to -one, became for a moment, perhaps inconveniently, practical, it was -Mallarmé's solicitous politeness to wait, a little constrained, almost -uneasy, rolling his cigarette in silence, until the disturbing moment -had passed.</p> - -<p>There were other disturbing moments, sometimes. I remember one night, -rather late, the sudden irruption of M. de Heredia, coming on after a -dinner-party, and seating himself in his well-filled evening dress, -precisely in Mallarmé's favourite chair. He was intensely amusing, -voluble, floridly vehement; Mallarmé, I am sure, was delighted to see -him; but the loud voice was a little trying to his nerves, and then he -did not know what to do without his chair. He was like a cat that has -been turned out of its favourite corner, as he roamed uneasily about -the room, resting an unaccustomed elbow on the sideboard, visibly at a -disadvantage.</p> - -<p>For the attitude of those young men, some of them no longer exactly -young, who frequented the Tuesdays, was certainly the attitude of -the disciple. Mallarmé never exacted it, he seemed never to notice -it; yet it meant to him, all the same, a good deal; as it meant, and -in the best sense, a good deal to them. He loved art with a supreme -disinterestedness, and it was for the sake of art that he wished to -be really a master. For he knew that he had something to teach, that -he had found out some secrets worth knowing, that he had discovered a -point of view which he could to some degree perpetuate in those young -men who listened to him. And to them this free kind of apprenticeship -was, beyond all that it gave in direct counsels, in the pattern of -work, a noble influence. Mallarmé's quiet, laborious life was for -some of them the only counterpoise to the Bohemian example of the -<i>d'Harcourt</i> or the <i>Taverne,</i> where art is loved, but with something -of haste, in a very changing devotion. It was impossible to come away -from Mallarmé's without some tranquillising influence from that quiet -place, some impersonal ambition towards excellence, the resolve, at -least, to write a sonnet, a page of prose, that should be in its own -way as perfect as one could make it, worthy of Mallarmé.</p> - - -<h4>2</h4> - -<p>"Poetry," said Mallarmé, "is the language of a state of crisis"; and -all his poems are the evocation of a passing ecstasy, arrested in -mid-flight. This ecstasy is never the mere instinctive cry of the -heart, the simple human joy or sorrow, which, like the Parnassians, -but for not quite the same reason, he did not admit in poetry. It is a -mental transposition of emotion or sensation, veiled with atmosphere, -and becoming, as it becomes a poem, pure beauty. Here, for instance, -in a poem, which I have translated line for line, and almost word -for word, a delicate emotion, a figure vaguely divined, a landscape -magically evoked, blend in a single effect.</p> - -<p class="p2" style="margin-left: 15%;"> -SIGH<br /> -<br /> -My soul, calm sister, towards thy brow, whereon scarce grieves<br /> -An autumn strewn already with its russet leaves,<br /> -And towards the wandering sky of thine angelic eye,<br /> -Mounts, as in melancholy gardens may arise<br /> -Some faithful fountain sighing whitely towards the blue!<br /> --Towards the blue pale and pure that sad October knew,<br /> -When, in those depths, it mirrored languors infinite,<br /> -And agonising leaves upon the waters white,<br /> -Windily drifting, traced a furrow cold and dun,<br /> -Where, in one long last ray, lingered the yellow sun.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="p2">Another poem comes a little closer to nature, but with what exquisite -precautions, and with what surprising novelty in its unhesitating touch -on actual things!</p> - -<p class="p2" style="margin-left: 15%;"> -SEA-WIND<br /> -<br /> -The flesh is sad, alas! and all the books are read.<br /> -Flight, only flight! I feel that birds are wild to tread<br /> -The floor of unknown foam, and to attain the skies!<br /> -Nought, neither ancient gardens mirrored in the eyes,<br /> -Shall hold this heart that bathes in waters its delight,<br /> -O nights! nor yet my waking lamp, whose lonely light<br /> -Shadows the vacant paper, whiteness profits best,<br /> -Nor the young wife who rocks her baby on her breast.<br /> -I will depart. O steamer, swaying rope and spar,<br /> -Lift anchor for exotic lands that lie afar!<br /> -A weariness, outworn by cruel hopes, still clings<br /> -To the last farewell handkerchief's last beckonings!<br /> -And are not these, the masts inviting storms, not these<br /> -That an awakening wind bends over wrecking seas,<br /> -Lost, not a sail, a sail, a flowering isle, ere long?<br /> -But, O my heart, hear thou, hear thou the sailors' song!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="p2">These (need I say?) belong to the earlier period, in which Mallarmé -had not yet withdrawn his light into the cloud; and to the same period -belong the prose-poems, one of which, perhaps the most exquisite, I -will translate here.</p> - - -<p class="p2" style="text-align: center; font-size: 0.8em;">AUTUMN LAMENT</p> - -<p>"Ever since Maria left me, for another star—which? Orion, Altair, or -thou, green Venus?—I have always cherished solitude. How many long -days I have passed, alone with my cat! By <i>alone,</i> I mean without a -material being, and my cat is a mystical companion, a spirit. I may -say, then, that I have passed long days alone with my cat, and alone, -with one of the last writers of the Roman decadence; for since the -white creature is no more, strangely and singularly, I have loved -all that may be summed up in the word: fall. Thus, in the year, my -favourite season is during those last languid summer days which come -just before the autumn; and, in the day, the hour when I take my -walk is the hour when the sun lingers before fading, with rays of -copper-yellow on the grey walls, and of copper-red on the window-panes. -And, just so, the literature from which my soul demands delight -must be the poetry dying out of the last moments of Rome, provided, -nevertheless, that it breathes nothing of the rejuvenating approach of -the Barbarians, and does not stammer the infantile Latin of the first -Christian prose.</p> - -<p>"I read, then, one of those beloved poems (whose streaks of rouge have -more charm for me than the fresh cheek of youth), and buried my hand -in the fur of the pure animal, when a barrel-organ began to sing, -languishingly and melancholy, under my window. It played in the long -alley of poplars, whose leaves seem mournful to me even in spring, -since Maria passed that way with the tapers, for the last time. Yes, -sad people's instrument, truly: the piano glitters, the violin brings -one's torn fibres to the light, but the barrel-organ, in the twilight -of memory, has set me despairingly dreaming. While it murmured a gaily -vulgar air, such as puts mirth into the heart of the suburbs, an -old-fashioned, an empty air, how came it that its refrain went to my -very soul, and made me weep like a romantic ballad? I drank it in, and -I did not throw a penny out of the window, for fear of disturbing my -own impression, and of perceiving that the instrument was not singing -by itself."</p> - -<p class="p2">Between these characteristic, clear and beautiful poems, in verse and -in prose, and the opaque darkness of the later writings, come one or -two poems, perhaps the finest of all, in which already clearness is -"a secondary grace," but in which a subtle rapture finds incomparable -expression. <i>L'Après-midi d'un Faune</i> and <i>Hérodiade</i> have already -been introduced, in different ways, to English readers: the former by -Mr. Gosse, in a detailed analysis; the latter by a translation into -verse. And Debussy, in his new music, has taken <i>L'Après-midi d'un -Faune</i> almost for his new point of departure, interpreting it, at -all events, faultlessly. In these two poems I find Mallarmé at the -moment when his own desire achieves itself; when he attains Wagner's -ideal, that "the most complete work of the poet should be that which, -in its final achievement, becomes a perfect music": every word is a -jewel, scattering and recapturing sudden fire, every image is a symbol, -and the whole poem is visible music. After this point began that -fatal "last period" which comes to most artists who have thought too -curiously, or dreamed too remote dreams, or followed a too wandering -beauty. Mallarmé had long been too conscious that all publication is -"almost a speculation, on one's modesty, for one's silence"; that "to -unclench the fists, breaking one's sedentary dream, for a ruffling face -to face with the idea," was after all unnecessary to his own conception -of himself, a mere way of convincing the public that one exists; and -having achieved, as he thought, "the right to abstain from doing -anything exceptional," he devoted himself, doubly, to silence. Seldom -condescending to write, he wrote now only for himself, and in a manner -which certainly saved him from intrusion. Some of Meredith's poems, -and occasional passages of his prose, can alone give in English some -faint idea of the later prose and verse of Mallarmé. The verse could -not, I think, be translated; of the prose, in which an extreme lucidity -of thought comes to us but glimmeringly through the entanglements of a -construction, part Latin, part English, I shall endeavour to translate -some fragments, in speaking of the theoretic writings, contained in the -two volumes of <i>Vers et Prose</i> and <i>Divagations.</i></p> - - -<h4>3</h4> - -<p>It is the distinction of Mallarmé to have aspired after an impossible -liberation of the soul of literature from what is fretting and -constraining in "the body of that death," which is the mere literature -of words. Words, he has realised, are of value only as a notation of -the free breath of the spirit; words, therefore, must be employed with -an extreme care, in their choice and adjustment, in setting them to -reflect and chime upon one another; yet least of all for their own -sake, for what they can never, except by suggestion, express. "Every -soul is a melody," he has said, "which needs to be readjusted; and for -that are the flute or viol of each." The word, treated indeed with -a kind of "adoration," as he says, is so regarded in a magnificent -sense, in which it is apprehended as a living thing, itself the vision -rather than the reality; at least the philtre of the evocation. The -word, chosen as he chooses it, is for him a liberating principle, by -which the spirit is extracted from matter; takes form, perhaps assumes -immortality. Thus an artificiality, even, in the use of words, that -seeming artificiality which comes from using words as if they had -never been used before, that chimerical search after the virginity of -language, is but the paradoxical outward sign of an extreme discontent -with even the best of their service. Writers who use words fluently, -seeming to disregard their importance, do so from an unconscious -confidence in their expressiveness, which the scrupulous thinker, the -precise dreamer, can never place in the most carefully chosen among -them. To evoke, by some elaborate, instantaneous magic of language, -without the formality of an after all impossible description; to be, -rather than to express: that is what Mallarmé has consistently, and -from the first, sought in verse and prose. And he has sought this -wandering, illusive, beckoning butterfly, the soul of dreams, over -more and more entangled ground; and it has led him into the depths of -many forests, far from the sunlight. To say that he has found what he -sought is impossible; but (is it possible to avoid saying?) how heroic -a search, and what marvellous discoveries by the way!</p> - -<p>I think I understand, though; I cannot claim his own authority for my -supposition, the way in which Mallarmé wrote verse, and the reason -why it became more and more abstruse, more and more unintelligible. -Remember his principle: that to name is to destroy, to suggest is to -create. Note, further, that he condemns the inclusion in verse of -anything but, "for example, the horror of the forest, or the silent -thunder afloat in the leaves; not the intrinsic, dense wood of the -trees." He has received, then, a mental sensation: let it be the -horror of the forest. This sensation begins to form in his brain, -at first probably no more than a rhythm, absolutely without words. -Gradually thought begins to concentrate itself (but with an extreme -care, lest it should break the tension on which all depends) upon -the sensation, already struggling to find its own consciousness. -Delicately, stealthily, with infinitely timid precaution, words present -themselves, at first in silence. Every word seems like a desecration, -seems, the clearer it is, to throw back the original sensation farther -and farther into the darkness. But, guided always by the rhythm, -which is the executive soul (as, in Aristotle's definition, the soul -is the form of the body), words come slowly, one by one, shaping the -message. Imagine the poem already written down, at least composed. In -its very imperfection, it is clear, it shows the links by which it -has been riveted together; the whole process of its construction can -be studied. Now most writers would be content; but with Mallarmé the -work has only begun. In the final result there must be no sign of the -making, there must be only the thing made. He works over it, word by -word, changing a word here, for its colour, which is not precisely the -colour required, a word there, for the break it makes in the music. A -new image occurs to him, rarer, subtler, than the one he has used; the -image is transferred. By the time the poem has reached, as it seems -to him, a flawless unity, the steps of the progress have been only -too effectually effaced; and while the poet, who has seen the thing -from the beginning, still sees the relation of point to point, the -reader, who comes to it only in its final stage, finds himself in a not -unnatural bewilderment. Pursue this manner of writing to its ultimate -development; start with an enigma, and then withdraw the key of the -enigma; and you arrive, easily at the frozen impenetrability of those -latest sonnets, in which the absence of all punctuation is scarcely a -recognisable hindrance.</p> - -<p>That, I fancy to myself, was his actual way of writing; here, in what -I prefer to give as a corollary, is the theory. "Symbolist, Decadent, -or Mystic, the schools thus called by themselves, or thus hastily -labelled by our information-press, adopt, for meeting-place, the point -of an Idealism which (similarly as in fugues, in sonatas) rejects -the 'natural' materials, and, as brutal, a direct thought ordering -them; to retain no more than suggestion. To be instituted, a relation -between images, exact; and that therefrom should detach itself a third -aspect, fusible and clear, offered to the divination. Abolished, the -pretension, æsthetically an error, despite its dominion over almost all -the masterpieces, to enclose within the subtle paper other than, for -example, the horror of the forest, or the silent thunder afloat in the -leaves; not the intrinsic, dense wood of the trees. Some few bursts of -personal pride, veridically trumpeted, awaken the architecture of the -palace, alone habitable; not of stone, on which the pages would close -but ill." For example (it is his own): "I say: a flower! and out of the -oblivion to which my voice consigns every contour, so far as anything -save the known calyx, musically arises, idea, and exquisite, the one -flower absent from all bouquets." "The pure work," then, "implies the -elocutionary disappearance of the poet, who yields place to the words, -immobilised by the shock of their inequality; they take light from -mutual reflection, like an actual trail of fire over precious stones, -replacing the old lyric afflatus or the enthusiastic personal direction -of the phrase." "The verse which out of many vocables remakes an entire -word, new, unknown to the language, and as if magical, attains this -isolation of speech." Whence, it being "music which rejoins verse, -to form, since Wagner, Poetry," the final conclusion: "That we are -now precisely at the moment of seeking, before that breaking up of -the large rhythms of literature, and their scattering in articulate, -almost instrumental, nervous waves, an art which shall complete the -transposition, into the Book, of the symphony or simply recapture -our own: for, it is not in elementary sonorities of brass, strings, -wood, unquestionably, but in the intellectual word at its utmost, -that, fully and evidently, we should find, drawing to itself all the -correspondences of the universe, the supreme Music."</p> - -<p>Here, literally translated, in exactly the arrangement of the original, -are some passages out of the theoretic writings, which I have brought -together, to indicate what seem to me the main lines of Mallarmé's -doctrine. It is the doctrine which, as I have already said, had been -divined by Gérard de Nerval; but what, in Gérard, was pure vision, -becomes in Mallarmé a logical sequence of meditation. Mallarmé was -not a mystic, to whom anything came unconsciously; he was a thinker, -in whom an extraordinary subtlety of mind was exercised on always -explicit, though by no means the common, problems. "A seeker after -something in the world, that is there in no satisfying measure, or not -at all," he pursued his search with unwearying persistence with a sharp -mental division of dream and idea, certainly very lucid to himself, -however he may have failed to render his expression clear to others. -And I, for one, cannot doubt that he was, for the most part, entirely -right in his statement and analysis of the new conditions under which -we are now privileged or condemned to write. His obscurity was partly -his failure to carry out the spirit of his own directions; but, apart -from obscurity, which we may all be fortunate enough to escape, is it -possible for a writer, at the present day, to be quite simple, with -the old, objective simplicity, in either thought or expression? To be -<i>naif,</i> to be archaic, is not to be either natural or simple; I affirm -that it is not natural to be what is called "natural" any longer. We -have no longer the mental attitude of those to whom a story was but a -story, and all stories good; we have realised since it was proved to -us by Poe, not merely that the age of epics is past, but that no long -poem was ever written; the finest long poem in the world being but a -series of short poems linked together by prose. And, naturally, we can -no longer write what we can no longer accept. Symbolism, implicit in -all literature from the beginning, as it is implicit in the very words -we use, comes to us now, at last quite conscious of itself, offering us -the only escape from our many imprisonments. We find a new, an older, -sense in the so worn-out forms of things; the world, which we can no -longer believe in as the satisfying material object it was to our -grandparents, becomes transfigured with a new light; words, which long -usage had darkened almost out of recognition, take fresh lustre. And -it is on the lines of that spiritualising of the word, that perfecting -of form in its capacity for allusion and suggestion, that confidence -in the eternal correspondences between the visible and the invisible -universe, which Mallarmé taught, and too intermittently practised, that -literature must now move, if it is in any sense to move forward.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="PAUL_VERLAINE" id="PAUL_VERLAINE">PAUL VERLAINE</a></h4> - - -<h4>1</h4> - -<p><i>"Bien affectueusement</i> ... yours, P. Verlaine." So, in its gay and -friendly mingling of French and English, ended the last letter I had -from Verlaine. A few days afterwards came the telegram from Paris -telling me of his death, in the Rue Descartes, on that 8th January, -1896.</p> - -<p>"Condemned to death," as he was, in Victor Hugo's phrase of men in -general, "with a sort of indefinite reprieve," and gravely ill as I -had for some time known him to be, it was still with a shock, not only -of sorrow, but of surprise, that I heard the news of his death. He had -suffered and survived so much, and I found it so hard to associate the -idea of death with one who had always been so passionately in love with -life, more passionately in love with life than any man I ever knew. -Rest was one of the delicate privileges of life which he never loved: -he did but endure it with grumbling gaiety when a hospital-bed claimed -him. And whenever he spoke to me of the long rest which has now sealed -his eyelids, it was with a shuddering revolt from the thought of ever -going away into the cold, out of the sunshine which had been so warm -to him. With all his pains, misfortunes, and the calamities which -followed him step by step all his life, I think few men ever got so -much out of their lives, or lived so fully, so intensely, with such a -genius for living. That, indeed, is why he was a great poet. Verlaine -was a man who gave its full value to every moment, who got out of -every moment all that that moment had to give him. It was not always, -not often, perhaps, pleasure. But it was energy, the vital force of a -nature which was always receiving and giving out, never at rest, never -passive, or indifferent, or hesitating. It is impossible for me to -convey to those who did not know him any notion of how sincere he was. -The word "sincerity" seems hardly to have emphasis enough to say, in -regard to this one man, what it says, adequately enough, of others. -He sinned, and it was with all his humanity; he repented, and it was -with all his soul. And to every occurrence of the day, to every mood -of the mind, to every impulse of the creative instinct, he brought the -same unparalleled sharpness of sensation. When, in 1894, he was my -guest in London, I was amazed by the exactitude of his memory of the -mere turnings of the streets, the shapes and colours of the buildings, -which he had not seen for twenty years. He saw, he felt, he remembered, -everything, with an unconscious mental selection of the fine shades, -the essential part of things, or precisely those aspects which most -other people would pass by.</p> - -<p>Few poets of our time have been more often drawn, few have been easier -to draw, few have better repaid drawing, than Paul Verlaine. A face -without a beautiful line, a face all character, full of somnolence -and sudden fire, in which every irregularity was a kind of aid to -the hand, could not but tempt the artist desiring at once to render -a significant likeness and to have his own part in the creation of a -picture. Verlaine, like all men of genius, had something of the air -of the somnambulist: that profound slumber of the face, as it was in -him, with its startling awakenings. It was a face devoured by dreams, -feverish and somnolent; it had earthly passion, intellectual pride, -spiritual humility; the air of one who remembers, not without an -effort, who is listening, half distractedly to something which other -people do not hear; coming back so suddenly, and from so far, with the -relief of one who steps out of that obscure shadow into the noisier -forgetfulness of life. The eyes, often half closed, were like the eyes -of a cat between sleeping and waking; eyes in which contemplation was -"itself an act." A remarkable lithograph by Mr. Rothenstein (the face -lit by oblique eyes, the folded hands thrust into the cheek) gives with -singular truth the sensation of that restless watch on things which -this prisoner of so many chains kept without slackening. To Verlaine -every corner of the world was alive with tempting and consoling and -terrifying beauty. I have never known any one to whom the sight of the -eyes was so intense and imaginative a thing. To him, physical sight and -spiritual vision, by some strange alchemical operation of the brain, -were one. And in the disquietude of his face, which seemed to take -such close heed of things, precisely because it was sufficiently apart -from them to be always a spectator, there was a realisable process of -vision continually going on, in which all the loose ends of the visible -world were being caught up into a new mental fabric.</p> - -<p>And along with this fierce subjectivity, into which the egoism of -the artist entered so unconsciously, and in which it counted for so -much, there was more than the usual amount of childishness, always -in some measure present in men of genius. There was a real, almost -blithe, childishness in the way in which he would put on his "Satanic" -expression, of which it was part of the joke that every one should not -be quite in the secret. It was a whim of this kind which made him put -at the beginning of <i>Romances sans Paroles</i> that very criminal image -of a head which had so little resemblance with even the shape, indeed -curious enough, of his actual head. "Born under the sign of Saturn," -as he no doubt was, with that "old prisoner's head" of which he tells -us, it was by his amazing faculty for a simple kind of happiness that -he always impressed me. I have never seen so cheerful an invalid as -he used to be at that hospital, the Hôpital Saint-Louis, where at one -time I used to go and see him every week. His whole face seemed to -chuckle as he would tell me, in his emphatic, confiding way, everything -that entered into his head; the droll stories cut short by a groan, a -lamentation, a sudden fury of reminiscence, at which his face would -cloud or convulse, the wild eyebrows slanting up and down; and then, -suddenly, the good laugh would be back, clearing the air. No one was -ever so responsive to his own moods as Verlaine, and with him every -mood had the vehemence of a passion. Is not his whole art a delicate -waiting upon moods, with that perfect confidence in them as they are, -which it is a large part of ordinary education to discourage in us, -and a large part of experience to repress? But to Verlaine, happily, -experience taught nothing; or rather, it taught him only to cling the -more closely to those moods in whose succession lies the more intimate -part of our spiritual life. It is no doubt well for society that man -should learn by experience; for the artist the benefit is doubtful. -The artist, it cannot be too clearly understood, has no more part in -society than a monk in domestic life: he cannot be judged by its rules, -he can be neither praised not blamed for his acceptance or rejection -of its conventions. Social rules are made by normal people for normal -people, and the man of genius is fundamentally abnormal. It is the poet -against society, society against the poet, a direct antagonism; the -shock of which, however, it is often possible to avoid by a compromise. -So much licence is allowed on the one side, so much liberty foregone -on the other. The consequences are not always of the best, art being -generally the loser. But there are certain natures to which compromise -is impossible; and the nature of Verlaine was one of these natures.</p> - -<p>"The soul of an immortal child," says one who has understood him better -than others, Charles Morice, "that is the soul of Verlaine, with -all the privileges and all the perils of so being; with the sudden -despair so easily distracted, the vivid gaieties without a cause, -the excessive suspicions and the excessive confidences, the whims so -easily outwearied, the deaf and blind infatuations, with, especially, -the unceasing renewal of impressions in the incorruptible integrity -of personal vision and sensation. Years, influences, teachings, may -pass over a temperament such as this, may irritate it, may fatigue -it; transform it, never—never so much as to alter that particular -unity which consists in a dualism, in the division of forces between -the longing after what is evil and the adoration of what is good; or -rather, in the antagonism of spirit and flesh. Other men 'arrange' -their lives, take sides, follow one direction; Verlaine hesitates -before a choice, which seems to him monstrous, for, with the integral -<i>naïveté</i> of irrefutable human truth, he cannot resign himself, however -strong may be the doctrine, however enticing may be the passion, to the -necessity of sacrificing one to the other, and from one to the other he -oscillates without a moment's repose."</p> - -<p>It is in such a sense as this that Verlaine may be said to have -learnt nothing from experience, in the sense that he learnt everything -direct from life, and without comparing day with day. That the -exquisite artist of the <i>Fêtes Galantes</i> should become the great -poet of <i>Sagesse,</i> it was needful that things should have happened -as disastrously as they did: the marriage with the girl-wife, that -brief idyl, the passion for drink, those other forbidden passions, -vagabondage, an attempted crime, the eighteen months of prison, -conversion; followed, as it had to be, by relapse, bodily sickness, -poverty, beggary almost, a lower and lower descent into mean -distresses. It was needful that all this should happen, in order that -the spiritual vision should eclipse the material vision; but it was -needful that all this should happen in vain, so far as the conduct of -life was concerned. Reflection, in Verlaine, is pure waste; it is the -speech of the soul and the speech of the eyes, that we must listen to -in his verse, never the speech of the reason. And I call him fortunate -because, going through life with a great unconsciousness of what most -men spend their lives in considering, he was able to abandon himself -entirely to himself, to his unimpeded vision, to his unchecked emotion, -to the passionate sincerity which in him was genius.</p> - - -<h4>2</h4> - -<p>French poetry, before Verlaine, was an admirable vehicle for a really -fine, a really poetical, kind of rhetoric. With Victor Hugo, for the -first time since Ronsard (the two or three masterpieces of Ronsard -and his companions) it had learnt to sing; with Baudelaire it had -invented a new vocabulary for the expression of subtle, often perverse, -essentially modern emotion and sensation. But with Victor Hugo, -with Baudelaire, we are still under the dominion of rhetoric. "Take -eloquence, and wring its neck!" said Verlaine in his <i>Art Poétique;</i> -and he showed, by writing it, that French verse could be written -without rhetoric. It was partly from his study of English models that -he learnt the secret of liberty in verse, but it was much more a secret -found by the way, in the mere endeavour to be absolutely sincere, to -express exactly what he saw, to give voice to his own temperament, in -which intensity of feeling seemed to find its own expression, as if by -accident. <i>L'art, mes enfants, c'est d'être absolument soi-même,</i> he -tells us in one of his later poems; and, with such a personality as -Verlaine's to express, what more has art to do, if it would truly, and -in any interesting manner, hold the mirror up to nature?</p> - -<p>For, consider the natural qualities which this man had for the task of -creating a new poetry. "Sincerity, and the impression of the moment -followed to the letter": that is how he defined his theory of style, in -an article written about himself.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 15%;"> -Car nous voulons la nuance encor,<br /> -Pas la couleur, rien que la nuance!<br /> -</p> - -<p>as he cries, in his famous <i>Art Poétique.</i> Take, then, his -susceptibility of the senses, an emotional susceptibility not less -delicate; a life sufficiently troubled to draw out every emotion of -which he was capable, and, with it, that absorption in the moment, -that inability to look before or after; the need to love and the need -to confess, each a passion; an art of painting the fine shades of -landscape, of evoking atmosphere, which can be compared only with the -art of Whistler; a simplicity of language which is the direct outcome -of a simplicity of temperament, with just enough consciousness of -itself for a final elegance; and, at the very depth of his being, an -almost fierce humility, by which the passion of love, after searching -furiously through all his creatures, finds God by the way, and kneels -in the dust before him. Verlaine was never a theorist: he left theories -to Mallarmé. He had only his divination; and he divined that poetry, -always desiring that miracles should happen, had never waited patiently -enough upon the miracle. It was by that proud and humble mysticism of -his temperament that he came to realise how much could be done by, In a -sense, trying to do nothing.</p> - -<p>And then: <i>De la musique avant toute chose; De la musique encore et -toujours!</i> There are poems of Verlaine which go as far as verse can -go to become pure music, the voice of a bird with a human soul. It -is part of his simplicity, his divine childishness, that he abandons -himself, at times, to the song which words begin to sing in the air, -with the same wise confidence with which he abandons himself to the -other miracles about him. He knows that words are living things, which -we have not created, and which go their way without demanding of us -the right to live. He knows that words are suspicious, not without -their malice, and that they resist mere force with the impalpable -resistance of fire or water. They are to be caught only with guile or -with trust. Verlaine has both, and words become Ariel to him. They -bring him not only that submission of the slave which they bring to -others, but all the soul, and in a happy bondage. They transform -themselves for him into music, colour, and shadow; a disembodied music, -diaphanous colours, luminous shadow. They serve him with so absolute a -self-negation that he can write <i>romances sans paroles,</i> songs almost -without words, in which scarcely a sense of the interference of human -speech remains. The ideal of lyric poetry, certainly, is to be this -passive, flawless medium for the deeper consciousness of things, the -mysterious voice of that mystery which lies about us, out of which we -have come, and into which we shall return. It is not without reason -that we cannot analyse a perfect lyric.</p> - -<p>With Verlaine the sense of hearing and the sense of sight are almost -interchangeable: he paints with sound, and his line and atmosphere -become music. It was with the most precise accuracy that Whistler -applied the terms of music to his painting, for painting, when it aims -at being the vision of reality, <i>pas la couleur, rien que la nuance,</i> -passes almost into the condition of music. Verlaine's landscape -painting is always an evocation, in which outline is lost in atmosphere.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 15%;"> -C'est des beaux yeux derrière des voiles,<br /> -C'est le grand jour tremblant de midi,<br /> -C'est, par un ciel d'automne attiédi,<br /> -Le bleu fouillis des claires étoiles!<br /> -</p> - -<p>He was a man, certainly, "for whom the visible world existed," but for -whom it existed always as a vision. He absorbed it through all his -senses, as the true mystic absorbs the divine beauty. And so he created -in verse a new voice for nature, full of the humble ecstasy with which -he saw, listened, accepted.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 15%;"> -Cette âme qui se lamente<br /> -En cette plaine dormante<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">C'est la nôtre, n'est-ce pas?</span><br /> -La mienne, dis, et la tienne,<br /> -Dont s'exhale l'humble antienne<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Par ce tiède soir, tout has?</span><br /> -</p> - -<p>And with the same attentive simplicity with which he found words -for the sensations of hearing and the sensations of sight, he found -words for the sensations of the soul, for the fine shades of feeling. -From the moment when his inner life may be said to have begun, he -was occupied with the task of an unceasing confession, in which one -seems to overhear him talking to himself, in that vague, preoccupied -way which he often had. Here again are words which startle one by -their delicate resemblance to thoughts, by their winged flight from -so far, by their alighting so close. The verse murmurs, with such -an ingenuous confidence, such intimate secrets. That "setting free" -of verse, which is one of the achievements of Verlaine, was itself -mainly an attempt to be more and more sincere, a way of turning poetic -artifice to new account, by getting back to nature itself, hidden away -under the eloquent rhetoric of Hugo, Baudelaire, and the Parnassians. -In the devotion of rhetoric to either beauty or truth, there is a -certain consciousness of an audience, of an external judgment: rhetoric -would convince, be admired. It is the very essence of poetry to be -unconscious of anything between its own moment of flight and the -supreme beauty which it will never attain. Verlaine taught French -poetry that wise and subtle unconsciousness. It was in so doing that -he "fused his personality," in the words of Verhaeren, "so profoundly -with beauty, that he left upon it the imprint of a new and henceforth -eternal attitude."</p> - - -<h4>3</h4> - -<p><i>J'ai la fureur d'aimer,</i> says Verlaine, in a passage of very personal -significance.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 15%;"> -J'ai la fureur d'aimer. Mon cœur si faible est fou.<br /> -N'importe quand, n'importe quel et n'importe où,<br /> -Qu'un éclair de beauté, de vertu, de vaillance,<br /> -Luise, il s'y précipite, il y vole, il y lance,<br /> -Et, le temps d'une étreinte, il embrasse cent fois<br /> -L'être ou l'objet qu'il a poursuivi de son choix;<br /> -Puis, quand l'illusion a replié son aile,<br /> -Il revient triste et seul bien souvent, mais fidèle,<br /> -Et laissant aux ingrats quelque chose de lui,<br /> -Sang ou chair....<br /> -J'ai la fureur d'aimer. Qu'y faire? Ah, laissez faire!<br /> -</p> - -<p>And certainly this admirable, and supremely dangerous, quality was -at the root of Verlaine's nature. Instinctive, unreasoning as he -was, entirely at the mercy of the emotion or impression which, for -the moment, had seized upon him, it was inevitable that he should -be completely at the mercy of the most imperious of instincts, of -passions, and of intoxications. And he had the simple and ardent -nature, in this again consistently childlike, to which love, some kind -of affection, given or returned, is not the luxury, the exception, -which it is to many natures, but a daily necessity. To such a -temperament there may or may not be the one great passion; there -will certainly be many passions. And in Verlaine I find that single, -childlike necessity of loving and being loved, all through his life -and on every page of his works; I find it, unchanged in essence, but -constantly changing form, in his chaste and unchaste devotions to -women, in his passionate friendships with men, in his supreme mystical -adoration of God.</p> - -<p>To turn from <i>La Bonne Chanson,</i> written for a wedding present to a -young wife, to <i>Chansons pour Elle,</i> written more than twenty years -later, in dubious honour of a middle-aged mistress, is to travel a long -road, the hard, long road which Verlaine had travelled during those -years. His life was ruinous, a disaster, more sordid perhaps than the -life of any other poet; and he could write of it, from a hospital-bed, -with this quite sufficient sense of its deprivations. "But all the -same, it is hard," he laments, in <i>Mes Hôpitaux,</i> "after a life of -work, set off, I admit, with accidents in which I have had a large -share, catastrophes perhaps vaguely premeditated—it is hard, I say, at -forty-seven years of age, in full possession of all the reputation (of -the <i>success,</i> to use the frightful current phrase) to which my highest -ambitions could aspire—hard, hard, hard indeed, worse than hard, to -find myself—good God!—to find myself <i>on the streets,</i> and to have -nowhere to lay my head and support an ageing body save the pillows and -the <i>menus</i> of a public charity, even now uncertain, and which might at -any moment be withdrawn—God forbid!—without, apparently, the fault of -any one, oh! not even, and above all, not mine." Yet, after all, these -sordid miseries, this poor man's vagabondage, all the misfortunes of -one certainly "irreclaimable," on which so much stress has been laid, -alike by friends and by foes, are externalities; they are not the man; -the man, the eternal lover, passionate and humble, remains unchanged, -while only his shadow wanders, from morning to night of the long day.</p> - -<p>The poems to Rimbaud, to Lucien Létinois, to others, the whole volume -of <i>Dédicaces,</i> cover perhaps as wide a range of sentiment as <i>La Bonne -Chanson</i> and <i>Chansons pour Elle.</i> The poetry of friendship has never -been sung with such plaintive sincerity, such simple human feeling, as -in some of these poems, which can only be compared, in modern poetry, -with a poem for which Verlaine had a great admiration, Tennyson's <i>In -Memoriam.</i> Only with Verlaine, the thing itself, the affection or the -regret, is everything; there is no room for meditation over destiny, -or search for a problematical consolation. Other poems speak a more -difficult language, in which, doubtless, <i>l'ennui de vivre avec les -gens et dans les choses</i> counts for much, and <i>la fureur d'aimer</i> for -more.</p> - -<p>In spite of the general impression to the contrary, an impression -which by no means displeased him himself, I must contend that the -sensuality of Verlaine, brutal as it could sometimes be, was after -all simple rather than complicated, instinctive rather than perverse, -in the poetry of Baudelaire, with which the poetry of Verlaine is so -often compared, there is a deliberate science of sensual perversity -which has something almost monachal in its accentuation of vice with -horror, in its passionate devotion to passions. Baudelaire brings every -complication of taste, the exasperation of; perfumes, the irritant of -cruelty, the very odours and colours of corruption, to the creation and -adornment of a sort of religion, in which an eternal mass is served -before a veiled altar. There is no confession, no absolution, not a -prayer is permitted which is not set down in the ritual. With Verlaine, -however often love may pass into sensuality, to whatever length -sensuality may be hurried, sensuality is never more than the malady -of love. It is love desiring the absolute, seeking in vain, seeking -always, and, finally, out of the depths, finding God.</p> - -<p>Verlaine's conversion took place while he was in prison, during those -solitary eighteen months in company with his thoughts, that enforced -physical inactivity, which could but concentrate his whole energy on -the only kind of sensation then within his capacity, the sensations of -the soul and of the conscience. With that promptitude of abandonment -which was his genius, he grasped feverishly at the succour of God and -the Church, he abased himself before the immaculate purity of the -Virgin. He had not, like others who have risen from the same depths to -the same height of humiliation, to despoil his nature of its pride, to -conquer his intellect, before he could become <i>l'enfant vêtu de laine -et d'innocence.</i> All that was simple, humble, childlike in him accepted -that humiliation with the loving child's joy in penitence; all that was -ardent, impulsive, indomitable in him burst at once into a flame of -adoration.</p> - -<p>He realised the great secret of the Christian mystics: that it is -possible to love God with an extravagance of the whole being, to which -the love of the creature cannot attain. All love is an attempt to break -through the loneliness of individuality, to fuse oneself with something -not oneself, to give and to receive, in all the warmth of natural -desire, that inmost element which remains, so cold and so invincible, -in the midst of the soul. It is a desire of the infinite in humanity, -and, as humanity has its limits, it can but return sadly upon itself -when that limit is reached. Thus human love is not only an ecstasy but -a despair, and the more profound a despair the more ardently it is -returned.</p> - -<p>But the love of God, considered only from its human aspect, contains at -least the illusion of infinity. To love God is to love the absolute, -so far as the mind of man can conceive the absolute, and thus, in a -sense, to love God is to possess the absolute, for love has already -possessed that which it apprehends. What the earthly lover realises to -himself as the image of his beloved is, after all, his own vision of -love, not her. God must remain <i>deus absconditus,</i> even to love; but -the lover, incapable of possessing infinity, will have possessed all -of infinity of which he is capable. And his ecstasy will be flawless. -The human mind, meditating on infinity, can but discover perfection -beyond perfection; for it is impossible to conceive of limitation in -any aspect of that which has once been conceived as infinite. In place -of that deception which comes from the shock of a boundary-line beyond -which humanity cannot conceive of humanity, there is only a divine rage -against the limits of human perception, which by their own failure -seem at last to limit for us the infinite itself. For once, love finds -itself bounded only by its own capacity; so far does the love of God -exceed the love of the creature, and so far would it exceed that love -if God did not exist.</p> - -<p>But if He does exist! if, outside humanity, a conscient, eternal -perfection, who has made the world in his image, loves the humanity He -has made, and demands love in return! If the spirit of his love is as -a breath over the world, suggesting, strengthening, the love which it -desires, seeking man that man may seek God, itself the impulse which it -humbles itself to accept at man's hands; if indeed,</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 15%;"> -Mon Dieu m'a dit: mon fils, il faut m'aimer;<br /> -</p> - -<p>how much more is this love of God, in its inconceivable acceptance -and exchange, the most divine, the only unending intoxication, in -the world! Well, it is this realised sense of communion, point by -point realised, and put into words, more simple, more human, more -instinctive than any poet since the mediæval mystics has found for the -delights of this intercourse, that we find in <i>Sagesse,</i> and in the -other religious poems of Verlaine.</p> - -<p>But, with Verlaine, the love of God is not merely a rapture, it is -a thanksgiving for forgiveness. Lying in wait behind all the fair -appearances of the world, he remembers the old enemy, the flesh; and -the sense of sin (that strange paradox of the reason) is childishly -strong in him. He laments his offence, he sees not only the love but -the justice of God, and it seems to him, as in a picture, that the -little hands of the Virgin are clasped in petition for him. Verlaine's -religion is the religion of the Middle Ages. <i>Je suis catholique,</i> he -said to me, <i>mais ... catholique du moyen-âge!</i> He might have written -the ballad which Villon made for his mother, and with the same visual -sense of heaven and hell. Like a child, he tells his sins over, -promises that he has put them behind him, and finds such <i>naïve,</i> human -words to express his gratitude. The Virgin is really, to him, mother -and friend; he delights in the simple, peasant humanity, still visible -in her who is also the Mystical Rose, the Tower of Ivory, the Gate of -Heaven, and who now extends her hands, in the gesture of pardon, from a -throne only just lower than the throne of God.</p> - - -<h4>4</h4> - -<p>Experience, I have said, taught Verlaine nothing; religion had no more -stable influence upon his conduct then experience. In that apology for -himself which he wrote under the anagram of "Pauvre Lelian," he has -stated the case with his usual sincerity. "I believe," he says, "and I -sin in thought as in action; I believe, and I repent in thought, if no -more. Or again, I believe, and I am a good Christian at this moment; I -believe, and I am a bad Christian the instant after. The remembrance, -the hope, the invocation of a sin delights me, with or without remorse, -sometimes under the very form of sin, and hedged with all its natural -consequences; more often—so strong, so natural and <i>animal,</i> are -flesh and blood—just in the same manner as the remembrances, hopes, -invocations of any carnal freethinker. This delight, I, you, some one -else, writers, it pleases us to put to paper and publish more or less -well expressed: we consign it, in short, into literary form, forgetting -all religious ideas, or not letting one of them escape us. Can any one -in good faith condemn us as poet? A hundred times no." And, indeed, I -would echo, a hundred times no! It is just this apparent complication -of what is really a great simplicity which gives its singular value to -the poetry of Verlaine, permitting it to sum up in itself the whole -paradox of humanity, and especially the weak, passionate, uncertain, -troubled century to which we belong, in which so many doubts, -negations, and distresses seem, now more than ever, to be struggling -towards at least an ideal of spiritual consolation. Verlaine is the -poet of these weaknesses and of that ideal.</p> - -<p>[<i>See also account given in</i> "<a href="#PAUL_VERLAINE2">Bibliography and Notes</a>".]</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="I_JORIS-KARL_HUYSMANS" id="I_JORIS-KARL_HUYSMANS">I. JORIS-KARL HUYSMANS</a></h4> - - -<p>The novels of Huysmans, however we may regard them as novels, -are, at all events, the sincere and complete expression of a very -remarkable personality. From <i>Marthe</i> to <i>Là-Bas</i> every story, every -volume, disengages the same atmosphere—the atmosphere of a London -November, when mere existence is a sufficient burden, and the little -miseries of life loom up through the fog into a vague and formidable -grotesqueness. Here, for once, is a pessimist whose philosophy is -mere sensation—and sensation, after all, is the one certainty in -a world which may be well or ill arranged, for ultimate purposes, -but which is certainly, for each of us, what each of us feels it to -be. To Huysmans the world appears to be a profoundly uncomfortable, -unpleasant, ridiculous place, with a certain solace in various forms -of art, and certain possibilities of at least temporary escape. Part -of his work presents to us a picture of ordinary life as he conceives -it, in its uniform trivial wretchedness; in another part he has -made experiment in directions which have seemed to promise escape, -relief; in yet other portions he has allowed himself the delight of -his sole enthusiasm, the enthusiasm of art. He himself would be the -first to acknowledge—indeed, practically, he has acknowledged that -the particular way in which he sees life is a matter of personal -temperament and constitution, a matter of nerves. The Goncourts have -never tired of insisting on the fact of their <i>névrose,</i> of pointing -out its importance in connection with the form and structure of their -work, their touch on style, even. To them the <i>maladie fin de siècle</i> -has come delicately, as to the chlorotic fine ladies of the Faubourg -Saint-Germain: it has sharpened their senses to a point of morbid -acuteness, it has given their work a certain feverish beauty. To -Huysmans it has given the exaggerated horror of whatever is ugly and -unpleasant, with the fatal instinct of discovering, the fatal necessity -of contemplating, every flaw and every discomfort that a somewhat -imperfect world can offer for inspection. It is the transposition -of the ideal. Relative values are lost, for it is the sense of the -disagreeable only that is heightened; and the world, in this strange -disorder of vision, assumes an aspect which can only be compared with -that of a drop of impure water under the microscope. "Nature seen -through a temperament" is Zola's definition of all art. Nothing, -certainly, could be more exact and expressive as a definition of the -art of Huysmans.</p> - -<p>To realise how faithfully and how completely Huysmans has revealed -himself in all he has written, it is necessary to know the man. "He -gave me the impression of a cat," some interviewer once wrote of him; -"courteous, perfectly polite, almost amiable, but all nerves, ready to -shoot out his claws at the least word." And indeed, there is something -of his favourite animal about him. The face is grey, wearily alert, -with a look of benevolent malice. At first sight it is commonplace, -the features are ordinary, one seems to have seen it at the Bourse or -the Stock Exchange. But gradually that strange, unvarying expression, -that look of benevolent malice, grows upon you as the influence of the -man makes itself felt. I have seen Huysmans in his office—he is an -employé in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a model employé; I have -seen him in a café, in various houses; but I always see him in memory -as I used to see him at the house of the bizarre Madame X. He leans -back on the sofa, rolling a cigarette between his thin, expressive -fingers, looking at no one and at nothing, while Madame X moves about -with solid vivacity in the midst of her extraordinary menagerie of -<i>bric-à-brac.</i> The spoils of all the world are there, in that ncredibly -tiny <i>salon;</i> they lie underfoot, they climb up walls, they cling to -screens, brackets, and tables; one of your elbows menaces a Japanese -toy, the other a Dresden china shepherdess; all the colours of the -rainbow clash in a barbaric discord of notes. And in a corner of this -fantastic room, Huysmans lies back indifferently on the sofa, with the -air of one perfectly resigned to the boredom of life. Something is -said by my learned friend who is to write for the new periodical, or -perhaps it is the young editor of the new periodical who speaks, or -(if that were not impossible) the taciturn Englishman who accompanies -me; and Huysmans, without looking up, and without taking the trouble -to speak very distinctly, picks up the phrase, transforms it, more -likely transpierces it, in a perfectly turned sentence, a phrase of -impromptu elaboration. Perhaps it is only a stupid book that some one -has mentioned, or a stupid woman; as he speaks, the book looms up -before one, becomes monstrous in its dulness, a masterpiece and miracle -of imbecility; the unimportant little woman grows into a slow horror -before your eyes. It is always the unpleasant aspect of things that he -seizes, but the intensity of his revolt from that unpleasantness brings -a touch of the sublime into the very expression of his disgust. Every -sentence is an epigram, and every epigram slaughters a reputation or an -idea. He speaks with an accent as of pained surprise, an amused look of -contempt, so profound that it becomes almost pity, for human inbecility.</p> - -<p>Yes, that is the true Huysmans, the Huysmans of <i>A Rebours,</i> and it is -just such surroundings that seem to bring out his peculiar quality. -With this contempt for humanity, this hatred of mediocrity, this -passion for a somewhat exotic kind of modernity, an artist who is so -exclusively an artist was sure, one day or another, to produce a work -which, being produced to please himself, and being entirely typical -of himself, would be, in a way, the quintessence of contemporary -Decadence. And it is precisely such a book that Huysmans has written, -in the extravagant, astonishing <i>A Rebours.</i> All his other books -are a sort of unconscious preparation for this one book, a sort of -inevitable and scarcely necessary sequel to it. They range themselves -along the line of a somewhat erratic development, from Baudelaire, -through Goncourt, by way of Zola, to the surprising originality of so -disconcerting an exception to any and every order of things.</p> - -<p>The descendant of a long line of Dutch painters—one of whom, Cornelius -Huysmans, has a certain fame among the lesser landscape men of the -great period—Joris-Karl Huysmans was born at Paris, February 5, 1848. -His first book, <i>Le Drageoir à Epices,</i> published at the age of -twenty-six, is a <i>pasticcio</i> of prose poems, done after Baudelaire, of -little sketches, done after Dutch artists, together with a few studies -of Parisian landscape, done after nature. It shows us the careful, -laboured work of a really artistic temperament; it betrays here and -there, the spirit of acrimonious observation which is to count for so -much with Huysmans—in the crude malice of <i>L'Extase,</i> for example, in -the notation of the "richness of tone," the "superb colouring," of an -old drunkard. And one sees already something of the novelty and the -precision of his description, the novelty and the unpleasantness of the -subjects which he chooses to describe, in this vividly exact picture -of the carcass of a cow hung up outside a butcher's shop: "As in a -hothouse, a marvellous vegetation flourished in the carcass. Veins shot -out on every side like trails of bind-weed; dishevelled branch-work -extended itself along the body, an efflorescence of entrails unfurled -their violet-tinted corollas, and big clusters of fat stood out, a -sharp white, against the red medley of quivering flesh."</p> - -<p>In <i>Marthe: histoire d'une fille,</i> which followed in 1876, two years -later, Huysmans is almost as far from actual achievement as in <i>Le -Drageoir à Epices,</i> but the book, in its crude attempt to deal -realistically, and somewhat after the manner of Goncourt, with the life -of a prostitute of the lowest depths, marks a considerable advance upon -the somewhat casual experiments of his earlier manner. It is important -to remember that <i>Marthe</i> preceded <i>La Fille Élisa</i> and <i>Nana.</i> "I -write what I see, what I feel, and what I have experienced," says the -brief and defiant preface, "and I write it as well as I can: that is -all. This explanation is not an excuse, it is simply the statement of -the aim that I pursue in art." Explanation or excuse notwithstanding, -the book was forbidden to be sold in France. It is Naturalism in its -earliest and most pitiless stage—Naturalism which commits the error -of evoking no sort of interest in this unhappy creature who rises a -little from her native gutter, only to fall back more woefully into the -gutter again. Goncourt's Élisa at least interests us; Zola's Nana at -all events appeals to our senses. But Marthe is a mere document, like -her story. Notes have been taken—no doubt <i>sur le vif</i>—they have been -strung together, and here they are with only an interesting brutality, -a curious sordidness to note, in these descriptions that do duty for -psychology and incident alike, in the general flatness of character, -the general dislocation of episode.</p> - -<p><i>Les Sœurs Vatard,</i> published in 1879, and the short story <i>Sac au -Dos,</i> which appeared in 1880 in the famous Zolaist manifesto, <i>Les -Soirées de Médan,</i> show the influence of <i>Les Rougon-Macquart</i> rather -than of <i>Germinie Lacerteux.</i> For the time the "formula" of Zola -has been accepted: the result is, a remarkable piece of work, but a -story without a story, a frame without a picture. With Zola, there -is at all events a beginning and an end, a chain of events, a play -of character upon incident. But in <i>Les Sœurs Vatard</i> there is no -reason for the narrative ever beginning or ending; there are miracles -of description—the workroom, the rue de Sèvres, the locomotives, the -<i>Foire du pain d'épice</i>—which lead to nothing; there are interiors, -there are interviews, there are the two work-girls, Céline and Désirée, -and their lovers; there is what Zola himself described as <i>tout -ce milieu ouvrier, ce coin de misère et d'ignorance, de tranquille -ordure et d'air naturellement empesté.</i> And with it all there is a -heavy sense of stagnancy, a dreary lifelessness. All that is good in -the book reappears, in vastly better company, in <i>En Ménage</i> (1881), -a novel which is, perhaps, more in the direct line of heritage from -<i>L'Education Sentimentale</i>—the starting-point of the Naturalistic -novel—than any other novel of the Naturalists.</p> - -<p><i>En Ménage</i> is the story of <i>"Monsieur Tout-le-monde,</i> an insignificant -personality, one of those poor creatures who have not even the -supreme consolation of being able to complain of any injustice in -their fate, for an injustice supposes at all events a misunderstood -merit, a force." André is the reduction to the bourgeois formula of -the invariable hero of Huysmans. He is just enough removed from the -commonplace to suffer from it with acuteness. He cannot get on either -with or without a woman in his establishment. Betrayed by his wife, he -consoles himself with a mistress, and finally goes back to the wife. -And the moral of it all is: "Let us be stupidly comfortable, if we -can, in any way we can: but it is almost certain that we cannot." In -<i>A Vau-l'Eau,</i> a less interesting story which followed <i>En Ménage,</i> -the daily misery of the respectable M. Folantin, the government -employé, consists in the impossible search for a decent restaurant, -a satisfactory dinner: for M. Folantin, too, there is only the same -counsel of a desperate, an inevitable resignation. Never has the -intolerable monotony of small inconveniences been so scrupulously, so -unsparingly chronicled, as in these two studies in the heroic degree -of the commonplace. It happens to André, at a certain epoch in his -life, to take back an old servant who had left him many years before. -He finds that she has exactly the same defects as before, and "to find -them there again," comments the author, "did not displease him. He had -been expecting them all the time, he saluted them as old acquaintances, -yet with a certain surprise, notwithstanding, to see them neither -grown nor diminished. He noted for himself with satisfaction that -the stupidity of his servant had remained stationary." On another -page, referring to the inventor of cards, Huysmans defines him as one -who "did something towards suppressing the free exchange of human -imbecility." Having to say in passing that a girl has returned from a -ball, "she was at home again," he observes, "after the half-dried sweat -of the waltzes." In this invariably sarcastic turn of the phrase, this -absoluteness of contempt, this insistence on the disagreeable, we find -the note of Huysmans, particularly at this point in his career, when, -like Flaubert, he forced himself to contemplate and to analyse the more -mediocre manifestations of <i>la bêtise humaine.</i></p> - -<p>There is a certain perversity in this furious contemplation of -stupidity, this fanatical insistence on the exasperating attraction of -the sordid and the disagreeable; and it is by such stages that we come -to <i>A Rebours.</i> But on the way we have to note a volume of <i>Croquis -Parisiens</i> (1880), in which the virtuoso who is a part of the artist -in Huysmans has executed some of his most astonishing feats; and a -volume on L'<i>Art Moderne</i> (1883), in which the most modern of artists -in literature has applied himself to the criticism—the revelation, -rather—of modernity in art. In the latter, Huysmans was the first -to declare the supremacy of Degas—"the greatest artist that we -possess to-day in France"—while announcing with no less fervour the -remote, reactionary, and intricate genius of Gustave Moreau. He was -the first to discover Raffaëlli, "the painter of poor people and the -open sky—a sort of Parisian Millet," as he called him; the first to -discover Forain, <i>"le véritable peintre de la fille"</i>; the first to -discover Odilon Redon, to do justice to Pissaro and Paul Gauguin. No -literary artist since Baudelaire has made so valuable a contribution -to art criticism, and the <i>Curiosités Esthétiques</i> are, after all, -less exact in their actual study, less revolutionary, and less really -significant in their critical judgments, than L'<i>Art Moderne.</i> The -<i>Croquis Parisiens,</i> which, in its first edition, was illustrated -by etchings of Forain and Raffaëlli, is simply the attempt to do in -words what those artists have done in aquafortis or in pastel. There -are the same Parisian types—the omnibus-conductor, the washerwoman, -the man who sells hot chestnuts—the same impressions of a sick and -sorry landscape, La Bièvre, for preference, in all its desolate and -lamentable attraction; there is a marvellously minute series of -studies of that typically Parisian music-hall, the Folies-Bergère. -Huysmans' faculty of description is here seen at its fullest stretch of -agility; precise, suggestive, with all the outline and colour of actual -brush-work, it might even be compared with the art of Degas, only there -is just that last touch wanting, that breath of palpitating life, which -is what we always get in Degas, what we never get in Huysmans.</p> - -<p>In <i>L'Art Moderne,</i> speaking of the water-colours of Forain, Huysmans -attributes to them "a specious and <i>cherché</i> art, demanding, for its -appreciation, a certain initiation, a certain special sense." To -realise the full value, the real charm, of <i>A Rebours,</i> some such -initiation might be deemed necessary. In its fantastic unreality, its -exquisite artificiality, it is the natural sequel of <i>En Ménage</i> and -<i>A Vau-l'Eau,</i> which are so much more acutely sordid than the most -sordid kind of real life; it is the logical outcome of that hatred -and horror of human mediocrity, of the mediocrity of daily existence, -which we have seen to be the special form of Huysmans' <i>névrose.</i> The -motto, taken from a thirteenth-century mystic, Ruysbroeck the Admirable, -is a cry for escape, for the "something in the world that is there in -no satisfying measure, or not at all": <i>Il faut que je me réjouisse -au-dessus du temps ... quoique le monde ait horreur de ma joie et -que sa grossièreté ne sache pas ce que je veux dire.</i> And the book -is the history of a <i>Thebaïde raffinée</i>—a voluntary exile from the -world in a new kind of "Palace of Art." Des Esseintes, the vague but -typical hero, is one of those half-pathological cases which help us to -understand the full meaning of the word <i>décadence,</i> which they partly -represent. The last descendant of an ancient family, his impoverished -blood tainted by all sorts of excesses, Des Esseintes finds himself -at thirty <i>sur le chemin, dégrisé, seul, abominablement lassé.</i> He -has already realised that "the world is divided, in great part, into -swaggerers and simpletons." His one desire is to "hide himself away, -far from the world, in some retreat, where he might deaden the sound -of the loud rumbling of inflexible life, as one covers the street with -straw, for sick people." This retreat he discovers, just far enough -from Paris to be safe from disturbance, just near enough to be saved -from the nostalgia of the unattainable. He succeeds in making his house -a paradise of the artificial, choosing the tones of colour that go -best with candle-light, for it need scarcely be said that Des Esseintes -has effected a simple transposition of night and day. His disappearance -from the world has been complete; it seems to him that the "comfortable -desert" of his exile need never cease to be just such a luxurious -solitude; it seems to him that he has attained his desire, that he has -attained to happiness.</p> - -<p>Disturbing physical symptoms harass him from time to time, but they -pass. It is an effect of nerves that now and again he is haunted by -remembrance; the recurrence of a perfume, the reading of a book, brings -back a period of life when his deliberate perversity was exercised -actively in matters of the senses. There are his fantastic banquets, -his fantastic amours: the <i>repas de deuil,</i> Miss Urania the acrobat, -the episode of the ventriloquist-woman and the reincarnation of the -Sphinx and the Chimæra of Flaubert, the episode of the boy <i>chez</i> -Madame Laure. A casual recollection brings up the schooldays of his -childhood with the Jesuits, and with that the beliefs of childhood, -the fantasies of the Church, the Catholic abnegation of the <i>Imitatio</i> -joining so strangely with the final philosophy of Schopenhauer. -At times his brain is haunted by social theories—his dull hatred -of the ordinary in life taking form in the region of ideas. But in -the main he feeds himself, with something of the satisfaction of -success, on the strange food for the sensations with which he has so -laboriously furnished himself. There are his books, and among these a -special library of the Latin writers of the Decadence. Exasperated by -Virgil, profoundly contemptuous of Horace, he tolerates Lucan (which -is surprising), adores Petronius (as well he might), and delights -in the neologisms and the exotic novelty of Apuleius. His curiosity -extends to the later Christian poets—from the coloured verse of -Claudian down to the verse which is scarcely verse of the incoherent -ninth century. He is, of course, an amateur of exquisite printing, of -beautiful bindings, and possesses an incomparable Baudelaire <i>(édition -tirée à un exemplaire),</i> a unique Mallarmé. Catholicism being the -adopted religion of the Decadence—for its venerable age, valuable in -such matters as the age of an old wine, its vague excitation of the -senses, its mystical picturesqueness—Des Esseintes has a curious -collection of the later Catholic literature, where Lacordaire and -the Comte de Falloux, Veuillot and Ozanam, find their place side by -side with the half-prophetic, half-ingenious Hello, the amalgam of a -monstrous mysticism and a casuistical sensuality, Barbey d'Aurevilly. -His collection of "profane" writers is small, but it is selected for -the qualities of exotic charm that have come to be his only care in -art—for the somewhat diseased, or the somewhat artificial beauty -that alone can strike, a responsive thrill from his exacting nerves. -"Considering within himself, he realised that a work of art, in order -to attract him, must come to him with that quality of strangeness -demanded by Edgar Poe; but he fared yet further along this route, -and sought for all the Byzantine flora of the brain, for complicated -deliquescences of style; he required a troubling indecision over which -he could muse, fashioning it after his will to more of vagueness or -of solid form, according to the state of his mind at the moment. He -delighted in a work of art both for what it was in itself and for -what it could lend him; he would fain go along with it, thanks to it, -as though sustained by an adjuvant, as though borne in a vehicle, -into a sphere where his sublimated sensations would wake in him an -unaccustomed stir, the cause of which he would long and vainly seek -to determine." So he comes to care supremely for Baudelaire, "who, -more than any other, possessed the marvellous power of rendering, -with a strange sanity of expression, the most fleeting, the most -wavering morbid states of exhausted minds, of desolate souls." In -Flaubert he prefers <i>La Tentation de Saint-Antoine;</i> in Goncourt, <i>La -Faustin;</i> in Zola, <i>La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret-</i> the exceptional, the -most remote and <i>recherché</i> outcome of each temperament. And of the -three it is the novel of Goncourt that appeals to him with special -intimacy—that novel which, more than any other, seems to express, in -its exquisitely perverse charm, all that decadent civilisation of which -Des Esseintes is the type and symbol. In poetry he has discovered the -fine perfume, the evanescent charm, of Paul Verlaine, and near that -great poet (forgetting, strangely, Arthur Rimbaud) he places two poets -who are curious—the disconcerting, tumultuous Tristan Corbière, and -the painted and bejewelled Théodore Hannon. With Edgar Poe he has -the instinctive sympathy which drew Baudelaire to the enigmatically -perverse Decadent of America; he delights, sooner than all the world, -in the astonishing, unbalanced, unachieved genius of Villiers de -l'Isle-Adam. Finally, it is in Stéphane Mallarmé that he finds the -incarnation of "the decadence of a literature, irreparably affected in -its organism, weakened in its ideas by age, exhausted by the excesses -of syntax, sensitive only to the curiosity which fevers sick people, -and yet hastening to say everything, now at the end, torn by the wish -<i>to</i> atone for all its omissions of enjoyment, to bequeath its subtlest -memories of sorrow on its death-bed."</p> - -<p>But it is not on books alone that Des Esseintes nurses his sick and -craving fancy. He pushes his delight in the artificial to the last -limits, and diverts himself with a bouquet of jewels, a concert of -flowers, an orchestra of liqueurs, an orchestra of perfumes. In flowers -he prefers the real flowers that imitate artificial ones. It is the -monstrosities of nature, the offspring of unnatural adulteries, that -he cherishes in the barbarically coloured flowers, the plants with -barbaric names, the carnivorous plants of the Antilles—morbid horrors -of vegetation, chosen, not for their beauty, but for their strangeness. -And his imagination plays harmonies on the sense of taste, like -combinations of music, from the flute-like sweetness of anisette, the -trumpet-note of kirsch, the eager yet velvety sharpness of curaçao, the -clarionet. He combines scents, weaving them into odorous melodies, with -effects like those of the refrains of certain poems, employing, for -example, the method of Baudelaire in <i>L'Irréparable</i> and <i>Le Balcon,</i> -where the last line of the stanza is the echo of the first, in the -languorous progression of the melody. And above all he has his few, -carefully chosen pictures, with their diverse notes of strange beauty -and strange terror—the two Salomés of Gustave Moreau, the "Religious -Persecutions" of Jan Luyken, the opium-dreams of Odilon Redon. His -favourite artist is Gustave Moreau, and it is on this superb and -disquieting picture that he cares chiefly to dwell.</p> - -<p>A throne, like the high altar of a cathedral, rose beneath innumerable -arches springing from columns, thick-set as Roman pillars, enamelled -with vari-coloured bricks, set with mosaics, incrusted with lapis -lazuli and sardonyx, In a palace like the basilica of an architecture -at once Mussulman and Byzantine. In the centre of the tabernacle -surmounting the altar, fronted with rows of circular steps, sat the -Tetrarch Herod, the tiara on his head, his legs pressed together, his -hands on his knees. His face was yellow, parchment-like, annulated -with wrinkles, withered with age; his long beard floated like a white -cloud on the jewelled stars that constellated the robe of netted old -across his breast. Around this statue, motionless, frozen in the -sacred pose of a Hindu god, perfumes burned, throwing out clouds of -vapour, pierced, as by the phosphorescent eyes of animals, by the fire -of precious stones set in the sides of the throne; then the vapour -mounted, unrolling itself beneath arches where the blue smoke mingled -with the powdered gold of great sunrays, fallen jrom the domes.</p> - -<p>In the perverse odour of perfumes, in the overheated atmosphere of this -church, Salomé, her left arm extended in a gesture of command, her bent -right arm holding at the level of the face a great lotus, advances -slowly to the sound of a guitar, thrummed by a woman who crouches on -the floor.</p> - -<p>With collected, solemn, almost august countenance, she begins the -lascivious dance that should waken the sleeping senses of the aged -Herod; her breasts undulate, become rigid at the contact of the -whirling necklets; diamonds sparkle on the dead whiteness of her skin, -her bracelets, girdles, rings, shoot sparks; on her triumphal robe, -sewn with pearls, flowered with silver, sheeted with gold, the jewelled -breastplate, whose every stitch is a precious stone, bursts into flame, -scatters in snakes of fire, swarms on the ivory-toned, tea-rose flesh, -like splendid insects with dazzling wings, marbled with carmine, -dotted with morning gold, diapered with steel-blue, streaked with -peacock-green. . . . . . . . . In the work of Gustave Moreau, conceived -on no Scriptural data, Des Esseintes saw at last the realisation of the -strange, superhuman Salomé that he had dreamed. She was no more the -mere dancing-girl who, with the corrupt torsion of her limbs, tears -a cry of desire from an old man; who, with her eddying breasts, her -palpitating body, her quivering thighs, breaks the energy, melts the -will, of a king; she has become the symbolic deity of indestructible -Lust, the goddess of immortal Hysteria, the accursed Beauty, chosen -among, many by the catalepsy that has stiffened her limbs, that has -hardened her muscles; the monstrous, indifferent, irresponsible, -insensible Beast, poisoning, like Helen of old, all that go near to -her, all that look upon her, all that she touches.</p> - -<p>It is in such a "Palace of Art" that Des Esseintes would recreate his -already over-wrought body and brain, and the monotony of its seclusion -is only once broken by a single excursion into the world without. This -one episode of action, this one touch of realism in a book given over -to the artificial, confined to a record of sensation, is a projected -voyage to London, a voyage that never occurs. Des Esseintes has been -reading Dickens, idly, to quiet his nerves, and the violent colours -of those ultra-British scenes and characters have imposed themselves -upon his imagination. Days of rain and fog complete the picture of -that <i>pays de brume et de bone,</i> and suddenly, stung by the unwonted -desire for change, he takes the train to Paris, resolved to distract -himself by a visit to London. Arrived in Paris before his time, he -takes a cab to the office of <i>Galignani's Messenger,</i> fancying himself, -as the rain-drops rattle on the roof and the mud splashes against the -windows, already in the midst of the immense city, its smoke and dirt. -He reaches <i>Galignani's Messenger,</i> and there, turning over Baedekers -and Mur-rays, loses himself in dreams of an imagined London. He buys a -Baedeker, and, to pass the time, enters the "Bodéga" at the corner of -the Rue de Rivoli and the Rue Castiglione. The wine-cellar is crowded -with Englishmen: he sees, as he drinks his port, and listens to the -unfamiliar accents, all the characters of Dickens—a whole England -of caricature; as he drinks his Amontillado, the recollection of Poe -puts a new horror into the good-humoured faces about him. Leaving the -"Bodéga," he steps out again into the rain-swept street, regains his -cab, and drives to the English tavern of the Rue d'Amsterdam. He has -just time for dinner, and he finds a place beside the <i>insulaires,</i> -with "their porcelain eyes, their crimson cheeks," and orders a heavy -English dinner, which he washes down with ale and porter, seasoning -his coffee, as he imagines we do in England, with gin. As time passes, -and the hour of the train draws near, he begins to reflect vaguely on -his project; he recalls the disillusion of the visit he had once paid -to Holland. Does not a similar disillusion await him in London? "Why -travel, when one can travel so splendidly in a chair? Was he not at -London already, since its odours, its atmosphere, its inhabitants, its -food, its utensils, were all about him?" The train is due, but he does -not stir. "I have felt and seen," he says to himself, "what I wanted -to feel and see. I have been saturated with English life all this -time; it would be madness to lose, by a clumsy change of place, these -imperishable sensations." So he gathers together his luggage, and goes -home again, resolving never to abandon the "docile phantasmagoria of -the brain" for the mere realities of the actual world. But his nervous -malady, one of whose symptoms had driven him forth and brought him back -so spasmodically, is on the increase. He is seized by hallucinations, -haunted by sounds: the hysteria of Schumann, the morbid exaltation of -Berlioz, communicate themselves to him in the music that besieges his -brain. Obliged at last to send for a doctor, we find him, at the end -of the book, ordered back to Paris, to the normal life, the normal -conditions, with just that chance of escape from death or madness. -So suggestively, so instructively, closes the record of a strange, -attractive folly—in itself partly a serious ideal (which indeed is -Huysmans' own), partly the caricature of that ideal. Des Esseintes, -though studied from a real man, who is known to those who know a -certain kind of society in Paris, is a type rather than a man: he is -the offspring of the Decadent art that he adores, and this book a -sort of breviary for its worshippers. It has a place of its own in -the literature of the day, for it sums up, not only a talent, but a -spiritual epoch.</p> - -<p><i>A Rebours</i> is a book that can only be written once, and since that -date Huysmans has published a short story, <i>Un Dilemme</i> (1887), which -is merely a somewhat lengthy anecdote; two novels, <i>En Rade</i>(1887) -and <i>Là-Bas</i>(1891), both of which are interesting experiments, but -neither of them an entire success; and a volume of art criticism, -<i>Certains</i> (1890), notable for a single splendid essay, that on -Félicien Rops, the etcher of the fantastically erotic. <i>En Rade</i> is a -sort of deliberately exaggerated record—vision rather then record—of -the disillusions of a country sojourn, as they affect the disordered -nerves of a town <i>névrose.</i> The narrative is punctuated by nightmares, -marvellously woven out of nothing, and with no psychological value—the -human part of the book being a sort of picturesque pathology at best, -the representation of a series of states of nerves, sharpened by the -tragic ennui of the country. There is a cat which becomes interesting -in its agonies; but the long boredom of the man and woman is only -too faithfully shared with the reader. <i>Là-Bas</i> is a more artistic -creation, on a more solid foundation. It is a study of Satanism, -a dexterous interweaving of the history of Gilles de Retz (the -traditional Bluebeard) with the contemporary manifestations of the -Black Art. "The execration of impotence, the hate of the mediocre—that -is perhaps one of the most indulgent definitions of Diabolism," says -Huysmans, somewhere in the book, and it is on this side that one finds -the link of connection with the others of that series of pessimist -studies in life. <i>Un naturalisme spiritualiste,</i> he defines his own -art at this point in its development; and it is in somewhat the -"documentary" manner that he applies himself to the study of these -strange problems, half of hysteria, half of a real mystical corruption -that does actually exist in our midst. I do not know whether the -monstrous tableau of the Black Mass—so marvellously, so revoltingly -described in the central episode of the book—is still enacted in our -days, but I do know that all but the most horrible practices of the -sacrilegious magic of the Middle Ages are yet performed, from time -to time, in a secrecy which is all but absolute. The character of -Madame Chantelouve is an attempt, probably the first in literature, -to diagnose a case of Sadism in a woman. To say that it is successful -would be to assume that the thing is possible, which one hesitates to -do. The book is even more disquieting, to the normal mind, than <i>A -Rebours.</i> But it is not, like that, the study of an exception which has -become a type. It is the study of an exception which does not profess -to be anything but a disease.</p> - -<p>Huysmans' place in contemporary literature is not quite easy to -estimate. There is a danger of being too much attracted, or too much -repelled, by those qualities of deliberate singularity which make -his work, sincere expression as it is of his own personality, so -artificial and <i>recherché</i> in itself. With his pronounced, exceptional -characteristics, it would have been impossible for him to write fiction -impersonally, or to range himself, for long, in any school, under any -master. Interrogated one day as to his opinion of Naturalism, he had -but to say in reply: <i>Au fond, il y a des écrivains qui out du talent -et d'autres qui n'en out pas, qu'ils soient naturalistes, romantiques, -décadents, tout ce que vous voudrez, ça m'est égal! il s'agit pour -moi d'avoir du talent, et voilà tout!</i> But, as we have seen, he has -undergone various influences, he has had his periods. From the first -he has had a style of singular pungency, novelty, and colour; and, -even in <i>Le Drageoir à Epices,</i> we find such daring combinations as -this <i>(Camaïeu Rouge)—Cette fanfare de rouge m'étourdissait; cette -gamme d'une intensité furieuse, d'une violence inouïe, m'aveuglait.</i> -Working upon the foundation of Flaubert and of Goncourt, the two -great modern stylists, he has developed an intensely personal style -of his own, in which the sense of rhythm is entirely dominated by the -sense of colour. He manipulates the French language with a freedom -sometimes barbarous, "dragging his images by the heels or the hair" -(in the admirable phrase of Léon Bloy) "up and down the worm-eaten -staircase of terrified syntax," gaining, certainly, the effects at -which he aims. He possesses, in the highest degree, that <i>style tacheté -et faisandé</i>—high-flavoured and spotted with corruption—that he -attributes to Goncourt and Verlaine. And with this audacious and -barbaric profusion of words—chosen always for their colour and their -vividly expressive quality—he is able to describe the essentially -modern aspects of things as no one had ever described them before. No -one before him had ever so realised the perverse charm of the sordid, -the perverse charm of the artificial. Exceptional always, it is for -such qualities as these, rather than for the ordinary qualities of the -novelist, that he is remarkable. His stories are without incident, -they are constructed to go on until they stop, they are almost without -characters. His psychology is a matter of the sensations, and chiefly -the visual sensations. The moral nature is ignored, the emotions -resolve themselves for the most part into a sordid ennui, rising at -times into a rage at existence. The protagonist of every book is not -so much a character as a bundle of impressions and sensations—the -vague outline of a single consciousness, his own. But it is that single -consciousness—in this morbidly personal writer—with which we are -concerned. For Huysmans' novels, with all their strangeness, their -charm, their repulsion, typical too, as they are, of much beside -himself, are certainly the expression of a personality as remarkable as -that of any contemporary writer.</p> - -<p>1892.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="II_THE_LATER_HUYSMANS" id="II_THE_LATER_HUYSMANS">II. THE LATER HUYSMANS</a></h4> - -<p>In the preface to his first novel, <i>Marthe: histoire d'une fille,</i> -thirty years ago, Huysmans defined his theory of art in this defiant -phrase: "I write what I see, what I feel, and what I have experienced, -and I write it as well as I can: that is all." Ten or twelve years -ago, he could still say, in answer to an interviewer who asked him his -opinion of Naturalism: "At bottom, there are writers who have talent -and others who have not; let them be Naturalists, Romantics, Decadents, -what you will, it is all the same to me: I only want to know if they -have talent." Such theoretical liberality, in a writer of original -talent, is a little disconcerting: it means that he is without a theory -of his own, that he is not yet conscious of having chosen his own way. -And, indeed, it is only with <i>En Route</i> that Huysmans can be said to -have discovered the direction in which he had really been travelling -from the beginning.</p> - -<p>In a preface written not long since for a limited edition of <i>A -Rebours,</i> Huysmans confessed that he had never been conscious of the -direction in which he was travelling. "My life and my literature," -he affirmed, "have undoubtedly a certain amount of passivity, of the -incalculable, of a direction not mine. I have simply obeyed; I have -been led by what are called 'mysterious ways.'" He is speaking of the -conversion which took him to La Trappe in 1892, but the words apply -to the whole course of his career as a man of letters. In <i>Là-Bas,</i> -which is a sort of false start, he had, indeed, realised, though for -himself at that time ineffectually, that "it is essential to preserve -the veracity of the document, the precision of detail, the fibrous and -nervous language of Realism, but it is equally essential to become -the well-digger of the soul, and not to attempt to explain what is -mysterious by mental maladies.... It is essential, in a word, to follow -the great road so deeply dug out by Zola, but it is necessary also to -trace a parallel pathway in the air, and to grapple with the within -and the after, to create, in a word, a spiritual Naturalism." This -is almost a definition of the art of <i>En Route,</i> where this spiritual -realism is applied to the history of a soul, a consciousness; in <i>La -Cathédrale</i> the method has still further developed, and Huysmans -becomes, in his own way, a Symbolist.</p> - -<p>To the student of psychology few more interesting cases could be -presented than the development of Huysmans. From the first he has -been a man "for whom the visible world existed," indeed, but as the -scene of a slow martyrdom. The world has always appeared to him to -be a profoundly uncomfortable, unpleasant, and ridiculous place; and -it has been a necessity of his temperament to examine it minutely, -with all the patience of disgust, and a necessity of his method to -record it with an almost ecstatic hatred. In his first book, <i>Le -Drageoir à Epices,</i> published at the age of twenty-six, we find him -seeking his colour by preference in a drunkard's cheek or a carcase -outside a butcher's shop. <i>Marthe,</i> published at Brussels in 1876, -anticipates <i>La Fille Élisa</i> and <i>Nana,</i> but it has a crude brutality -of observation in which there is hardly a touch of pity. <i>Les Sœurs -Vatard</i> is a frame without a picture, but in <i>En Ménage</i> the dreary -tedium of existence is chronicled in all its insignificance with a kind -of weary and aching hate. "We, too," is its conclusion, "by leave of -the everlasting stupidity of things, may, like our fellow-citizens, -live stupid and respected." The fantastic unreality, the exquisite -artificiality of <i>A Rebours,</i> the breviary of the decadence, is the -first sign of that possible escape which Huysmans has always foreseen -in the direction of art, but which he is still unable to make into -more than an artificial paradise, in which beauty turns to a cruel -hallucination and imprisons the soul still more fatally. The end is -a cry of hopeless hope, in which Huysmans did not understand the -meaning till later: "Lord, have pity of the Christian who doubts, of -the sceptic who would fain believe, of the convict of life who sets -sail alone by night, under a firmament lighted only by the consoling -watch-lights of the old hope."</p> - -<p>In <i>Là-Bas</i> we are in yet another stage of this strange pilgrim's -progress. The disgust which once manifested itself in the merely -external revolt against the ugliness of streets, the imbecility of -faces, has become more and more internalised, and the attraction of -what is perverse in the unusual beauty of art has led, by some obscure -route, to the perilous halfway house of a corrupt mysticism. The book, -with its monstrous pictures of the Black Mass and of the spiritual -abominations of Satanism, is one step further in the direction of -the supernatural; and this, too, has its desperate, unlooked-for -conclusion: "Christian glory is a laughing-stock to our age; it -contaminates the supernatural and casts out the world to come." In -<i>Là-Bas</i> we go down into the deepest gulf; <i>En Route</i> sets us one stage -along a new way, and at this turning-point begins the later Huysmans.</p> - -<p>The old conception of the novel as an amusing tale of adventures, -though it has still its apologists in England, has long since ceased -in France to mean anything more actual than powdered wigs and lace -ruffles. Like children who cry to their elders for "a story, a story," -the English public still wants its plot, its heroine, its villain. -That the novel should be psychological was a discovery as early as -Benjamin Constant, whose <i>Adolphe</i> anticipates <i>Le Rouge et le Noir,</i> -that rare, revealing, yet somewhat arid masterpiece of Stendhal. -But that psychology could be carried so far into the darkness of -the soul, that the flaming walls of the world themselves faded to a -glimmer, was a discovery which had been made by no novelist before -Huysmans wrote <i>En Route.</i> At once the novel showed itself capable -of competing, on their own ground, with poetry, with the great -"confessions," with philosophy. <i>En Route</i> is perhaps the first novel -which does not et out with the aim of amusing its readers. It offers -you no more entertainment than <i>Paradise Lost</i> or the <i>Confessions</i> -of St. Augustine, and it is possible to consider it on the same -level. The novel, which, after having chronicled the adventures of -the Vanity Fairs of this world, has set itself with admirable success -to analyse the amorous and ambitious and money-making intelligence of -the conscious and practical self, sets itself at last to the final -achievement: the revelation of the sub-conscious self, no longer the -intelligence, but the soul. Here, then, purged of the distraction of -incident, liberated from the bondage of a too realistic conversation, -in which the aim had been to convey the very gesture of breathing -life, internalised to a complete liberty, in which, just because it is -so absolutely free, art is able to accept, without limiting itself, -the expressive medium of a convention, we have in the novel a new -form, which may be at once a confession and a decoration, the soul -and a pattern. This story of a conversion is a new thing in modern -French; it is a confession, a self-auscultation of the soul; a kind -of thinking aloud. It fixes, in precise words, all the uncertainties, -the contradictions, the absurd unreasonableness and not less absurd -logic, which distract man's brain in the passing over him of sensation -and circumstance. And all this thinking is concentrated on one end, -is concerned with the working out, in his own singular way, of one -man's salvation. There is a certain dry hard casuistry, a subtlety and -closeness almost ecclesiastical, in the investigation of an obscure and -yet definite region, whose intellectual passions are as varied and as -tumultuous as those of the heart. Every step is taken deliberately, -is weighed, approved, condemned, viewed from this side and from that, -and at the same time one feels behind all this reasoning an impulsion -urging a soul onward against its will. In this astonishing passage, -through Satanism to faith, in which the cry, "I am so weary of myself, -so sick of my miserable existence," echoes through page after page, -until despair dies into conviction, the conviction of "the uselessness -of concerning oneself about anything but mysticism and the liturgy, -of thinking about anything but about, God," it is impossible not to -see the sincerity of an actual, unique experience. The force of mere -curiosity can go far, can penetrate to a certain depth; yet there is a -point at which mere curiosity, even that of genius, comes to an end; -and we are left to the individual soul's apprehension of what seems -to it the reality of spiritual things. Such a personal apprehension -comes to us out of this book, and at the same time, just as in the days -when he forced language to express, in a more coloured and pictorial -way than it had ever expressed before, the last escaping details of -material things, so, in this analysis of the aberrations and warfares, -the confessions and trials of the soul in penitence, Huysmans has found -words for even the most subtle and illusive aspects of that inner life -which he has come, at the last, to apprehend.</p> - -<p>In <i>La Cathédrale</i> we are still occupied with this sensitive, -lethargic, persevering soul, but with that soul in one of its longest -halts by the way, as it undergoes the slow, permeating influence of -<i>"la Cathédrale mystique par excellence,"</i> the cathedral of Chartres. -And the greater part of the book is taken up with a study of this -cathedral, of that elaborate and profound symbolism by which "the soul -of sanctuaries" slowly reveals itself <i>(quel laconisme hermétique!)</i> -with a sort of parallel interpretation of the symbolism which the -Church of the Middle Ages concealed or revealed in colours, precious -stones, plants, animals, numbers, odours, and in the Bible itself, in -the setting together of the Old and New Testaments.</p> - -<p>No doubt, to some extent this book is less interesting than <i>En -Route,</i> in the exact proportion in which everything in the world is -less interesting than the human soul. There are times when Durtal is -almost forgotten, and, unjustly enough, it may seem as if we are given -this archæology, these bestiaries, for their own sake. To fall into -this error is to mistake the whole purpose of the book, the whole -extent of the discovery in art which Huysmans has been one of the first -to make.</p> - -<p>For in <i>La Cathédrale</i> Huysmans does but carry further the principle -which he had perceived in <i>En Route,</i> showing, as he does, how inert -matter, the art of stones, the growth of plants, the unconscious life -of beasts, may be brought under the same law of the soul, may obtain, -through symbol, a spiritual existence. He is thus but extending the -domain of the soul while he may seem to be limiting or ignoring it; -and Durtal may well stand aside for a moment, in at least the energy -of contemplation, while he sees, with a new understanding, the very -sight of his eyes, the very staff of his thoughts, taking life before -him, a life of the same substance as his own. What is Symbolism if -not an establishing of the links which hold the world together, the -affirmation of an eternal, minute, intricate, almost invisible life, -which runs through the whole universe? Every age has its own symbols; -but a symbol once perfectly expressed, that symbol remains, as Gothic -architecture remains the very soul of the Middle Ages. To get at that -truth which is all but the deepest meaning of beauty, to find that -symbol which is its most adequate expression, is in itself a kind of -creation; and that is what Huysmans does for us in <i>La Cathédrale.</i> -More and more he has put aside all the profane and accessible and -outward pomp of writing for an inner and more severe beauty of perfect -truth. He has come to realise that truth can be reached and revealed -only by symbol. Hence, all that description, that heaping up of detail, -that passionately patient elaboration: all means to an end, not, as you -may hastily incline to think, ends in themselves.</p> - -<p>It is curious to observe how often an artist perfects a particular -means of expression long before he has any notion of what to do with -it. Huysmans began by acquiring so astonishing a mastery of description -that he could describe the inside of a cow hanging in a butcher's shop -as beautifully as if it were a casket of jewels. The little work-girls -of his early novels were taken for long walks, in which they would -have seen nothing but the arm on which they leant and the milliners' -shops which they passed; and what they did not see was described, -marvellously, in twenty pages.</p> - -<p>Huysmans is a brain all eye, a brain which sees even ideas as if they -had a superficies. His style is always the same, whether he writes of -a butcher's shop or of a stained-glass window; it is the immediate -expression of a way of seeing, so minute and so intense that it -becomes too emphatic for elegance and too coloured for atmosphere -or composition, always ready to sacrifice euphony to either fact or -colour. He cares only to give you the thing seen, exactly as he sees -it, with all his love or hate, and with all the exaggeration which -that feeling brings into it. And he loves beauty as a bulldog loves -its mistress: by growling at all her enemies. He honours wisdom by -annihilating stupidity. His art of painting in words resembles Monet's -art of painting With his brush: there is the same power of rendering -a vivid effect, almost deceptively, with a crude and yet sensitive -realism. <i>"C'est pour la gourmandise de l'œil un gala de teintes"</i> -he says of the provision cellars at Hamburg; and this greed of the eye -has eaten up in him almost every other sense. Even of music he writes -as a deaf man with an eye for colour might write, to whom a musician -had explained certain technical means of expression in music. No one -has ever invented such barbarous and exact metaphors for the rendering -of visual sensations. Properly, there is no metaphor; the words say -exactly what they mean; they become figurative, as we call it, in their -insistence on being themselves! fact.</p> - -<p>Huysmans knows that the motive force of, the sentence lies in the -verbs, and his verbs: are the most singular, precise, and expressive in -any language. But in subordinating, as he does, every quality to that -of sharp, telling truth, the truth of extremes, his style loses charm; -yet it can be dazzling; it has the solidity of those walls encrusted -with gems which are to be seen in a certain chapel in Prague; it blazes -with colour, and arabesques into a thousand fantastic patterns.</p> - -<p>And now all that laboriously acquired mastery finds at last its use, -lending itself to the new spirit with a wonderful docility. At last the -idea which is beyond reality has been found, not where Des Esseintes -sought it, and a new meaning comes into what had once been scarcely -more than patient and wrathful observation. The idea is there, visible, -in his cathedral, like the sun which flashes into unity, into meaning, -into intelligible beauty the bewildering lozenges of colour, the -inextricable trails of lead, which go to make up the picture in one -of its painted windows. What, for instance, could be more precise in -its translation of the different aspects under which the cathedral of -Chartres can be seen, merely as colour, than this one sentence: "Seen -as a whole, under a clear sky, its grey silvers, and, if the sun shines -upon it, turns pale yellow and then golden; seen close, its skin is -like that of a nibbled biscuit, with its silicious limestone, eaten -into holes; sometimes, when the sun is setting, it turns crimson, and -rises up like a monstrous and delicate shrine, rose and green; and, at -twilight, turns blue, then seems to evaporate as it fades into violet." -Or, again, in a passage which comes nearer to the conventional idea -of eloquence, how absolute an avoidance of a conventional phrase, a -word used for its merely oratorical value: "High up, in space, like -salamanders, human beings, with burning faces and flaming robes, lived -in a firmament of fire; but these conflagrations were circumscribed, -limited by an incombustible frame of darker glass, which beat back the -clear young joy of the flames; by that kind of melancholy, that more -serious and more aged aspect, which is taken by the duller colours. -The hue and cry of reds, the limpid security of whites, the reiterated -halleluias of yellows, the virginal glory of blues, all the quivering -hearth-glow of painted glass, dies away as it came near this border -coloured with the rust of iron, with the russet of sauce, with the -harsh violet of sandstone, with bottle-green, with the brown of -touchwood, with sooty black, with ashen grey."</p> - -<p>This, in its excess of exactitude (how mediæval a quality!) -becomes, on one page, a comparison of the tower without a spire to -an unsharpened pencil which cannot write the prayers of earth upon -the sky. But for the most part it is a consistent humanising of too -objectively visible things a disengaging of the sentiment which -exists in them, which is one of the secrets of their appeal to us, -but which for the most part we overlook as we set ourselves to add -up the shapes and colours which have enchanted us. To Huysmans this -artistic discovery has come, perhaps in the most effectual way, but -certainly in the way least probable in these days, through faith, a -definite religious faith; so that, beginning tentatively, he has come, -at last, to believe in the Catholic Church as a monk of the Middle Ages -believed in it. And there is no doubt that to Huysmans this abandonment -to religion has brought, among other gifts, a certain human charity -in which he was notably lacking, removing at once one of his artistic -limitations. It has softened his contempt of humanity; it has broadened -his outlook on the world. And the sense, diffused through the whole of -this book, of the living and beneficent reality of the Virgin, of her -real presence in the cathedral built in her honour and after her own -image, brings a strange and touching kind of poetry into these closely -and soberly woven pages.</p> - -<p>From this time forward, until his death, Huysmans is seen purging -himself of his realism, coming closer and closer to that spiritual -Naturalism which he had invented, an art made out of an apprehension -of the inner meaning of those things which he still saw with the old -tenacity of vision. Nothing is changed in him and yet all is changed. -The disgust of the world deepens through <i>L'Oblat,</i> which is the last -stage but one in the pilgrimage which begins with <i>En Route.</i> It -seeks an escape in poring, with a dreadful diligence, over a saint's -recorded miracles, in the life of <i>Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam,</i> which -is mediæval in its precise acceptance of every horrible detail of the -story. <i>Les Foules de Lourdes</i> has the same minute attentiveness to -horror, but with a new pity in it, and a way of giving thanks to the -Virgin, which is in Huysmans yet another escape from his disgust of -the world. But it is in the great chapter on Satan as the creator of -ugliness that his work seems to end where it had begun, in the service -of art, now come from a great way off to join itself with the service -of God, And the whole soul of Huysmans characterises itself in the turn -of a single phrase there: that "art is the only clean thing on earth, -except holiness."</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="ARTHUR_RIMBAUD" id="ARTHUR_RIMBAUD">ARTHUR RIMBAUD</a></h4> - - -<p>That story of the Arabian Nights, which is at the same time a true -story, the life of Rimbaud, has been told, for the first time, in -the extravagant but valuable book of an anarchist of letters, who -writes under the name of Paterne Berrichon, and who has since married -Rimbaud's sister. <i>La Vie de Jean-Arthur Rimbaud</i> is full of curiosity -for those who have been mystified by I know not what legends, invented -to give wonder to a career itself more wonderful than any of the -inventions. The man who died at Marseilles, at the Hospital of the -Conception, on March 10 1891, at the age of thirty-seven, <i>négociant,</i> -as the register of his death describes him, was a writer of genius, -an innovator in verse and prose, who had written all his poetry by -the age of nineteen, and all his prose by a year or two later. He had -given up literature to travel hither and thither, first in Europe, then -in Africa; he had been an engineer, a leader of caravans, a merchant -of precious merchandise. And this man, who had never written down a -line after those astonishing early experiments, was heard, in his last -delirium, talking of precisely such visions as those which had haunted -his youth, and using, says his sister, "expressions of a singular and -penetrating charm" to render these sensations of visionary countries. -Here certainly is one of the most curious problems of literature: is it -a problem of which we can discover the secret?</p> - -<p>Jean-Nicolas-Arthur Rimbaud was born at Charleville, in the Ardennes, -October 28, 1854. His father, of whom he saw little, was a captain -in the army; his mother, of peasant origin, was severe, rigid and -unsympathetic. At school he was an unwilling but brilliant scholar, -and by his fifteenth year was well acquainted with Latin literature -and intimately with French literature. It was in that year that he -began to write poems from the first curiously original: eleven poems -dating from that year are to be found in his collected works. When he -was sixteen he decided that he had had enough of school, and enough -of home. Only Paris existed: he must go to Paris. The first time he -went without a ticket; he spent, indeed, fifteen days in Paris, but -he spent them in Mazas, from which he was released and restored to -his home by his schoolmaster. The second time, a few days later, he -sold his watch, which paid for his railway ticket. This time he threw -himself on the hospitality of André Gill, a painter and verse-writer, -of some little notoriety then, whose address he had happened to come -across. The uninvited guest was not welcomed, and after some penniless -days in Paris he tramped back to Charleville. The third time (he had -waited five months, writing poems, and discontented to be only writing -poems) he made his way to Paris on foot, in a heat of revolutionary -sympathy, to offer himself to the insurgents of the Commune. Again he -had to return on foot. Finally, having learnt with difficulty that a -man is not taken at his own valuation until he has proved his right to -be so accepted, he sent up the manuscript of his poems to Verlaine. -The manuscript contained <i>Le Bateau Ivre, Les Premières Communions, Ma -Bohème, Roman, Les Effarés,</i> and, indeed, all but a few of the poems -he ever wrote. Verlaine was overwhelmed with delight, and invited him -to Paris. A local admirer lent him the money to get there, and from -October, 1871, to July, 1872, he was Verlaine's guest.</p> - -<p>The boy of seventeen, already a perfectly original poet, and beginning -to be an equally original prose-writer, astonished the whole Parnasse, -Banville, Hugo himself. On Verlaine his influence was more profound. -The meeting brought about one of those lamentable and admirable -disasters which make and unmake careers. Verlaine has told us in his -<i>Confessions</i> that, "in the beginning, there was no question of any -sort of affection or sympathy between two natures so different as -that of the poet of the <i>Assis</i> and mine, but simply of an extreme -admiration and astonishment before this boy of sixteen, who had already -written things, as Fénéon has excellently said, 'perhaps outside -literature.'" This admiration and astonishment passed gradually into -a more personal feeling, and it was under the influence of Rimbaud -that the long vagabondage of Verlaine's life began. The two poets -wandered together through Belgium, England, and again Belgium, from -July, 1872, to August, 1873, when there occurred that tragic parting at -Brussels which left Verlaine a prisoner for eighteen months, and sent -Rimbaud back to his family. He had already written all the poetry and -prose that he was ever to write, and in 1873 he printed at Brussels -<i>Une Saison en Enfer.</i> It was the only book he himself ever gave to -the press, and no sooner was it printed than he destroyed the whole -edition, with the exception of a few copies, of which only Verlaine's -copy, I believe, still exists. Soon began new wanderings, with their -invariable return to the starting-point of Charleville: a few days -in Paris, a year in England, four months in Stuttgart (where he was -visited by Verlaine), Italy, France again, Vienna, Java, Holland, -Sweden, Egypt, Cyprus, Abyssinia, and then nothing but Africa, until -the final return to France. He had been a teacher of French in England, -a seller of key-rings in the streets of Paris, had unloaded vessels -in the ports, and helped to gather in the harvest in the country; -he had been a volunteer in the Dutch army, a military engineer, a -trader; and now physical sciences had begun to attract his insatiable -curiosity, and dreams of the fabulous East began to resolve themselves -into dreams of a romantic commerce with the real East. He became a -merchant of coffee, perfumes, ivory, and gold, in the interior of -Africa; then an explorer, a predecessor, and in his own regions, of -Marchand. After twelve years' wandering and exposure in Africa he was -attacked by a malady of the knee, which rapidly became worse. He was -transported first to Aden, then to Marseilles, where, in May, 1891, his -leg was amputated. Further complications set in. He insisted, first, -on being removed to his home, then on being taken back to Marseilles. -His sufferings were an intolerable torment, and more cruel to him was -the torment of his desire to live. He died inch by inch, fighting -every inch; and his sister's quiet narrative of those last months is -agonising. He died at Marseilles in November, "prophesying," says his -sister, and repeating, "Allah Kerim! Allah Kerim!"</p> - -<p>The secret of Rimbaud, I think, and the reason why he was able to do -the unique thing in literature which he did, and then to disappear -quietly and become a legend in the East, is that his mind was not -the mind of the artist but of the man of action. He was a dreamer, -but all his dreams were discoveries. To him it was an identical act -of his temperament to write the sonnet of the <i>Vowels</i> and to trade -in ivory and frankincense with the Arabs. He lived with all his -faculties at every instant of his life, abandoning himself to himself -with a confidence which was at once his strength and (looking at -things less absolutely) his weakness. To the student of success, and -what is relative in achievement, he illustrates the danger of one's -over-possession by one's own genius, just as aptly as the saint in the -cloister does, or the mystic too full of God to speak intelligibly to -the world, or the spilt wisdom of the drunkard. The artist who is above -all, things an artist cultivates a little choice corner of himself -with elaborate care; he brings miraculous flowers to growth there, but -the rest of the garden is but mown grass or tangled bushes. That is -why many excellent writers very many painters, and most musicians are -so tedious on any subject but their own. Is it not tempting, does it -not seem a devotion rather than a superstition, to worship the golden -chalice in which the wine has been made God, as if the chalice were the -reality, and the Real Presence the symbol? The artist, who is only an -artist, circumscribes his intelligence into almost such a fiction, as -he reverences the work of his own hands. But there are certain natures -(great or small, Shakespeare or Rimbaud, it makes no difference) to -whom the work is nothing; the act of working, everything. Rimbaud was -a small, narrow, hard, precipitate nature, which had the will to live, -and nothing but the will to live; and his verses, and his follies, -and his wanderings, and his traffickings were but the breathing of -different hours in his day.</p> - -<p>That is why he is so swift, definite, and quickly exhausted in vision; -why he had his few things to say, each an action with consequences. -He invents new ways of saying things, not because he is a learned -artist, but because he is burning to say them, and he has none of -the hesitations of knowledge. He leaps right over or through the -conventions that had been standing in everybody's way; he has no time -to go round, and no respect for trespass-boards, and so he becomes the -<i>enfant terrible</i> of literature, playing pranks (as in that sonnet of -the <i>Vowels),</i> knocking down barriers for the mere amusement of the -thing, getting all the possible advantage of his barbarisms in mind -and conduct. And so, in life, he is first of all conspicuous as a -disorderly liver, a révolter against morals as against prosody, though -we may imagine that, in his heart, morals meant as little to him, one -way or the other, as prosody. Later on, his revolt seems to be against -civilisation itself, as he disappears into the deserts of Africa. And -it is, if you like, a revolt against civilisation, but the revolt is -instinctive, a need of the organism; it is not doctrinal, cynical, a -conviction, a sentiment.</p> - -<p>Always, as he says <i>rêvant univers fantastiques,</i> he is conscious -of the danger as well as the ecstasy of that divine imitation; for -he says: "My life will always be too vast to be given up wholly to -force and beauty." <i>J'attends Dieu avec gourmandise,</i> he cries, in a -fine rapture; and then, sadly enough: "I have created all the feasts, -all the triumphs, all the dramas of the world. I have set myself to -invent new flowers, a new flesh, a new language. I have fancied that -I have attained supernatural power. Well, I have now only to put my -imagination and my memories in the grave. What a fine artist's and -story-teller's fame thrown away!" See how completely he is conscious, -and how completely he is at the mercy, of that hallucinatory rage of -vision, vision to him being always force, power, creation, which, on -some of his pages, seems to become sheer madness, and on others a -kind of wild but absolute insight. He will be silent, he tells us, -as to all that he contains within his mind, "greedy as the sea," for -otherwise poets and visionaries would envy him his fantastic wealth. -And, in that <i>Nuit d'Enfer,</i> which does not bear that title in vain, -he exalts himself as a kind of saviour; he is in the circle of pride -in Dante's hell, and he has lost all sense of limit, really believes -himself to be "no one and some one." Then, in the <i>Alchimie du Verbe,</i> -he becomes the analyst of his own hallucinations. "I believe in all -the enchantments," he tells us; "I invented the colour of the vowels; -A, black; E, white; I, red; O, blue; U, green. I regulated the form -and the movement of every consonant, and, with instinctive rhythms, I -flattered myself that I had invented a poetic language accessible, one -day or another, to every shade of meaning. I reserved to myself the -right of translation."<a name="FNanchor_1_2" id="FNanchor_1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_2" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> - -<p>Coincidence or origin, it has lately been pointed out that Rimbaud may -formerly have seen an old ABC book in which the vowels are coloured -for the most part as his are (A, black; E, white; I, red; O, blue; U, -green). In the little illustrative pictures around them some are oddly -in keeping with the image of Rimbaud.</p> - -<p>"... I accustomed myself to simple hallucination: I saw, quite frankly, -a mosque in place of a factory, a school of drums kept by the angels, -post-chaises on the roads of heaven, a drawing-room at the bottom of a -lake; monsters, mysteries; the title of a vaudeville raised up horrors -before me. Then I explained my magical sophisms by the hallucination of -words! I ended by finding something sacred in the disorder of my mind." -Then he makes the great discovery. Action, one sees, this fraudulent -and insistent will to live, has been at the root of all these mental -and verbal orgies, in which he has been wasting the "very substance of -his thought." Well, "action," he discovers, "is not life, but a way of -spoiling something." Even this is a form of enervation, and must be -rejected from the absolute. <i>Mon devoir m'est remis. Il ne faut plus -songer à cela. Je suis réellement d'outre-tombe, et pas de commissions.</i></p> - -<p>It is for the absolute that he seeks, always; the absolute which the -great artist, with his careful wisdom, has renounced seeking. And, -he is content with nothing less; hence his own contempt for what he -has done, after all, so easily; for what has come to him, perhaps -through his impatience, but imperfectly. He is a dreamer in whom dream -is swift, hard in outline, coming suddenly and going suddenly, a real -thing, but seen only in passing. Visions rush past him, he cannot -arrest them; they rush forth from him, he cannot restrain their haste -to be gone, as he creates them in the mere indiscriminate idleness -of energy. And so this seeker after the absolute leaves but a broken -medley of fragments, into each of which he has put a little of his -personality, which he is forever dramatising, by multiplying one facet, -so to speak, after another. Very genuinely, he is now a beaten and -wandering ship, flying in a sort of intoxication before the wind, over -undiscovered seas; now a starving child outside a baker's window, in -the very ecstasy of hunger; now <i>la victime et la petite épouse</i> of the -first communion; now:</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 15%;"> -Je ne parlerai pas, je ne penserai rien;<br /> -Mais l'amour infini me montera dans l'âme,<br /> -Et j'irai loin, bien loin, comme un bohémien,<br /> -Par la Nature, heureux comme avec une femme!<br /> -</p> - -<p>He catches at verse, at prose, invents a sort of <i>vers libre</i> before -any one else, not quite knowing what to do with it, invents a quite -new way of writing prose, which Laforgue will turn to account later on; -and having suggested, with some impatience, half the things that his -own and the next generation are to busy themselves with developing, he -gives up writing, as an inadequate form, to which he is also inadequate.</p> - -<p>What, then, is the actual value of Rimbaud's work, in verse and prose, -apart from its relative values of so many kinds? I think, considerable; -though it will probably come to rest on two or three pieces of verse, -and a still vaguer accomplishment in prose. He brought into French -verse something of that "gipsy way of going with nature, as with a -woman"; a very young, very crude, very defiant and sometimes very -masterly sense of just these real things which are too close to us to -be seen by most people with any clearness. He could render physical -sensation, of the subtlest kind, without making any compromise with -language, forcing language to speak straight, taming it as one would -tame a dangerous animal. And he kneaded prose as he kneaded verse, -making it a disarticulated, abstract, mathematically lyrical thing. In -verse, he pointed the way to certain new splendours, as to certain new -<i>naïvetés;</i> there is the <i>Bateau Ivre,</i> without which we might never -have had Verlaine's <i>Crimen Amoris.</i> And, intertangled with what is -ingenuous, and with what is splendid, there is a certain irony, which -comes into that youthful work as if youth were already reminiscent -of itself, so conscious is it that youth is youth, and that youth is -passing.</p> - -<p>In all these ways, Rimbaud had his influence upon Verlaine, and his -influence upon Verlaine was above all the influence of the man of -action upon the man of sensation; the influence of what is simple, -narrow, emphatic, upon what is subtle, complex, growing. Verlaine's -rich, sensitive nature was just then trying to realise itself. Just -because it had such delicate possibilities, because there were so many -directions in which it could grow, it was not at first quite sure of -its way. Rimbaud came into the life and, art of Verlaine, troubling -both, with that trouble which reveals a man to himself. Having helped -to make Verlaine a great poet, he could go. Note that he himself could -never have developed: writing had been one of his discoveries; he could -but make other discoveries, personal ones. Even in literature he had -his future; but his future was Verlaine.</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_1_2" id="Footnote_1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_2"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> -Here is the famous sonnet, which must be taken, as it was meant, -without undue seriousness, and yet as something more than a mere joke.</p> - -<p class="p2" style="margin-left: 15%;"> -VOYELLES<br /> -<br /> -A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu, voyelles,<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A, noir corset velu des mouches éclatantes</span><br /> -Qui bombillent autour des puanteurs cruelles,<br /> -<br /> -Golfe d'ombre; E, candeur des vapeurs et des tentes,<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I Lance des glaciers fiers, rois blancs, frissons d'ombelles;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I, pourpres, sang craché, rire des lèvres belles</span><br /> -<i>I</i> Dans la colère ou les ivresses pénitentes;<br /> -<br /> -U, cycles, vibrements divins des mers virides,<br /> -Paix des pâtis semés d'animaux, paix des rides<br /> -Que l'alchemie imprime aux grands fronts studieux;<br /> -<br /> -O, suprême clairon plein de strideurs étranges,<br /> -Silences traversés des mondes et des Anges;<br /> -—O l'Oméga, rayon violet de Ses Yeux!<br /> -</p></div> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="JULES_LAFORGUE" id="JULES_LAFORGUE">JULES LAFORGUE</a></h4> - - -<p>Jules Laforgue was born at Montevideo, of Breton parents, August 20, -1860. He died in Paris in 1887, two days before his twenty-seventh -birthday. From 1880 to 1886 he had been reader to the Empress Augusta -at Berlin. He married only a few months before his death. <i>D'allures?</i> -says M. Gustave Kahn, <i>fort correctes, de hauts gibus, des cravates -sobres, des vestons anglais, des pardessus clergymans, et de par -les nécessités, un parapluie immuablement placé sous le bras.</i> His -portraits show us a clean-shaved, reticent face, betraying little. With -such a personality anecdotes have but small chance of appropriating -those details by which expansive natures express themselves to the -world. We know nothing about Laforgue which his work is not better -able to tell us, even now that we have all his notes, unfinished -fragments, and the letters of an almost virginal <i>naïveté</i> which he -wrote to the woman whom he was going to marry. His entire work, apart -from these additions, is contained in two small volumes, one of prose, -the <i>Moralités Légendaires,</i> the other of verse, <i>Les Complaintes, -Limitation de Notre-Dame la Lune,</i> and a few other pieces, all -published during the last three years of his life.</p> - -<p>The prose and verse of Laforgue, scrupulously correct, but with a -new manner of correctness, owe more than any one has realised to the -half-unconscious prose and verse of Rimbaud. Verse and prose are -alike a kind of travesty, making subtle use of colloquialism, slang, -neologism, technical terms, for their allusive, their factitious, their -reflected meanings, with which one can play, very seriously. The verse -is alert, troubled, swaying, deliberately uncertain, hating rhetoric so -piously that it prefers, and finds its piquancy in, the ridiculously -obvious. It is really <i>vers libre,</i> but at the same time correct verse, -before <i>vers libre</i> had been invented. And it carries, as far as that -theory has ever been carried, the theory which demands an instantaneous -notation (Whistler, let us say) of the figure or landscape which one, -has been accustomed to define with such rigorous exactitude. Verse, -always elegant, is broken up into a kind of mockery of prose.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 15%;"> -Encore un de mes pierrots mort;<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mort d'un chronique orphelinisme;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">C'était un cœur plein de dandysme</span><br /> -Lunaire, en un drôle de corps;<br /> -</p> - -<p>he will say to us, with a familiarity of manner, as of one talking -languidly, in a low voice, the lips always teased into a slightly -bitter smile; and he will pass suddenly into the ironical lilt of</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 15%;"> -Hotel garni<br /> -De l'infini,<br /> -<br /> -Sphinx et Joconde<br /> -Des défunts mondes;<br /> -</p> - -<p>and from that into this solemn and smiling end of one of his last -poems, his own epitaph, if you will:</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 15%;"> -Il prit froid l'autre automne,<br /> -S'étant attardi vers les peines des cors,<br /> -Sur la fin d'un beau jour.<br /> -Oh! ce fut pour vos cors, et ce fut pour l'automne,<br /> -Qu'il nous montra qu' "on meurt d'amour!"<br /> -On ne le verra plus aux fêtes nationales,<br /> -S'enfermer dans l'Histoire et tirer les verrous,<br /> -Il vint trop tard, il est reparti sans scandale;<br /> -O vous qui m'écoutez, rentrez chacun chez vous.<br /> -</p> - -<p>The old cadences, the old eloquence, the ingenuous seriousness of -poetry, are all banished, on a theory as self-denying as that which -permitted Degas to dispense with recognisable beauty in his figures. -Here, if ever, is modern verse, verse which dispenses with so many of -the privileges of poetry, for an ideal quite of its own. It is, after -all, a very self-conscious ideal, becoming artificial through its -extreme naturalness; for in poetry it is not "natural" to say things -quite so much in the manner of the moment, with however ironical an -intention.</p> - -<p>The prose of the <i>Moralités Légendaires</i> is perhaps even more of -a discovery. Finding its origin, as I have pointed out, in the -experimental prose of Rimbaud, it carries that manner to a singular -perfection. Disarticulated, abstract, mathematically lyrical, it -gives expression, in its icy ecstasy, to a very subtle criticism of -the universe, with a surprising irony of cosmical vision. We learn -from books of mediæval magic that the embraces of the devil are of a -coldness so intense that it may be called, by an allowable figure of -speech, fiery. Everything may be as strongly its opposite as itself, -and that is why this balanced, chill, colloquial style of Laforgue -has, in the paradox of its intensity, the essential heat of the most -obviously emotional prose. The prose is more patient than the verse, -with its more compassionate laughter at universal experience. It can -laugh as seriously, as profoundly, as in that graveyard monologue of -Hamlet, Laforgue's Hamlet, who, Maeterlinck ventures to say, "is at -moments more Hamlet than the Hamlet of Shakespeare." Let me translate a -few sentences from it.</p> - -<p>"Perhaps I have still twenty or thirty years to live, and I shall pass -that way like the others. Like the others? O Totality, the misery of -being there no longer! Ah! I would like to set out to-morrow, and -search all through the world for the most adamantine processes of -embalming. They, too, were, the little people of History, learning to -read, trimming their nails, lighting the dirty lamp every evening, in -love, gluttonous, vain, fond of compliments, handshakes, and kisses, -living on bell-tower gossip, saying, 'What sort of weather shall we -have to-morrow? Winter has really come.... We have had no plums this -year.' Ah! everything is good, if it would not come to an end. And -thou, Silence, pardon the Earth; the little madcap hardly knows what -she is doing; on the day of the great summing-up of consciousness -before the Ideal, she will be labelled with a pitiful <i>idem</i> in the -column of the miniature evolutions of the Unique Evolution, in the -column of négligeable quantities ...". "To die! Evidently, one dies -without knowing it, as, every night, one enters upon sleep. One has no -consciousness of the passing of the last lucid thought into sleep, into -swooning, into death. Evidently. But to be no more, to be here no more, -to be ours no more! Not even to be able, any more, to press against -one's human heart, some idle afternoon, the ancient sadness contained -in one little chord on the piano!"</p> - -<p>In these always "lunar" parodies, <i>Salomé, Lohengrin, Fils de Parsifal, -Persée et Andromède,</i> each a kind of metaphysical myth, he realises -that <i>la créature va hardiment à être cérébrale, anti-naturelle,</i> and -he has invented these fantastic puppets with an almost Japanese art of -spiritual dislocation. They are, in part, a way of taking one's revenge -upon science, by an ironical borrowing of its very terms, which dance -in his prose and verse, derisively, at the end of a string.</p> - -<p>In his acceptance of the fragility of things as actually a principle -of art, Laforgue is a sort of transformed Watteau, showing his disdain -for the world which fascinates him, in quite a different way. He -has constructed his own world, lunar and actual, speaking slang and -astronomy, with a constant disengaging of the visionary aspect, under -which frivolity becomes an escape from the arrogance of a still more -temporary mode of being, the world as it appears to the sober majority. -He is terribly conscious of daily life, cannot omit, mentally, a single -hour of the day; and his flight to the moon is in sheer desperation. -He sees what he calls l'<i>Inconscient</i> in every gesture, but he cannot -see it without these gestures. And he sees, not only as an imposition, -but as a conquest, the possibilities for art which come from the sickly -modern being, with his clothes, his nerves: the mere fact that he -flowers from the soil of his epoch.</p> - -<p>It is an art of the nerves, this art of Laforgue, and it is what all -art would tend towards if we followed our nerves on all their journeys. -There is in it all the restlessness of modern life, the haste to escape -from whatever weighs too heavily on the liberty of the moment, that -capricious liberty which demands only room enough to hurry itself -weary. It is distressingly conscious of the unhappiness of mortality, -but it plays, somewhat uneasily, at a disdainful indifference. And it -is out of these elements of caprice, fear, contempt, linked together by -an embracing laughter, that it makes its existence.</p> - -<p><i>Il n'y a pas de type, il y a la vie,</i> Laforgue replies to those -who come to him with classical ideals. <i>Votre idéal est bien vite -magnifiquement submergé,</i> in life itself, which should form its -own art, an art deliberately ephemeral, with the attaching pathos -of passing things. There is a great pity at the root of this art -of Laforgue: self-pity, which extends, with the artistic sympathy, -through mere clearness of vision, across the world. His laughter, -which Maeterlinck has defined so admirably as "the laughter of the -soul," is the laughter of Pierrot, more than half a sob, and shaken out -of him with a deplorable gesture of the thin arms, thrown wide. He is a -metaphysical Pierrot, <i>Pierrot lunaire,</i> and it is of abstract notions, -the whole science of the unconscious, that he makes his showman's -patter. As it is part of his manner not to distinguish between irony -and pity, or even belief, we need not attempt to do so. Heine should -teach us to understand at least so much of a poet who could not -otherwise resemble him less. In Laforgue, sentiment is squeezed out of -the world before one begins to play at ball with it.</p> - -<p>And so, of the two, he is the more hopeless. He has invented a new -manner of being René or Werther: an inflexible politeness towards man, -woman, and destiny. He composes love-poems hat in hand, and smiles with -an exasperating tolerance before all the transformations of the eternal -feminine. He is very conscious of death, but his <i>blague</i> of death is, -above all things, gentlemanly. He will not permit himself, at any -moment, the luxury of dropping the mask: not at any moment.</p> - -<p>Read this <i>Autre Complainte de Lord Pierrot,</i> with the singular pity of -its cruelty, before such an imagined dropping of the mask:</p> - -<p class="p2" style="margin-left: 15%;" > -Celle qui doit me mettre au courant de la Femme!<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nous lui dirons d'abord, de mon air le moins froid:</span><br /> -"La somme des angles d'un triangle, chère âme,<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Est égale à deux droits."</span><br /> -<br /> -Et si ce cri lui part: "Dieu de Dieu que je t'aime!"<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Dieu reconnaîtra les siens." Ou piquée au vif:</span><br /> -"Mes claviers out du cœur, tu sera mon seul thème."<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Moi' "Tout est relatif."</span><br /> -<br /> -De tous ses yeux, alors! se sentant trop banale:<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Ah! tu ne m'aime pas; tant d'autres sont jaloux!"</span><br /> -Et moi, d'un œil qui vers l'Inconscient s'emballe:<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 4em;">"Merci, pas mal; et vous?</span><br /> -<br /> -"Jouons au plus fidèle!"—A quoi bon, ô Nature!<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Autant à qui perd gagne." Alors, autre couplet.</span><br /> -"Ah! tu te lasseras le premier, j'en suis sûre."<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 4em;">"Après vous, s'il vous plaît."</span><br /> -<br /> -Enfins, si, par un soir, elle meurt dans mes livres,<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Douce; feignant de n'en pas croire encor mes yeux,</span><br /> -J'aurai un: "Ah çà, mais, nous avions De Quoi vivre!<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 4em;">C'était donc sérieux?"</span><br /> -</p> - -<p class="p2">And yet one realises, if one but reads him attentively enough, how -much suffering and despair, and resignation to what is, after all, -the inevitable, are hidden away under this disguise, and also why this -disguise is possible. Laforgue died at twenty-seven: he had been a -dying man all his life, and his work has the fatal evasiveness of those -who shrink from remembering the one thing which they are unable to -forget. Coming as he does after Rimbaud, turning the divination of the -other into theories, into achieved results, he is the eternally grown -up, mature to the point of self-negation, as the other is the eternal -<i>enfant terrible.</i> He thinks intensely about life, seeing what is -automatic, pathetically ludicrous in it, almost as one might who has no -part in the comedy. He has the double advantage, for his art, of being -condemned to death, and of being, in the admirable phrase of Villiers, -"one of those who come into the world with a ray of moonlight in their -brains."</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="MAETERLINCK_AS_A_MYSTIC" id="MAETERLINCK_AS_A_MYSTIC">MAETERLINCK AS A MYSTIC</a></h4> - - -<p>The secret of things which is just beyond the most subtle words, -the secret of the expressive silences, has always been clearer to -Maeterlinck than to most people; and, in his plays, he has elaborated -an art of sensitive, taciturn, and at the same time highly ornamental -simplicity, which has come nearer than any other art to being the voice -of silence. To Maeterlinck the theatre has been, for the most part, -no more than one of the disguises by which he can express himself, -and with his book of meditations on the inner life, <i>Le Trésor des -Humbles,</i> he may seem to have dropped his disguise.</p> - -<p>All art hates the vague; not the mysterious, but the vague; two -opposites very commonly confused, as the secret with the obscure, the -infinite with the indefinite. And the artist who is also a mystic -hates the vague with a more profound hatred than any other artist. -Thus Maeterlinck, endeavouring to clothe mystical conceptions in -concrete form, has invented a drama so precise, so curt, so arbitrary -in its limits, that it can safely be confided to the masks and feigned -voices of marionettes. His theatre of artificial beings, who are at -once more ghostly and more mechanical than the living actors whom we -are accustomed to see, in so curious a parody of life, moving with a -certain freedom of action across the stage, may be taken as itself a -symbol of the aspect under which what we fantastically term "real life" -presents itself to the mystic. Are we not all puppets, in a theatre -of marionettes, in which the parts we play, the dresses we wear, the -very emotion whose dominance gives its express form to our faces, have -all been chosen for us; in which I, it may be, with curled hair and a -Spanish cloak, play the romantic lover, sorely against my will, while -you, a "fair penitent" for no repented sin, pass quietly under a nun's -habit? And as our parts have been chosen for us, cur motions controlled -from behind the curtain, so the words we seem to speak are but spoken -through us, and we do but utter fragments of some elaborate invention, -planned for larger ends than our personal display or convenience, -but to which, all the same, we are in a humble degree necessary. -This symbolical theatre, its very existence being a symbol, has -perplexed many minds, to some of whom it has seemed puerile, a child's -mystification of small words and repetitions, a thing of attitudes -and omissions; while others, yet more unwisely, have compared it with -the violent, rhetorical, most human drama of the Elizabethans, with -Shakespeare himself, to whom all the world was a stage, and the stage -all this world, certainly. A sentence, already famous, of the <i>Trésor -des Humbles,</i> will tell you what it signifies to Maeterlinck himself.</p> - -<p>"I have, come to believe," he writes, in <i>Le Tragique Quotidien,</i> "that -an old man seated in his armchair, waiting quietly under the lamplight, -listening without knowing it to all the eternal laws which reign about -his house, interpreting without understanding it all that there is in -the silence of doors and windows, and in the little voice of light, -enduring the presence of his soul and of his destiny, bowing his head a -little, without suspecting that all the powers of the earth intervene -and stand on guard in the room like attentive servants, not knowing -that the sun itself suspends above the abyss the little table on which -he rests his elbow, and that there is not a star in the sky nor a force -in the soul which is indifferent to the motion of a falling eyelid or -a rising thought—I have come to believe that this motionless old man -lived really a more profound, human, and universal life than the lover -who strangles his mistress, the captain who gains a victory, or the -husband who 'avenges his honour.'"</p> - -<p>That, it seems to me, says all there is to be said of the intention of -this drama which Maeterlinck has evoked; and, of its style, this other -sentence, which I take from the same essay: "It is only the words that -at first sight seem useless which really count in a work."</p> - -<p>This drama, then, is a drama founded on philosophical ideas, -apprehended emotionally; on the sense of the mystery of the universe, -of the weakness of humanity, that sense which Pascal expressed when -he said: <i>Ce qui m'étonne le plus est de voir que tout le monde n'est -pas étonné de sa faiblesse;</i> with an acute feeling of the pathetic -ignorance in which the souls nearest to one another look out upon -their neighbours. It is a drama in which the interest is concentrated -on vague people, who are little parts of the universal consciousness, -their strange names being but the pseudonyms of obscure passions, -intimate emotions. They have the fascination which we find in the eyes -of certain pictures, so much more real and disquieting, so much more -permanent with us, than living people. And they have the touching -simplicity of children; they are always children in their ignorance -of themselves, of one another, and of fate. And, because they are so -disembodied of the more trivial accidents of life, they give themselves -without limitation to whatever passionate instinct possesses them. I -do not know a more passionate love-scene than that scene in the wood -beside the fountain, where Pelléas and Mélisande confess the strange -burden which has come upon them. When the soul gives itself absolutely -to love, all the barriers of the world are burnt away, and all its -wisdom and subtlety are as incense poured on a flame. Morality, too, -is burnt away, no longer exists, any more than it does for children or -for God.</p> - -<p>Maeterlinck has realised, better than any one else, the significance, -in life and art, of mystery. He has realised how unsearchable is the -darkness out of which we have but just stepped, and the darkness -into which we are about to pass. And he has realised how the thought -and sense of that twofold darkness invade the little space of light -in which, for a moment, we move; the depth to which they shadow our -steps, even in that moment's partial escape. But in some of his plays -he would seem to have apprehended this mystery as a thing merely or -mainly terrifying; the actual physical darkness sur-rounding blind men, -the actual physical approach of death as the intruder; he has shown -us people huddled at a window, out of which they are almost afraid -to look, or beating at a door, the opening of which they dread. Fear -shivers through these plays, creeping across our nerves like a damp -mist coiling up out of a valley. And there is beauty, certainly, in -this "vague spiritual fear"; but a less obvious kind of beauty than -that which gives its profound pathos to <i>Aglavaine et Sélysette,</i> the -one play written since the writing of the essays. Here is mystery, -which is also pure beauty, in these delicate approaches of intellectual -pathos, in which suffering and death and error become transformed into -something almost happy, so full is it of strange light.</p> - -<p>And the aim of Maeterlinck, in his plays, is not only to render the -soul and the soul's atmosphere, but to reveal this strangeness, pity, -and beauty through beautiful pictures. No dramatist has ever been so -careful that his scenes should be in themselves beautiful, or has -made the actual space of forest, tower, or seashore so emotionally -significant. He has realised, after Wagner, that the art of the stage -is the art of pictorial beauty, of the correspondence in rhythm between -the speakers, their words, and their surroundings. He has seen how, in -this way, and in this way alone, the emotion, which it is but a part of -the poetic drama to express, can be at once intensified and purified.</p> - -<p>It is only after hinting at many of the things which he had to say -in these plays, which have, after all, been a kind of subterfuge, -that Maeterlinck has cared, or been able, to speak with the direct -utterance of the essays. And what may seem curious is that this prose -of the essays, which is the prose of a doctrine, is incomparably more -beautiful than the prose of the plays, which was the prose of an art. -Holding on this point a different opinion from one who was, in many -senses, his master, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, he did not admit that -beauty of words, or even any expressed beauty of thoughts, had its -place in spoken dialogue, even though it was not two living actors -speaking to one another on the stage, but a soul speaking to a soul and -imagined speaking through the mouths of marionettes. But that beauty of -phrase which makes the profound and sometimes obscure pages of <i>Axël</i> -shine as with the crossing fire of jewels, rejoices us, though with -a softer, a more equable, radiance, in the pages of these essays, in -which every sentence has the in-dwelling beauty of an intellectual -emotion, preserved at the same height of tranquil ecstasy from first -page to last. There is a sort of religious calm in these deliberate -sentences, into which the writer has known how to introduce that divine -monotony which is one of the accomplishments of great style. Never has -simplicity been more ornate or a fine beauty more visible through its -self-concealment.</p> - -<p>But, after all, the claim upon us of this book is not the claim of -a work of art, but of a doctrine, and more than that, of a system. -Belonging, as he does, to the eternal hierarchy, the unbroken -succession, of the mystics, Maeterlinck has apprehended what is -essential in the mystical doctrine with a more profound comprehension, -and thus more systematically, than any mystic of recent times. He -has many points of resemblance with Emerson, on whom he has written -an essay which is properly an exposition of his own personal ideas; -but Emerson, who proclaimed the supreme guidance of the inner light, -the supreme necessity of trusting instinct, of honouring emotion, did -but proclaim all this, not without a certain anti-mystical vagueness: -Maeterlinck has systematised it. A more profound mystic than Emerson, -he has greater command of that which comes to him unawares, is less at -the mercy of visiting angels.</p> - -<p>Also, it may be said that he surrenders himself to them more -absolutely, with less reserve and discretion; and, as he has infinite -leisure, his contemplation being subject to no limits of time, he -is ready to follow them on unknown rounds, to any distance, in any -direction, ready also to rest in any wayside inn, without fearing that -he will have lost the road on the morrow.</p> - -<p>This old gospel, of which Maeterlinck is the new voice, has been -quietly waiting until certain bankruptcies, the bankruptcy of -Science, of the Positive Philosophies, should allow it full credit. -Considering the length even of time, it has not had an unreasonable -space of waiting; and remember that it takes time but little into -account. We have seen many little gospels demanding of every emotion, -of every instinct, "its certificate at the hand of some respectable -authority." Without confidence in themselves or in things, and led by -Science, which is as if one were led by one's note-book, they demand a -reasonable explanation of every mystery. Not finding that explanation, -they reject the mystery; which is as if the fly on the wheel rejected -the wheel because it was hidden from his eyes by the dust of its own -raising.</p> - -<p>The mystic is at once the proudest and the humblest of men. He is as -a child who resigns himself to the guidance of an unseen hand, the -hand of one walking by his side; he resigns himself with the child's -humility. And he has the pride of the humble, a pride manifesting -itself in the calm rejection of every accepted map of the roads, of -every offer of assistance, of every painted signpost pointing out the -smoothest ways on which to travel. He demands no authority for the -unseen hand whose fingers he feels upon his wrist. He conceives of -life, not, indeed, so much as a road on which one walks, very much at -one's own discretion, but as a blown and wandering ship, surrounded by -a sea from which there is no glimpse of land; and he conceives that to -the currents of that sea he may safely trust himself. Let his hand, -indeed, be on the rudder, there will be no miracle worked for him; it -is enough miracle that the sea should be there, and the ship, and he -himself. He will never know why his hand should turn the rudder this -way rather than that.</p> - -<p>Jacob Boehme has said, very subtly, "that man does not perceive the -truth but God perceives the truth in man"; that is, that whatever -we perceive or do is not perceived or done consciously by us, but -unconsciously through us. Our business, then, is to tend that "inner -light" by which most mystics have symbolised that which at once -guides us in time and attaches us to eternity. This inner light is -no miraculous descent of the Holy Spirit, but the perfectly natural, -though it may finally be overcoming, ascent of the spirit within us. -The spirit, in all men, being but a ray of the universal fight, it can, -by careful tending, by the removal of all obstruction, the cleansing of -the vessel, the trimming of the wick, as it were, be increased, made -to burn with a steadier, a brighter flame. In the last rapture it may -become dazzling, may blind the watcher with excess of light, shutting -him in within the circle of transfiguration, whose extreme radiance -will leave all the rest of the world henceforth one darkness.</p> - -<p>All mystics being concerned with what is divine in life, with the -laws which apply equally to time and eternity, it may happen to one to -concern himself chiefly with time seen under the aspect of eternity, to -another to concern himself rather with eternity seen under the aspect -of time. Thus many mystics have occupied themselves, very profitably, -with showing how natural, how explicable on their own terms, are -the mysteries of life; the whole aim of Maeterlinck is to show how -mysterious all life is, "what an astonishing thing it is, merely to -live." What he had pointed out to us, with certain solemn gestures, -in his plays, he sets himself now to affirm, slowly, fully, with that -"confidence in mystery" of which he speaks. Because "there is not an -hour without its familiar miracles and its ineffable suggestions," he -sets himself to show us these miracles and these meanings where others -have not always sought or found them, in women, in children, in the -theatre. He seems to touch, at one moment or another, whether he is -discussing <i>La Beauté Intérieure</i> or <i>Le Tragique Quotidien,</i> on all -of these hours, and there is no hour so dark that his touch does not -illuminate it.</p> - -<p>And it is characteristic of him, of his "confidence in mystery," -that he speaks always without raising his voice, without surprise or -triumph, or the air of having said anything more than the simplest -observation. He speaks, not as if he knew more than others, or had -sought out more elaborate secrets, but as if he had listened more -attentively.</p> - -<p>Loving most those writers "whose works are nearest to silence," -he begins his book, significantly, with an essay on Silence, an -essay which, like all these essays, has the reserve, the expressive -reticence, of those "active silences" of which he succeeds in revealing -a few of the secrets. "Souls," he tells us, "are weighed in silence, -as gold and silver are weighed in pure water, and the words which we -pronounce have no meaning except through the silence in which they are -bathed. We seek to know that we may learn not to know"; knowledge, that -which can be known by the pure reason, metaphysics, "indispensable" -on this side of the "frontiers," being after all precisely what is -least essential to us, since least essentially ourselves. "We possess -a self more profound and more boundless than the self of the passions -or of pure reason.... There comes a moment when the phenomena of our -customary consciousness, what we may call the consciousness of the -passions or of our normal relationships, no longer mean anything to -us, no longer touch our real life. I admit that this consciousness is -often interesting in its way, and that it is often necessary to know -it thoroughly. But it is a surface plant, and its roots fear the great -central fire of our being. I may commit a crime without the least -breath stirring the tiniest flame of this fire; and, on the other hand, -the crossing of a single glance, a thought which never comes into -being, a minute which passes without the utterance of a word, may rouse -it into terrible agitations in the depths of its retreat, and cause -it to overflow upon my life. Our soul does not judge as we judge; it -is a capricious and hidden thing. It can be reached by a breath and -unconscious of a tempest. Let us find out what reaches it; everything -is there, for it is there that we ourselves are."</p> - -<p>And it is towards this point that all the words of this book tend. -Maeterlinck, unlike most men ("What is man but a God who is afraid?"), -is not "miserly of immortal things." He utters the most divine secrets -without fear, betraying certain hiding-places of the soul in those most -nearly inaccessible retreats which lie nearest to us. All that he says -we know already; we may deny it, but we know it. It is what we are not -often at leisure enough with ourselves, sincere enough with ourselves, -to realise; what we often dare not realise; but, when he says it, we -know that it is true, and our knowledge of it is his warrant for saying -it. He is what he is precisely because he tells us nothing which we do -not already know, or it may be, what we have known and forgotten. The -mystic, let it be remembered, has nothing in common with the moralist. -He speaks only to those who are already prepared to listen to him, and -he is indifferent to the "practical" effect which these or others may -draw from his words. A young and profound mystic of our day has figured -the influence of wise words upon the foolish and headstrong as "torches -thrown into a burning city." The mystic knows well that it is not -always the soul of the drunkard or the blasphemer which is farthest -from the eternal beauty. He is concerned only with that soul of the -soul, that life of life, with which the day's doings have so little to -do; itself a mystery, and at home only among those supreme mysteries -which surround it like an atmosphere. It is not always that he cares -that his message, or his vision, may be as clear to others as it is -to himself. But, because he is an artist, and not only a philosopher, -Maeterlinck has taken especial pains that not a word of his may go -astray, and there is not a word of this book which needs to be read -twice, in order that it may be understood, by the least trained of -attentive readers. It is, indeed, as he calls it, "The Treasure of the -Lowly."</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="CONCLUSION" id="CONCLUSION">CONCLUSION</a></h4> - - -<p>Our only chance, in this world, of a complete happiness, lies in the -measure of our success in shutting the eyes of the mind, and deadening -its sense of hearing, and dulling the keenness of its apprehension of -the unknown. Knowing so much less than nothing, for we are entrapped -in smiling and many-coloured appearances, our life may seem to be but -a little space of leisure, in which it will be the necessary business -of each of us to speculate on what is so rapidly becoming the past -and so rapidly becoming the future, that scarcely existing present -which is after all our only possession. Yet, as the present passes -from us, hardly to be enjoyed except as memory or as hope, and only -with an at best partial recognition of the uncertainty or inutility -of both, it is with a kind of terror that we wake up, every now and -then, to the whole knowledge of our ignorance, and to some perception -of where it is leading us. To live through a single day with that -overpowering consciousness of our real position, which, in the moments -in which alone it mercifully comes, is like blinding light or the -thrust of a flaming sword, would drive any man out of his senses. It -is our hesitations, the excuses of our hearts, the compromises of -our intelligence, which save us. We can forget so much, we can bear -suspense with so fortunate an evasion of its real issues; we are so -admirably finite.</p> - -<p>And so there is a great, silent conspiracy between us to forget death; -all our lives are spent in busily forgetting death. That is why we -are active about so many things which we know to be unimportant; why -we are so afraid of solitude, and so thankful for the company of our -fellow-creatures. Allowing ourselves, for the most part, to be but -vaguely conscious of that great suspense in which we live, we find -our escape from its sterile, annihilating reality in many dreams, -in religion, passion, art; each a forgetfulness, each a symbol of -creation; religion being the creation of a new heaven, passion the -creation of a new earth, and art, in its mingling of heaven and -earth, the creation of heaven out of earth. Each is a kind of sublime -selfishness, the saint, the lover, and the artist having each an -incommunicable ecstasy which he esteems as his ultimate attainment, -however, in his lower moments, he may serve God in action, or do the -will of his mistress, or minister to men by showing them a little -beauty. But it is, before all things, an escape: and the prophets -who have redeemed the world, and the artists who have made the world -beautiful, and the lovers who have quickened the pulses of the world, -have really, whether they knew it or not, been fleeing from the -certainty of one thought: that we have, all of us, only our one day; -and from the dread of that other thought: that the day, however used, -must after all be wasted.</p> - -<p>The fear of death is not cowardice; it is, rather, an intellectual -dissatisfaction with an enigma which has been presented to us, and -which can be solved only when its solution is of no further use. All -we have to ask of death is the meaning of life, and we are waiting -all through life to ask that question. That life should be happy or -unhappy, as those words are used, means so very little; and the -heightening or lessening of the general felicity of the world means -so little to any individual. There is something almost vulgar in -happiness which does not become joy, and joy is an ecstasy which can -rarely be maintained in the soul for more than the moment during which -we recognize that it is not sorrow. Only very young people want to be -happy. What we all want is to be quite sure that there is something -which makes it worth while to go on living, in what seems to us our -best way, at our finest intensity; something beyond the mere fact that -we are satisfying a sort of inner logic (which may be quite faulty) -and that we get our best makeshift for happiness on that so hazardous -assumption.</p> - -<p>Well, the doctrine of Mysticism, with which all this symbolical -literature has so much to do, of which it is all so much the -expression, presents us, not with a guide for conduct, not with a plan -for our happiness, not with an explanation of any mystery, but with a -theory of life which makes us familiar with mystery, and which seems to -harmonise those instincts which make for religion, passion, and art, -freeing us at once of a great bondage. The final uncertainty remains, -but we seem to knock less helplessly at closed doors, coming so much -closer to the once terrifying eternity of things about us, as we come -to look upon these things as shadows, through which we have our shadowy -passage. "For in the particular acts of human life," Plotinus tells us, -"it is not the interior soul and the true man, but the exterior shadow -of the man alone, which laments and weeps, performing his part on the -earth as in a more ample and extended scene, in which many shadows -of souls and phantom scenes appear." And as we realise the identity -of a poem, a prayer, or a kiss, in that spiritual universe which we -are weaving for ourselves, each out of a thread of the great fabric; -as we realise the infinite insignificance of action, its immense -distance from the current of life; as we realise the delight of feeling -ourselves carried onward by forces which it is our wisdom to obey; it -is at least with a certain relief that we turn to an ancient doctrine, -so much the more likely to be true because it has so much the air of -a dream. On this theory alone does all life become worth living, all -art worth making, all worship worth offering. And because it might -slay as well as save, because the freedom of its sweet captivity might -so easily become deadly to the fool, because that is the hardest path -to walk in where you are told only, walk well; it is perhaps the only -counsel of perfection which can ever really mean much to the artist.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="BIBLIOGRAPHY_AND_NOTES" id="BIBLIOGRAPHY_AND_NOTES">BIBLIOGRAPHY AND NOTES</a></h4> - - -<p>The essays contained in this book are not intended to give information. -They are concerned with ideas rather than with facts; each is a study -of a problem, only in part a literary one, in which I have endeavoured -to consider writers as personalities under the action of spiritual -forces, or as themselves so many forces. But it has seemed to me that -readers have a right to demand information in regard to writers who are -so often likely to be unfamiliar to them. I have, therefore, given a -bibliography of the works of each writer with whom I have dealt, and -I have added a number of notes, giving various particulars which I -think are likely to be useful in fixing more definitely the personal -characteristics of these writers.</p> - - - -<h5>HONORÉ DE BALZAC</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center;">(1799-1850)</p> - - -<p>La Comédie Humaine</p> - -<p><i>Scènes de la Vie Privée</i></p> - -<p><i>Préface. La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote,</i> 1829; <i>Le Bal de Sceaux,</i> -1829; <i>Mémoires de deux jeunes Mariées,</i> 1841; <i>La Bourse,</i> 1832; -<i>Modeste Mignon,</i> 1844; <i>Un Début dans la vie,</i> 1842; <i>Albert Savarus,</i> -1842; <i>La Vendetta,</i> 1830; <i>La Paix du ménage,</i> 1829; <i>Madame -Firmiani,</i> 1832; <i>Étude de femme,</i> 1830; <i>La Fausse maîtresse,</i> 1842; -<i>Une Fille d'Eve,</i> 1838; <i>Le Message,</i> 1832; <i>La Grenadière,</i> 1832; <i>La -Femme abandonnée,</i> 1832; <i>Honorine,</i> 1843; <i>Beatrix,</i> 1838; <i>Gobseck,</i> -1830; <i>La Femme de trente ans,</i> 1834; <i>La Père Goriot,</i> 1834; <i>Le -Colonel Chabert,</i> 1832; <i>La Messe de l'Athée,</i> 1836; <i>L'Interdiction,</i> -1836; Le <i>Contrat de mariage,</i> 1835; Autre <i>étude de femme,</i> 1839; La -<i>Grande Bretêche,</i> 1832.</p> - -<p><i>Scènes de la vie de Province</i></p> - -<p><i>Ursule Mirouët,</i> 1841; <i>Eugénie Grandet,</i> 1833; <i>Le Lys dans la -vallée</i>, 1835; <i>Pierrette,</i> 1839; <i>Le Curé de Tours</i>, 1832; <i>La -Ménage d'un garçon,</i> 1842; <i>L'illustre Gaudissart,</i> 1833; <i>La Muse -du département,</i> 1843; <i>Le Vieille fille</i>, 1836; <i>Le Cabinet des -Antiques,</i> 1837; <i>Les Illusions Perdues,</i> 1836.</p> - -<p><i>Scènes de la Vie Parisienne</i></p> - -<p><i>Ferragus,</i> 1833; <i>Là Duchesse de Langeais,</i> 1834; <i>La Fille aux yeux -d'or,</i> 1834; <i>La Grandeur et la Décadence de César Birotteau,</i> 1837; -<i>La Maison Nucingen,</i> 1837; <i>Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes,</i> -1838; <i>Les Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan,</i> 1839; <i>Facino -Cane,</i> 1836; <i>Sarrasine,</i> 1830; <i>Pierre Grassou,</i> 1839; <i>La Cousine -Bette,</i> 1846; <i>Le Cousin Pons,</i> 1847; <i>Un Prince de la Bohème,</i> 1839; -<i>Gaudissart II,</i> 1844; <i>Les Employés,</i> 1836; <i>Les Comédiens sans le -savoir,</i> 1845; <i>Les Petits Bourgeois,</i> 1845.</p> - -<p><i>Scènes de la Vie Militaire</i></p> - -<p><i>Les Chouans,</i> 1827; <i>Une Passion dans le désert,</i> 1830.</p> - -<p><i>Scènes de la Vie Politique</i></p> - -<p><i>Un Épisode sous la Terreur,</i> 1831; <i>Une Ténébreuse Affaire,</i> 1841; <i>Z. -Marcos,</i> 1840; <i>L'Envers de l'Histoire contemporaine,</i> 1847; <i>Le Député -d'Arcis.</i></p> - -<p><i>Scènes de la Vie de Campagne</i></p> - -<p><i>Le Médecin de campagne,</i> 1832; <i>Le Curé de village,</i> 1837; <i>Les -Paysans,</i> 1845.</p> - -<p><i>Études Philosophiques</i></p> - -<p><i>La Peau de Chagrin,</i> 1830; <i>Jésus-Christ en Flandres,</i> 1831; <i>Melmoth -réconcilié,</i> 1835; <i>Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu,</i> 1832; <i>Gambara,</i> -1837; <i>Massimilla Doni,</i> 1839; <i>La Recherche de l'Absolu,</i> 1834; -<i>L'Enfant Maudit,</i> 1831; <i>Les Maranas,</i> 1832; <i>Adieu,</i> 1830; <i>Le -Réquisitionnaire,</i> 1831; <i>El Verdugo,</i> 1829; <i>Un Drame au bord de -la mer,</i> 1834; <i>L'Auberge rouge,</i> 1831; L'<i>Élixir de longue vie,</i> -1830; <i>Maître Cornélius,</i> 1831; <i>Catherine de Médicis,</i> 1836; <i>Les -Proscrits,</i> 1831; <i>Louis Lambert,</i> 1832; <i>Séraphita,</i> 1833.</p> - -<p><i>Études Analytiques</i></p> - -<p><i>La Physiologie du mariage,</i> 1829; <i>Petites misères de la vie -conjugale.</i></p> - -<p><i>Théâtre</i></p> - -<p><i>Vautrin, Drame</i>5 <i>Actes,</i> 1840; <i>Les Ressources de Quinola, Comédie</i> -5 <i>Actes,</i> 1842; <i>Paméla Giraud, Drame</i>5 <i>Actes,</i> 1843; <i>La Marâtre, -Drame</i>5 <i>Actes,</i> 1848; <i>La Faiseur (Mercadet), Comédie</i> 5 <i>Actes,</i> -1851; <i>Les Contes Drolatiques,</i> 1832, 1833, 1839.</p> - - - -<h5>PROSPER MÉRIMÉE</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center;">(1803-1870)</p> - -<p><i>La Guzla,</i> 1827; <i>La Jacquerie,</i> 1828; <i>Le Chronique du Temps de -Charles IX,</i> 1829; <i>La Vase Etrusque,</i> 1829; <i>Vénus d'Ille,</i> 1837; -<i>Colomba,</i> 1846; <i>Carmen,</i> 1845; <i>Lokis,</i> 1869; <i>Mateo Falcone,</i> -1876; <i>Mélanges Historiques et Littéraires,</i> 1855; <i>Les Cosaques -d'Autrefois,</i> 1865; <i>Étude sur les Arts au Moyen-Age,</i> 1875; <i>Les Faux -Démétrius,</i> 1853; <i>Étude sur l'Histoire Romaine,</i> 1844; <i>Histoire de -Dom Pedro,</i> 1848; <i>Lettres à une Inconnue,</i> 1874.</p> - - - -<h5>GÉRARD DE NERVAL</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center;">(1808-1855)</p> - -<p><i>Napoléon et la France Guerrière, élégies nationales,</i> 1826; <i>La mort -de Talma,</i> 1826; <i>L'Académie, ou les Membres Introuvables, comédie -satirique en vers,</i> 1826; <i>Napoléon et Talma, élégies nationales -nouvelles,</i> 1826; <i>M. Dentscourt, ou le Cuisinier Grand Homme,</i> 1826; -<i>Elégies Nationales et Satires Politiques,</i> 1827; <i>Faust, tragédie -de Goethe,</i> 1828 (suivi du second <i>Faust,</i> 1840); <i>Couronne Poétique -de Béranger,</i> 1828; <i>Le Peuple, ode,</i> 1830; <i>Poésies Allemandes, -Morceaux choisis et traduits,</i> 1830; <i>Choix de Poésies de Ronsard et -de Régnier,</i> 1830; <i>Nos Adieux à la Chambre de Députés de Van</i> 1830, -1831; <i>Lénore, traduite de Burger,</i> 1835; <i>Piquilo, opéra comique</i> -(with Dumas), 1837; l'<i>Alchimiste, drame en vers</i> (with Dumas), 1839; -<i>Léo Burckhardt, drame en prose</i> (with Dumas), 1839; <i>Scènes de la Vie -Orientale,</i> 2 vols., 1848-1850; <i>Les Monténégrins, opéra comique</i> (with -Alboize), 1849; <i>Le Chariot d'Enfant, drame en vers</i> (with Méry), 1850; -<i>Les Nuits du Ramazan,</i> 1850; <i>Voyage en Orient,</i> 1851; <i>L'Imagier de -Harlem, légende en prose et en vers</i> (with Méry and Bernard Lopez), -1852; <i>Contes et Facéties,</i> 1852; <i>Lorely, souvenirs d'Allemagne,</i> -1852; <i>Les Illuminés,</i> 1852; <i>Petits Châteaux de Bohème,</i> 1853; <i>Les -Filles du Feu,</i> 1854; <i>Misanthropie et Repentir, drame de Kotzebue,</i> -1855; <i>La Bohème galante,</i> 1855; <i>Le Rêve et la Vie; Aurélia,</i> 1855; -<i>Le Marquis de Fayolle</i> (with E. Gorges), 1856; <i>Œuvres Complètes,</i> -6 vols. (1, <i>Les Deux Faust de Goethe;</i> 2, 3, <i>Voyage en Orient;</i> 4, -<i>Les Illuminés, Les Faux Saulniers;</i> 5, <i>Le Rêve et la Vie, Les Filles -du Feu, La Bohème galante;</i> 6, <i>Poésies Complètes),</i> 1867.</p> - -<p>The sonnets, written at different periods and published for the first -time in the collection of 1854, "Les Filles du Feu," which also -contains "Sylvie," were reprinted in the volume of <i>Poésies Complètes,</i> -where they are imbedded in the midst of deplorable juvenilia. All, -or almost all, of the verse worth preserving was collected, in 1897, -by that delicate amateur of the curiosities of beauty, M. Remy de -Gourmont, in a tiny volume called <i>Les Chimères,</i> which contains the -six sonnets of "Les Chimères," the sonnet called "Vers Dorés," the -five sonnets of "Le Christ aux Oliviers," and, in facsimile of the -autograph, the lyric called "Les Cydalises." The true facts of the life -of Gérard have been told for the first time, from original documents, -by Mme. Arvède Barine, in two excellent articles in the <i>Revue des -Deux Mondes,</i> October 15 and November 1, 1897, since reprinted in <i>Les -Névrosés,</i>1898.</p> - - - -<h5>THÉOPHILE GAUTIER</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center;">(1811-1872)</p> - -<p><i>Les Poésies,</i> 1830; <i>Albertus, ou l'âme et le péché,</i> 1833; <i>Les -Jeunes-France,</i> 1833; <i>Mademoiselle de Maupin,</i> 1835; <i>Fortunio,</i> 1838.</p> - -<p><i>La Comédie de la Mort,</i> 1838; <i>Tras les Montes,</i> 1839; <i>Une Larme du -Diable,</i> 1839; <i>Gisèle, ballet,</i> 1841; <i>Une Voyage en Espagne,</i> 1843; -<i>Le Péri, ballet,</i> 1843; <i>Les Grotesques,</i> 1844.</p> - -<p><i>Une Nuit de Cléopâtre,</i> 1845; <i>Premières Poésies,</i> 1845; <i>Zigzags,</i> -1845; <i>Le Tricorne Enchanté,</i> 1845; <i>La Turquie,</i> 1846.</p> - -<p><i>La Juive de Constantine, drama,</i> 1846; <i>Jean et Jeannette,</i> 1846; <i>Le -Roi Candaule,</i> 1847.</p> - -<p><i>Les Roués innocents,</i> 1847; <i>Histoire des Peintres,</i> 1847; <i>Regardez, -mais n'y touche pas,</i> 1847; <i>Les Fêtes de Madrid,</i> 1847; <i>Partie -carrée,</i> 1851; <i>Italia,</i> 1852; Les <i>Émaux et Camées,</i> 1852; L'Art -<i>Moderne,</i> 1859; <i>Les Beaux Arts</i> en <i>Europe,</i> 1852; <i>Caprices et -Zigzags,</i> 1852; Ario <i>Marcella,</i> 1852; Les <i>Beaux-arts en Europe,</i> -1855; <i>Constantinople,</i> 1854; <i>Théâtre de poche,</i> 1855; Le <i>Roman de la -Momie,</i> 1856; <i>Jettatura,</i> 1857; <i>Avatar</i>, 1857; <i>Sakountala, Ballet,</i> -1858; Honoré de Balzac, 1859; Les Fosses, 1860; <i>Trésors d'Art de -la Russie,</i>1860-1863; <i>Histoire de l'art théâtrale en France depuis -vingt-cinq ans,</i> 1860; Le <i>Capitaine Fracasse,</i> 1863; Les <i>Dieux et -les Demi-Dieux de la peintre,</i> 1863; <i>Poésies nouvelles,</i> 1863; <i>Loin -de Paris,</i> 1864; <i>La Belle Jenny,</i> 1864; <i>Voyage en Russie,</i> 1865; -<i>Spirite,</i> 1866; <i>Le Palais pompéien de l'Avenue Montaigne,</i> 1866; -<i>Rapport sur le progrès des Lettres,</i> 1868; <i>Ménagère intime,</i> 1869; -<i>La Nature chez Elle,</i> 1870; <i>Tableaux de Siege,</i> 1871; <i>Théâtre,</i> -1872; <i>Portraits Contemporaines,</i> 1874; <i>Histoire du Romantisme,</i> 1874; -<i>Portraits et Souvenirs littéraires,</i> 1875; <i>Poésies complètes,</i> 1876: -2 vols.; <i>L'Orient,</i> 1877; <i>Fusins et eaux-Fortes,</i> 1880; <i>Tableaux à -la Plume,</i> 1880; <i>Mademoiselle Daphné,</i> 1881; Guide de <i>l'Amateur au -Musés du Louvre.</i> 1882; <i>Souvenirs de Théâtre d'Art et de critique,</i> -1883.</p> - - - -<h5>GUSTAVE FLAUBERT</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center;">(1821-1880)</p> - -<p><i>Madame Bovary,</i> 1857; <i>Salammbô,</i> 1863; <i>La Tentation de Saint -Antoine,</i> 1874; <i>L'Education Sentimentale,</i> 1870; <i>Trois Contes,</i> -1877; <i>Bouvard et Pécuchet,</i> 1881; <i>Le Candidat,</i> 1874; <i>Par les -Champs et par les Grèves,</i> 1886; <i>Lettres à George Sand,</i> 1884; -<i>Correspondances,</i> 1887-1893.</p> - - - -<h5>CHARLES BAUDELAIRE</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center;">(1821-1867)</p> - -<p><i>Salon de</i> 1845, 1845; <i>Salon de</i> 1846, 1846; <i>Histoires -Extraordinaires, traduit de Poe,</i> 1856; <i>Nouvelle Histoires -Extraordinaires,</i> 1857; <i>Les Fleurs du Mal,</i> 1857; <i>Aventures d'Arthur -Gordon Pym (Poe),</i> 1858; <i>Théophile Gautier,</i> 1859; <i>Les Paradis -Artificiels: Opium et Haschisch,</i> 1860; <i>Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser -à Paris,</i>1861; <i>Euréka: Poe,</i>1864; <i>Histoires Grotesques: Poe,</i> 1865; -<i>Les Épaves de Charles Baudelaire,</i> 1866.</p> - - - -<h5>EDMOND and JULES DE GONCOURT</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center;">(1822-1896; 1830-1870)</p> - -<p><i>En</i> 18, 1851; <i>Salon de</i> 1852, 1852; <i>La Lorette,</i> 1853; <i>Mystères des -Théâtres,</i> 1853; <i>La revolution dans les Mœurs,</i> 1854; <i>Histoire -de la Société Française pendant la Revolution,</i> 1854; <i>Histoire de -la Société Française pendant la Directoire,</i> 1855; <i>Le Peinture à -l'Exposition de Paris de</i> 1855, 1855; <i>Une Voiture des Masques,</i> 1856; -<i>Les Actrices,</i> 1856; <i>Sophie Arnauld,</i> 1857; <i>Portraits intimes -du XVIII Siècle,</i> 1857-1858; <i>Histoire de Marie Antoinette,</i> 1858; -<i>L'Art du XVIII Siècle,</i> 1859-1875; <i>Les Hommes de Lettres,</i> 1860; -<i>Les Maîtresses de Louis VI,</i> 1860; <i>Sœur Philomène,</i> 1861; <i>Les -Femmes au XVIII Siècle,</i> 1864; <i>Renée Mauperin,</i> 1864; <i>Germinie -Lacerteux,</i> 1864; <i>Idées et Sensations,</i> 1860; <i>Manette Salomon,</i> -1867; <i>Madame Gervaisais,</i> 1869; <i>Gavarni,</i> 1873; <i>La Patrie en -Danger,</i> 1879; <i>L'Amour au XVIII Siècle,</i> 1873; <i>La du Barry,</i> 1875; -<i>Madame de Pompadour,</i> 1878; <i>La Duchesse de la Châteauroux,</i> 1879; -<i>Pages retrouvées,</i> 1886; <i>Journal des Goncourts,</i> 1887-1896, 9 Vols.; -<i>Préfaces et manifestes littéraires,</i> 1888; <i>L'Italie d'hier,</i> 1894; -<i>Edmond de Goncourt: Catalogue raisonée de l'œuvre peinte, dessiné -et gravé d'Antoine Watteau,</i> 1873; <i>Catalogue de l'œuvre de P. -Proudhon,</i> 1876; <i>La Fille Élisa,</i> 1879; <i>Les Frères Zemganno,</i> 1879; -<i>La Maison d'un Artiste,</i> 1881; <i>La Faustin,</i> 1882; <i>La Saint-Hubert,</i> -1882; <i>Chérie,</i> 1884; <i>Germinie Lacerteux, pièce,</i> 1888; <i>Mademoiselle -Clairon,</i> 1890; <i>Outamoro, le peintre des maisons vertes,</i> 1891; <i>La -Guimard,</i> 1893; <i>A bas le progrès,</i> 1893; <i>Hokouseï,</i> 1896.</p> - - - -<h5>VILLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center;">(1838-1889)</p> - -<p><i>Premières Poésies,</i>1859; <i>Isis,</i> 1862; <i>Elën,</i> 1864; <i>Morgane,</i> -1865; <i>Claire Lenoir</i>(in the <i>Revue des Lettres et des Arts),</i> -1867; <i>L'Evasion,</i> 1870; <i>La Révolte,</i> 1870; <i>Azraël,</i> 1878; <i>Le -Nouveau Monde,</i> 1880; <i>Contes Cruels,</i> 1880; <i>L'Eve Future,</i> 1886; -<i>Akëdysséril,</i> 1886; <i>L'Amour Suprême,</i> 1886; <i>Tribulat Bonhomet,</i> -1887; <i>Histoires Insolites,</i> 1888; <i>Nouveaux Contes Cruels,</i> 1889; -Axël, 1890; Chez les Passants, 1890; <i>Propos d'Au-delà,</i> 1893; -<i>Histoires Souveraines,</i> 1899 (a selection).</p> - -<p>Among works announced, but never published, it may be interesting -to mention: <i>Seid, William de Strally, Faust, Poésies Nouvelles -(Intermèdes; Gog; Ave, Mater Victa; Poésies diverses), La Tentation -sur la Montagne, Le Vieux de la Montagne, L'Adoration des Mages, -Méditations Littéraires, Mélanges, Théâtre</i> (2 vols.), <i>Documents sur -les Règnes de Charles VI. et de Charles VII., L'Illusionisme, De la -Connaissance de l'Utile, L'Exégèse Divine.</i></p> - -<p>A sympathetic, but slightly vague, Life of Villiers was written -by his cousin, Vicomte Robert du Pontavice de Heussey: <i>Villiers -de l'Isle-Adam,</i> 1893; it was translated into English by Lady -Mary Lloyd, 1894. See Verlaine's <i>Poètes Maudits,</i> 1884, and his -biography of Villiers in <i>Les Hommes d'Aujourd'hui,</i> the series of -penny biographies, with caricature portraits, published by Vanier; -also Mallarmé's <i>Villiers de l'Isle-Adam,</i> the reprint of a lecture -given at Brussels a few months after Villiers, death. <i>La Révolte</i> -was translated by Mrs. Theresa Barclay in the <i>Fortnightly Review,</i> -December, 1897, and acted in London by the New Stage Club in 1906. I -have translated a little poem, <i>Aveu,</i> from the interlude of verse in -the <i>Contes Cruels</i> called <i>Chant d'Amour,</i> in <i>Days and Nights,</i> 1889. -An article of mine, the first, I believe, to be written on Villiers -in English, appeared in the <i>Woman's World</i> in 1889; another in the -<i>Illustrated London News</i> in 1891.</p> - - - -<h5>LÉON CLADEL</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center;">(1835-1892)</p> - -<p><i>Les Martyrs Ridicules. Preface par Charles Baudelaire,</i> 1862; <i>Pierre -Patient,</i> 1862; <i>L'Amour Romantique,</i> 1882; <i>Le Deuxième Mystère de -l'Incarnation,</i> 1883; <i>Le Bouscassié,</i> 1889; <i>La Fête-Votive de Saint -Bartholomée Porte-Glaive,</i> 1872; <i>Les Vas-nu-Pieds,</i> 1874; <i>Celui de la -Croix-aux-Bœufs,</i> 1878; <i>Bonshommes,</i> 1879; <i>Ompdrailles Le Tombeau -des Lutteurs,</i> 1879; <i>N'a q'un Œil,</i> 1885; <i>Tity Foyssac IV,</i> 1886; -<i>Petits Chiens de Léon Cladel,</i> 1879; <i>Par Devant Notaire,</i> 1880; -<i>Crête-Rouge,</i> 1880; <i>Six Morceaux de la Littérature,</i> 1880; <i>Kerkades -Garde-Barrière,</i> 1884; <i>Urbains et Ruraux,</i> 1884; <i>Léon Cladel et -ses Kyrielle des Chiens,</i> 1885; <i>Héros et Pantins,</i> 1885; <i>Quelques -Sires,</i> 1885; <i>Mi-Diable,</i> 1886; <i>Gueux de Marque,</i> 1887; <i>Effigies -d'Inconnus,</i> 1888; <i>Raca,</i> 1888; <i>Seize Morceaux de Littérature,</i> 1889; -<i>L'ancien,</i> 1889; <i>Juive-Errante,</i> 1897.</p> - - - -<h5>EMILE ZOLA</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center;">(1840-1902)</p> - -<p>Les <i>Rougon-Macquart,</i> 1871-1893; <i>La Fortune des Rougons,</i> 1871; <i>La -Curée,</i> 1872; <i>Le Ventre de Paris,</i> 1873; <i>La Conquête de Pluisans,</i> -1874; <i>La Faute de l'abbé Mouret,</i> 1875; <i>Son Excellence Eugène -Rougon,</i> 1876; <i>L'Assommoir,</i> 1876; <i>Une Page d'Amour,</i> 1878; <i>Nana,</i> -1880; <i>Pot.-Bouille,</i> 1882; <i>Au Bonheur des Dames,</i> 1883; <i>La Joie de -Vivre,</i> 1884; <i>Madeleine Fer at,</i> 1885; <i>La Confession de Claude,</i> -1886; <i>Contes à Ninon,</i> 1891; <i>Nouveaux Contes à Ninon,</i> 1874; <i>Le -Capitaine Burle,</i> 1883; <i>La joie de vivre,</i> 1884; <i>Les Mystères de -Marseilles,</i> 1885; <i>Mes Haines,</i> 1866; <i>Le Roman Expérimental,</i> 1881; -<i>Nos Auteurs dramatiques,</i> 1881; <i>Documents littéraires,</i> 1881; <i>Une -Compagne,</i> 1882. <i>Théâtre: Thérèse Raquin, Les Héritiers Rabourdin, La -Bouton de Rose,</i> 1890; <i>L'Argent,</i> 1891; <i>L'Attaque du Moulin,</i> 1890; -<i>La Bête Humaine,</i> 1890; La <i>Débâcle,</i> 1892; <i>Le Doctor Pascal,</i> 1893; -<i>Germinie,</i> 1885; Mon Salon, 1886; Le <i>naturalisme au Théâtre,</i> 1889; -<i>L'Œuvre,</i> 1886; <i>Le Rêve,</i> 1892; <i>Paris</i>, 1898; <i>Rome,</i> 1896; -<i>Lourdes,</i> 1894; <i>Fécondité,</i> 1899; <i>Travail,</i> 1901; <i>Vérité</i>, 1903.</p> - - - -<h5>STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center;">(1842-1898)</p> - -<p><i>Le Corbeau</i> (traduit de Poe), 1875; <i>La Dernière Mode,</i> 1875; -L'<i>Après-Midi d'un Faune,</i> 1876; <i>Le Vathek de Beckford,</i> 1876; <i>Petite -Philologie à l'Usage des Classes et du Monde: Les Mots Anglais,</i> 1877; -<i>Poésies Complètes</i> (photogravées sur le manuscrit), 1887; <i>Les Poèmes -de Poe,</i> 1888; <i>Le Ten o'Clock de M. Whistler,</i> 1888; <i>Pages,</i> 1891; -<i>Les Miens: Villiers de l'Isle-Adam,</i> 1892; <i>Vers et Prose,</i> 1892; <i>La -Musique et les Lettres</i> (Oxford, Cambridge), 1894; <i>Divagations,</i> 1897; -<i>Poésies,</i> 1899.</p> - -<p>See, on this difficult subject, Edmund Gosse, <i>Questions at Issue,</i> -1893, in which will be found the first study of Mallarmé that appeared -in English; and Vittorio Pica, <i>Letteratura d'Eccezione,</i>1899, which -contains a carefully-documented study of more than a hundred pages. -There is a translation of the poem called "Fleurs" in Mr. John Gray's -<i>Silverpoints,</i>1893, and translations of "Hérodiade" and three shorter -poems will be found in the first volume of my collected poems. Several -of the poems in prose have been translated into English; my translation -of the "Plainte d'Automne," contained in this volume, was made in -momentary forgetfulness that the same poem in prose had already been -translated by Mr. George Moore in <i>Confessions of a Young Man.</i> Mr. -Moore also translated "Le Phénomène Futur" in the <i>Savoy,</i> July, 1896.</p> - - - -<h5><a id="PAUL_VERLAINE2"></a>PAUL VERLAINE</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center;">(1844-1896)</p> - -<p><i>Poèmes Saturniens,</i> 1866; <i>Fêtes Galantes,</i> 1869; <i>La Bonne Chanson,</i> -1870; <i>Romances sans Paroles,</i> 1874; <i>Sagesse,</i> 1881; <i>Les Poètes -Maudits,</i> 1884; <i>Jadis et Naguère,</i> 1884; <i>Les Mémoires d'un Veuf,</i> -1886; <i>Louise Leclercq</i> (suivi de <i>Le Poteau, Pierre Duchatelet, Madame -Aubin),</i> 1887; <i>Amour,</i> 1888; <i>Parallèlement,</i> 1889; <i>Dédicaces,</i> 1890; -<i>Bonheur,</i> 1891; <i>Mes Hôpitaux,</i> 1891; Chansons <i>pour Elle,</i> 1891; -<i>Liturgies Intimes,</i> 1892; <i>Mes Prisons,</i> 1893; <i>Odes en son Honneur,</i> -1893; <i>Elégies,</i> 1893; <i>Quinze Jours en Hollande,</i> 1894; <i>Dans les -Limbes,</i> 1894; <i>Epigrammes,</i> 1894; <i>Confessions,</i> 1895; <i>Chair</i>, 1896; -<i>Invectives,</i> 1896; <i>Voyage en France d'un Français</i> (posthumous), 1907.</p> - -<p>The complete works of Verlaine are now published in six volumes at -the Librairie Léon Vanier (now Messein); the text is very incorrectly -printed, and it is still necessary to refer to the earlier editions -in separate volumes. <i>A Choix de Poésies,</i>1891, with a preface by -François Coppée, and a reproduction of Carrière's admirable portrait, -is published in one volume by Charpentier; the series of <i>Hommes -d'Aujourd'hui</i> contains twenty-seven biographical notices by Verlaine; -and a considerable number of poems and prose articles exists, scattered -in various magazines, some of them English, such as the <i>Senate;</i> in -some cases the articles themselves are translated into English, such -as "My Visit to London," in the <i>Savoy</i> for April, 1896, and "Notes on -England: Myself as a French Master," and "Shakespeare and Racine," in -the <i>Fortnightly Review</i> for July, 1894, and September, 1894. The first -English translation in verse from Verlaine is Arthur O'Shaughnessy's -rendering of "Clair de Lune" in <i>Fêtes Galantes,</i> under the title -"Pastel," in <i>Songs of a Worker,</i> 1881. A volume of translations -in verse, <i>Poems of Verlaine,</i> by Gertrude Hall, was published in -America in 1895. In Mr. John Gray's <i>Silverpoints,</i> 1893, there are -translations of "Parsifal," "A Crucifix," "Le Chevalier Malheur," -"Spleen," "Clair de Lune," "Mon Dieu m'a dit," and "Green."</p> - -<p>As I have mentioned, there have been many portraits of Verlaine. The -three portraits drawn on lithographic paper by Mr. Rothenstein, and -published in 1898, are but the latest, if also among the best, of a -long series, of which Mr. Rothenstein himself has done two or three -others, one of which was reproduced in the <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i> in 1894, -when Verlaine was in London. M. F. A. Cazals, a young artist who was -one of Verlaine's most intimate friends, has done I should not like to -say how many portraits, some of which he has gathered together in a -little book, <i>Paul Verlaine: ses Portraits,</i> 1898. There are portraits -in nine of Verlaine's own books, several of them by M. Cazals (roughly -jotted, expressive notes of moments), one by M. Anquetin (a strong -piece of thinking flesh and blood), and in the <i>Choix de Poésies</i> there -is a reproduction of the cloudy, inspired poet of M. Eugène Carrière's -painting. Another portrait, which I have not seen, but which Verlaine -himself calls, in the <i>Dédicaces, un portrait enfin reposé,</i> was done -by M. Aman-Jean. M. Niederhausern has done a bust in bronze, Mr. -Rothenstein a portrait medallion. A new edition of the <i>Confessions,</i> -1899, contains a number of sketches; <i>Verlaine Dessinateur,</i> 1896, many -more; and there are yet others in the extremely objectionable book of -M. Charles Donos, <i>Verlaine Intime,</i> 1898. The <i>Hommes d'Aujourd'hui</i> -contains a caricature-portrait, many other portraits have appeared in -French and English and German and Italian magazines, and there is yet -another portrait in the admirable little book of Charles Morice, <i>Paul -Verlaine,</i> 1888, which contains by far the best study that has ever -been made of Verlaine as a poet. I believe Mr. George Moore's article, -"A Great Poet," reprinted in <i>Impressions and Opinions,</i> 1891, was the -first that was written on Verlaine in England; my own article in the -<i>National Review</i> in 1892 was, I believe, the first detailed study of -the whole of his work up to that date. At last, in the <i>Vie de Paul -Verlaine,</i> of Edmund Lepelletier, there has come the authentic record.</p> - -<p>An honest and instructed life of Verlaine has long been wanted, if only -as an antidote to the defamatory production called <i>Verlaine Intime,</i> -made up out of materials collected by the publisher Léon Vanier in -his own defense, in order that a hard taskmaster might be presented -to the world in the colours of a benefactor. A "legend" which may -well have seemed plausible to those who knew Verlaine only at the -end of his life, has obtained currency; and a comparison of Verlaine -with Villon, not only as a poet (which is to his honour), but also as -a man, has been made, and believed. Lepelletier's book is an exact -chronicle of a friendship which lasted, without a break, for thirty-six -years—that is, from the time when Verlaine was sixteen to the time -of his death; and a more sane, loyal and impartial chronicle of any -man's life we have never read. It is written with full knowledge of -every part of the career which it traces; and it is written by a man -who puts down whatever he knows exactly as he believes it to have -been. His conclusion is that "on peut fouiller sa vie au microscope: -on y reconnaîtra des fautes, des folies, des faiblesses, bien des -souffrances aussi, avec de la fatalité au fond, pas de honte véritable, -pas une vile et indigne action. Les vrais amis du poète peuvent donc -revendiquer pour lui l'épithete d'honnête homme, sans doute très -vulgaire, mais qui, aux yeux de certains, a encore du prix."</p> - -<p>In 1886 Verlaine dedicated <i>Les Mémoires d'un Veuf</i> to Lepelletier, -affirming the resolve, on his part, to "garder intacte la vielle amitié -si forte et si belle." The compact has been kept nobly by the survivor.</p> - -<p>It may, indeed, be questioned whether Lepelletier does not insist a -little too much on the bourgeois element which he finds in Verlaine. -When a man has suffered under unjust accusations, it is natural for -his friends to defend him under whatever aspect seems to them most -generally convincing. So it is interesting to know that for seven years -Verlaine was in a municipal office, the Bureau des Budgets et Comptes, -and that later, in 1882, he made an application, which was refused, -for leave to return to his former post. Lepelletier reproaches the -authorities for an action which he takes to have precipitated Verlaine -into the final misery of his vagabondage. He would have lived quietly, -he says, and written in security. Both assumptions may be doubted. What -was bourgeois, and contented with quiet, was a small part of the nature -of one who was too strong as well as too weak to remain within limits. -The terrible force of Verlaine's weakness would always, in the process -of making him a poet, have carried him far from that "tranquilité d'une -sinécure bureaucratique" which Lepelletier strangely regrets for him. -It is hardly permitted, in looking back over a disastrous life which -has expressed itself in notable poetry, to regret that the end should -have been attained, by no matter what means.</p> - -<p>On moral questions Lepelletier speaks with the authority of an intimate -friendship, and from a point of view which seems wholly without -prejudice. He defends Verlaine with evident conviction against the -most serious charges brought against him, and he shows at least, on -documentary evidence, that nothing of the darker part of his "legend" -was ever proved against him in any of his arrests and imprisonments. -Drink, and mad rages let loose by drink, account, ignobly enough, for -all of them. In the famous quarrel with Rimbaud, which brought him into -prison for eighteen months, the accusation reads:</p> - -<p>"Pour avoir, à Bruxelles, le 10 juillet, 1873, volontairement portés -des coups et fait des blessures ayant entraîné une incapacité de -travail personnel à Arthur Rimbaud."</p> - -<p>The whole account of this episode is given by M. Lepelletier in great -detail, and from this we learn that it was by the merest change of -mind on the part of Rimbaud, or by sudden treachery, that the matter -came into the courts at all. Lepelletier supplies an unfavourable -account of Rimbaud, whom he looks upon as the evil counsellor of -Verlaine—probably with justice. There is little doubt that Rimbaud, -apart from his genuine touch of precocious power, which had its -influence on the genius of Verlaine, was a "mauvais sujet" of a selfish -and mischievous kind. He was destructive and pitiless; and having done -his worst, he went off carelessly into Africa.</p> - -<p>It will surprise some readers to learn that Verlaine took his degree -of "bachelier-ès-lettres," and that on leaving the Lycée Bonaparte he -received a certificate placing him "au nombre des sujets distingués -que compte l'établissement." He was well grounded in Latin, and fairly -well in English, and at several intervals in his life attempted to -master Spanish, with the vague desire of translating Calderon. At an -early period he read French literature, classical and modern, with -avidity; translations of English, German and Eastern classics; books of -criticism and philosophy.</p> - -<p>"Il admirait beaucoup Joseph de Maîstre. <i>Le Rouge et le Noir</i> -de Stendhal avait produce sur lui une forte impression. Il avait -déniché, on ne sait où, une Vie de sainte Thérèse, qu'il lisait avec -ravissement."</p> - -<p>He was absorbed in Baudelaire, Gautier, Leconte de Lisle, Banville; he -read Pétrus Borel and Aloysius Bertrand. The only poem that remains -of this early period is the "Nocturne Parisien" of the <i>Poèmes -Saturniens,</i> which dates from about his twentieth year. Jules de -Goncourt defined it as "un beau poème sinistre mêlant comme une Morgue -à Notre-Dame." Baudelaire, as Sainte-Beuve, in a charming letter of -real appreciation, pointed out, is here the evident "point de départ, -pour aller au delà."</p> - -<p>The chapter in which Lepelletier tells the story of the origin of the -most famous literary movement since that of 1830, the "Parnasse," is -one of the most entertaining in the book, and gives, in its narrative -of the receptions "chez Nina" (a <i>salon</i> which Lepelletier describes -as the ancestor of the "Chat Noir"), a vivid picture of the days when -Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and François Coppée were beginners together. -Nina de Villars was one of the oddest people of her time: she made a -kind of private Bohemia for poets, musicians, all kinds of artists and -eccentric people, herself the most eccentric of them all. It was at her -house that the members of the "Parnasse" gathered, while they selected -as their more formal meeting-place the <i>salon</i> of Madame Ricard. It is -not generally known that Verlaine's <i>Poèmes Saturniens</i> was the third -volume to be issued by the house of Lemerre, afterwards to become a -famous "publisher of poets," and it was in this volume that the new -laws of the Parnasse were first formulated—that impassivity, that -"marble egoism," which Verlaine was so soon to reject for a more living -impulse, but which neither Leconte de Lisle nor Héredia was ever to -abandon. When one thinks of the later Verlaine, it is curious to turn -to that first formula:</p> - -<p> -Est-elle en marvre où non, le Vénus de Milo?<br /> -</p> - -<p>Verlaine's verse suddenly becomes human with <i>La Bonne Chanson,</i> though -the humanity in it is not yet salted as with fire. It is the record of -the event which, as Lepelletier says, dominated his whole life; the -marriage with Mathilde Maute, the young girl with whom he had fallen in -love at first sight, and whose desertion of him, however explicable, -he never forgot nor forgave. Nothing could be more just or delicate -than Lepelletier's treatment of the whole situation and there is no -doubt that he is right in saying that the young wife "eût une grande -responsabilité dans les désordres de l'existence désorbitée du poète." -Verlaine, as he says, "était bon, aimant, et c'était comme un souffrant -qu'il fallait le traiter." "Vous n'avez rien compris à ma simplicité," -he wrote long afterwards, addressing the woman of whom Lepelletier -says, "Il l'aima toujours, il n'aima qu'elle."</p> - -<p>With his marriage Verlaine's disasters begin. Rimbaud enters his life -and turns the current of it; the vagabondage begins, in France and -England, and the letters written from London are among the most vivid -documents in the book: thumbnail sketches full of keen observation. -Then comes his imprisonment and conversion to Catholicism. Here -Lepelletier, while he gives us an infinity of details which he alone -could give, adopts an attitude which we cannot think to be justified, -and which, as a matter of fact, Verlaine protested against during -his lifetime. "Cette conversion fut-elle profonde et véridique?" he -asks; and he answers, "Je ne le crois pas." That his conversion had -much influence on Verlaine's conduct cannot be contended, but conduct -and belief are two different things. Sincerity of the moment was his -fundamental characteristic, but the moments made and remade his moods -in their passing. The religion of <i>Sagesse</i> is not the less genuine -because that grave and sacred book was followed by the revolt of -<i>Parallèment.</i> Verlaine tried to explain—in the poems themselves, in -prefaces, and in conversation with friends—how natural it was to sin -and to repent, and to use the same childlike words in the immediate -rendering of sin and of repentance. This <i>naïveté,</i> which made any -regular existence an impossibility, was a part of him which gave a -quality to his work unlike that of any other poet of our time. At -the end of his life hardly anything but the <i>naïvetê</i> was left, and -the poems became mere outcries and gestures. Lepelletier is justly -indignant at the action of Vanier in publishing after Verlaine's -deaths the collection called <i>Invectives,</i> made up of scraps and -impromptus which the poet certainly never intended to publish. Here we -see part of the weakness of a great man, who becomes petty when he puts -off his true character and tries to be angry. "J'ai la fureur d'aimer," -he says somewhere, and there is no essential part of his work which is -not the expression of some form of love, grotesque or heroic, human or -divine.</p> - -<p>Of all this later, more and more miserable part of the life of -Verlaine, Lepelletier has less to tell us. It has been sufficiently -commented on, not always by friendly or understanding witnesses. What -we get in this book, for the first time, is a view of the life as a -whole, with all that is beautiful, tragic, and desperate in it. It is -not an apology: it is a statement. It not only does honor to a great -and unhappy man of genius; it does him justice.</p> - - - -<h5>JORIS-KARL HUYSMANS</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center;">(1848-1907)</p> - -<p>Le <i>Drageoir à épices,</i> 1874; <i>Marthe: Histoire d'une Fille,</i> 1876; -<i>Les Sœurs Vatard,</i> 1879; <i>Croquis Parisiens,</i> 1880; <i>En Ménage,</i> -1881; <i>A Vau-l'Eau,</i> 1882; <i>L'Art Moderne,</i> 1883; <i>A Rebours,</i> 1884; -<i>Un Dilemme,</i> 1887; <i>En Rade,</i> 1887; <i>Certains,</i>1889; <i>La Bièvre,</i>1890; -<i>Là-Bas,</i> 1891; <i>En Route,</i> 1895; La <i>Cathédrale,</i> 1898; <i>La Bièvre -Saint-Séverin,</i> 1898; Pages <i>Catholiques,</i> 1900; Sainte <i>Lydwine de -Schiedam,</i> 1901; De Tout, 1902; L'Oblat, 1903; Trois <i>Primitifs,</i> -1905; Les Foules de <i>Lourdes,</i> 1906; See also the short story, <i>Sac -au Dos,</i> in the <i>Soirées de Médan,</i> 1880, and the pantomime, <i>Pierrot -Sceptique,</i> 1881, in collaboration with Léon Hennique. <i>En Route</i> was -translated into English by Mr. Kegan Paul, in 1896; and <i>La Cathédrale</i> -by Miss Clara Bell, in 1898.</p> - - - -<h5>ARTHUR RIMBAUD</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center;">(1854-1891)</p> - -<p><i>Une Saison en Enfer,</i> 1873; <i>Les Illuminations,</i> 1886; <i>Reliquaire,</i> -1891 (containing several poems falsely attributed to Rimbaud); <i>Les -Illuminations: Une Saison en Enfer,</i> 1892; <i>Poésies Complètes,</i> 1895; -<i>Œuvres,</i> 1898.</p> - -<p>See also Paterne Berrichon, <i>La Vie de Jean-Arthur Rimbaud,</i> 1898, -and <i>Lettres de Jean-Arthur Rimbaud,</i> 1899; Paul Verlaine, <i>Les -Poètes Maudits,</i>1884, and the biography by Verlaine in <i>Les Hommes -d'Aujourd'hui.</i> Mr. George Moore was the first to write about -Rimbaud in England, in "Two Unknown Poets" (Rimbaud and Laforgue) in -<i>Impressions and Opinions,</i> 1891. In Mr. John Gray's <i>Silverpoints,</i> -1893, there are translations of "Charleville" and "Sensation." The -latter, and "Les Chercheuses de Poux," are translated by Mr. T. Sturge -Moore in <i>The Vinedresser, and other Poems,</i> 1899.</p> - - - -<h5>JULES LAFORGUE</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center;">(1860-1887)</p> - -<p><i>Les Complaintes,</i> 1885; <i>L'Imitation de Notre-Dame la Lune,</i> 1886; -<i>Le Concile Féerique,</i> 1886; <i>Moralités Légendaires,</i> 1887; <i>Derniers -Vers,</i> 1890 (a privately printed volume, containing <i>Des Fleurs de -Bonne Volonté, Le Concile Féerique,</i> and <i>Derniers Vers); Poésies -Complètes,</i> 1894; <i>Œuvres Complètes, Poésies, Moralités Légendaires, -Mélanges Posthumes</i> (3 vols.), 1902, 1903.</p> - -<p>An edition of the <i>Moralités Légendaires</i> was published in 1897, under -the care of M. Lucien Pissarro, at the Sign of the Dial; it is printed -in Mr. Ricketts' admirable type, and makes one of the most beautiful -volumes issued in French during this century. In 1896 M. Camille -Mauclair, with his supple instinct for contemporary values, wrote -a study, or rather an eulogy, of Laforgue, to which M. Maeterlinck -contributed a few searching and delicate words by way of preface.</p> - - - -<h5>MAURICE MAETERLINCK</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center;">(1862)</p> - -<p><i>Serres Chaudes,</i> 1889; <i>La Princesse Maleine,</i> 1890; <i>Les Aveugles -(L'Intruse, Les Aveugles),</i> 1890; <i>L'Ornement des Noces Spirituelles, -de Ruysbroeck l'Admirable,</i> 1891; <i>Les Sept Princesses,</i> 1891; <i>Pelléas -et Mélisande,</i> 1892; <i>Alladine et Palomides, Intérieur, La Mort de -Tintagiles,</i> 1894; <i>Annabella, de John Ford,</i> 1895; <i>Les Disciples à -Sais et les Fragments de Novalis,</i> 1895; <i>Le Trésor des Humbles,</i> 1896; -<i>Douze Chansons,</i> 1896; <i>Aglavaine et Sélysette,</i> 1896; <i>La Sagesse et -la Destinée,</i> 1898; <i>Théâtre,</i> 1901 (3 vols.); <i>La Vie des Abeilles,</i> -1901; <i>Monna Vanna,</i> 1902; <i>Le Temple Enseveli,</i> 1902; <i>Joyzelle,</i> -1903; <i>Le Double Jardin,</i> 1904; <i>L'Intelligence des Fleurs,</i> 1907.</p> - -<p>M. Maeterlinck has had the good or bad fortune to be more promptly, -and more violently, praised at the beginning of his career than at all -events any other writer of whom I have spoken in this volume. His fame -in France was made by a flaming article of M. Octave Mirbeau in the -<i>Figaro</i> of August 24, 1890. M. Mirbeau greeted him as the "Belgian -Shakepeare," and expressed his opinion of <i>La Princesse Maleine</i> by -saying "M. Maeterlinck has given us the greatest work of genius that -has been produced in our time, and the most extraordinary and the most -naïve too, comparable (dare I say?) superior in beauty to what is -most beautiful in Shakespeare ... more tragic than <i>Macbeth,</i> more -extraordinary in thought than <i>Hamlet."</i> Mr. William Archer introduced -M. Maeterlinck to England in an article called "A Pessimist Playwright" -in the <i>Fortnightly Review,</i> September, 1891. Less enthusiastic than -M. Mirbeau, he defined the author of <i>La Princesse Maleine</i> as "a -Webster who had read Alfred de Musset." A freely adapted version of -<i>L'Intruse</i> was given by Mr. Tree at the Haymarket Theatre, January -27, 1892, and since that time many of M. Maeterlinck's plays have been -acted, without cuts, or with but few cuts, at various London theatres. -Several of his books have also been translated into English: <i>The -Princesse Maleine</i> (by Gerard Harry) and <i>The Intruder</i> (by William -Wilson), 1892; <i>Pelléas and Mélisande</i> and <i>The Sightless</i> (by Laurence -Alma-Tadema), 1892; <i>Ruysbroeck and the Mystics</i> (by J. T. Stoddart), -1894; <i>The Treasure of the Humble</i> (by A. Sutro), 1897; <i>Aglavaine and -Sélysette</i> (by A. Sutro), 1897; <i>Wisdom and Destiny</i> (by A. Sutro), -1898; <i>Alladine and Palomides</i> (by A. Sutro), <i>Interior</i> (by William -Archer), and <i>The Death of Tintagiles</i> (by A. Sutro), 1899.</p> - -<p>I have spoken, in this volume, chiefly of Maeterlinck's essays, and -but little of his plays, and I have said all that I had to say without -special reference to the second volume of essays, <i>La Sagesse et la -Destinée.</i> Like <i>Le Trésor des Humbles,</i> that book is a message, a -doctrine, even more than it is a piece of literature. It is a treatise -on wisdom and happiness, on the search for happiness because it is -wisdom, not for wisdom because it is happiness. It is a book of patient -and resigned philosophy, a very Flemish philosophy, more resigned than -even <i>Le Trésor des Humbles.</i> In a sense it seems to aim less high. -An ecstatic mysticism has given way to a kind of prudence. Is this -coming nearer to the earth really an intellectual ascent or descent? -At least it is a divergence, and it probably indicates a divergence in -art as well as in meditation. Yet, while it is quite possible to at -least indicate Maeterlinck's position as a philosopher, it seems to me -premature to attempt to define his position as a dramatist. Interesting -as his dramatic work has always been, there is, in the later dramas, -so singular an advance in all the qualities that go to make great -art, that I find it impossible at this stage of his development, -to treat his dramatic work as in any sense the final expression of -a personality. What the next stage of his development may be it is -impossible to say. He will not write more beautiful dramas than he has -written in <i>Aglavaine et Sélysette</i> and in <i>Pelléas et Mêlisande.</i> -But he may, and he probably will, write something which will move -the general world more profoundly, touching it more closely, in the -manner of the great writers, in whom beauty has not been more beautiful -than in writers less great, but has come to men with a more splendid -energy.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="TRANSLATIONS" id="TRANSLATIONS">TRANSLATIONS</a></h4> - - - -<p style="margin-left: 15%;"><i>From Stéphane Mallarmé</i></p> - - -<p style="margin-left: 15%;"> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">I. HÉRODIADE</span><br /> -<br /> -<span class="smcap">Herodiade.</span><br /> -<br /> -To mine own self I am a wilderness.<br /> -You know it, amethyst gardens numberless<br /> -Enfolded in the flaming, subtle deep,<br /> -Strange gold, that through the red earth's heavy sleep<br /> -Has cherished ancient brightness like a dream,<br /> -Stones whence mine eyes, pure jewels, have their gleam<br /> -Of icy and melodious radiance, you,<br /> -Metals, which into my young tresses drew<br /> -A fatal splendour and their manifold grace!<br /> -Thou, woman, born into these evil days<br /> -Disastrous to the cavern sibylline,<br /> -Who speakest, prophesying not of one divine,<br /> -But of a mortal, if from that close sheath,<br /> -My robes, rustle the wild enchanted breath<br /> -In the white quiver of my nakedness,<br /> -In the warm air of summer, O prophetess,<br /> -(And woman's body obeys that ancient claim)<br /> -Behold me in my shivering starry shame,<br /> -I die!<br /> -The horror of my virginity<br /> -Delights me, and I would envelop me<br /> -In the terror of my tresses, that, by night,<br /> -Inviolate reptile, I might feel the white<br /> -And glimmering radiance of thy frozen fire,<br /> -Thou that art chaste and diest of desire,<br /> -White night of ice and of the cruel snow!<br /> -Eternal sister, my lone sister, lo<br /> -My dreams uplifted before thee! now, apart,<br /> -So rare a crystal is my dreaming heart,<br /> -I live in a monotonous land alone,<br /> -And all about me lives but in mine own<br /> -Image, the idolatrous mirror of my pride,<br /> -Mirroring this Hérodiade diamond-eyed.<br /> -I am indeed alone, O charm and curse!<br /> -<br /> -<span class="smcap">Nurse.</span><br /> -<br /> -O lady, would you die then?<br /> -<br /> -<span class="smcap">Herodiade.</span><br /> -<br /> -No, poor nurse;<br /> -Be calm, and leave me; prithee, pardon me,<br /> -But, ere thou go, close to the casement; see<br /> -How the seraphical blue in the dim glass smiles,<br /> -But I abhor the blue of the sky! Yet miles<br /> -On miles of rocking waves! Know'st not a land<br /> -Where, in the pestilent sky, men see the hand<br /> -Of Venus, and her shadow in dark leaves?<br /> -Thither I go.<br /> -Light thou the wax that grieves<br /> -In the swift flame, and sheds an alien tear<br /> -Over the vain gold; wilt not say in mere<br /> -Childishness?<br /> -<br /> -<span class="smcap">Nurse.</span><br /> -<br /> -Now?<br /> -<br /> -<span class="smcap">Herodiade.</span><br /> -<br /> -Farewell. You lie, O flower<br /> -Of these chill lips!<br /> -I wait the unknown hour,<br /> -Or, deaf to your crying and that hour supreme,<br /> -Utter the lamentation of the dream<br /> -Of childhood seeing fall apart in sighs<br /> -The icy chaplet of its reveries.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">II. SIGH</span><br /> -<br /> -My soul, calm sister, towards thy brow, whereon scarce grieves<br /> -An autumn strewn already with its russet leaves,<br /> -And towards the wandering sky of thine angelic eyes,<br /> -Mounts, as in melancholy gardens may arise<br /> -Some faithful fountain sighing whitely towards the blue!<br /> -Towards the blue pale and pure that sad October knew,<br /> -When, in those depths, it mirrored languors infinité,<br /> -And agonising leaves upon the waters white,<br /> -Windily drifting, traced a furrow cold and dun,<br /> -Where, in one long last ray, lingered the yellow sun.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">III. SEA-WIND</span><br /> -<br /> -The flesh is sad, alas! and all the books are read.<br /> -Flight, only flight! I feel that birds are wild to tread<br /> -The floor of unknown foam, and to attain the skies!<br /> -Nought, neither ancient gardens mirrored in the eyes,<br /> -Shall hold this heart that bathes in waters its delight,<br /> -O nights! nor yet my waking lamp, whose lonely light<br /> -Shadows the vacant paper, whiteness profits best,<br /> -Nor the young wife who rocks her baby on her breast.<br /> -I will depart! O steamer, swaying rope and spar,<br /> -Lift anchor for exotic lands that lie afar!<br /> -A weariness, outworn by cruel hopes, still clings<br /> -To the last farewell handkerchief's last beckonings!<br /> -And are not these, the masts inviting storms, not these<br /> -That an awakening wind bends over wrecking seas,<br /> -Lost, not a sail, a sail, a flowering isle, ere long?<br /> -But, O my heart, hear thou, hear thou the sailors' song!<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">IV. ANGUISH</span><br /> -<br /> -To-night I do not come to conquer thee,<br /> -O Beast that dost the sins of the whole world bear,<br /> -Nor with my kisses' weary misery<br /> -Wake a sad tempest in thy wanton hair;<br /> -It is that heavy and that dreamless sleep<br /> -I ask of the close curtains of thy bed,<br /> -Which, after all thy treacheries, folds thee deep,<br /> -Who knowest oblivion better than the dead.<br /> -For Vice, that gnaws with keener tooth than Time,<br /> -Brands me as thee, of barren conquest proud;<br /> -But while thou guardest in thy breast of stone<br /> -A heart that fears no fang of any crime,<br /> -I wander palely, haunted by my shroud,<br /> -Fearing to die if I but sleep alone.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<i>From Paul Verlaine: Fêtes Galantes</i><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">I. CLAIR DE LUNE</span><br /> -<br /> -Your soul is a sealed garden, and there go<br /> -With masque and bergamasque fair companies<br /> -Playing on lutes and dancing and as though<br /> -Sad under their fantastic fripperies.<br /> -<br /> -Though they in minor keys go carolling<br /> -Of love the conqueror and of life the boon<br /> -They seem to doubt the happiness they sing<br /> -And the song melts into the light of the moon,<br /> -<br /> -The sad light of the moon, so lovely fair<br /> -That all the birds dream in the leafy shade<br /> -And the slim fountains sob into the air<br /> -Among the marble statues in the glade.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">II. PANTOMIME</span><br /> -<br /> -Pierrot, no sentimental swain,<br /> -Washes a paté down again<br /> -With furtive flagons, white and red.<br /> -<br /> -Cassandre, with demure content,<br /> -Greets with a tear of sentiment<br /> -His nephew disinherited.<br /> -<br /> -That blackguard of a Harlequin<br /> -Pirouettes, and plots to win<br /> -His Columbine that flits and flies.<br /> -<br /> -Columbine dreams, and starts to find<br /> -A sad heart sighing in the wind,<br /> -And in her heart a voice that sighs.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">III. SUR L'HERBE</span><br /> -<br /> -The Abbé wanders.—Marquis, now<br /> -Set straight your periwig, and speak!<br /> -—This Cyprus wine is heavenly, how<br /> -Much less, Camargo, than your cheek!<br /> -<br /> -—My goddess ...—Do, mi, sol, la, si.<br /> -—Abbé, such treason who'll forgive you?<br /> -—May I die, ladies, if there be<br /> -A star in heaven I will not give you!<br /> -<br /> -—I'd be my lady's lapdog; then ...<br /> -—Shepherdess, kiss your shepherd soon,<br /> -Shepherd, come kiss ...—Well, gentlemen?<br /> -—Do, mi, so.—Hey, good-night, good moon!<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">IV. L'ALLÉE</span><br /> -<br /> -As in the age of shepherd king and queen,<br /> -Painted and frail amid her nodding bows,<br /> -Under the sombre branches and between<br /> -The green and mossy garden-ways she goes,<br /> -With little mincing airs one keeps to pet<br /> -A darling and provoking perroquet.<br /> -Her long-trained robe is blue, the fan she holds<br /> -With fluent fingers girt with heavy rings,<br /> -So vaguely hints of vague erotic things<br /> -That her eye smiles, musing among its folds.<br /> -—Blonde too, a tiny nose, a rosy mouth,<br /> -Artful as that sly patch that makes more sly,<br /> -In her divine unconscious pride of youth,<br /> -The slightly simpering sparkle of the eye.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">V. A LA PROMENADE</span><br /> -<br /> -The sky so pale, and the trees, such frail things,<br /> -Seem as if smiling on our bright array<br /> -That flits so light and gay upon the way<br /> -With indolent airs and fluttering as of wings.<br /> -<br /> -The fountain wrinkles under a faint wind,<br /> -And all the sifted sunlight falling through<br /> -The lime-trees of the shadowy avenue<br /> -Comes to us blue and shadowy-pale and thinned.<br /> -<br /> -Faultlessly fickle, and yet fond enough,<br /> -With fonds hearts not too tender to be free,<br /> -We wander whispering deliciously,<br /> -And every lover leads a lady-love,<br /> -<br /> -Whose imperceptible and roguish hand<br /> -Darts now and then a dainty tap, the lip<br /> -Revenges on an extreme finger-tip,<br /> -The tip of the left little finger, and,<br /> -<br /> -The deed being so excessive and uncouth,<br /> -A duly freezing look deals punishment,<br /> -That in the instant of the act is blent<br /> -With a shy pity pouting in the mouth.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">VI. DANS LA GROTTE</span><br /> -<br /> -Stay, let me die, since I am true,<br /> -For my distress will not delay,<br /> -And the Hyrcanian tigress ravening for prey<br /> -Is as a little lamb to you.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -Yes, here within, cruel Clymène,<br /> -This steel which in how many wars<br /> -How many a Cyrus slew, or Scipio, now prepares<br /> -To end my life and end my pain.<br /> -<br /> -But nay, what need of steel have I<br /> -To haste my passage to the shades?<br /> -Did not Love pierce my heart, beyond all mortal aids,<br /> -With the first arrow of your eye?<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">VII. LES INGENUS</span><br /> -<br /> -High heels and long skirts intercepting them,<br /> -So that, according to the wind or way,<br /> -An ankle peeped and vanished as in play;<br /> -And well we loved the malice of the game.<br /> -<br /> -Sometimes an insect with its jealous sting<br /> -Some fair one's whiter neck disquieted,<br /> -From which the gleams of sudden whiteness shed<br /> -Met in our eyes a frolic welcoming.<br /> -<br /> -The stealthy autumn evening faded out,<br /> -And the fair creatures dreaming by our side<br /> -Words of such subtle savour to us sighed<br /> -That since that time our souls tremble and doubt.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">VIII. CORTÈGE</span><br /> -<br /> -A silver-vested monkey trips<br /> -And pirouettes before the face<br /> -Of one who twists a kerchief's lace<br /> -Between her well-gloved finger-tips.<br /> -<br /> -A little negro, a red elf,<br /> -Carries her dropping train, and holds<br /> -At arm's length all the heavy folds,<br /> -Watching each fold displace itself.<br /> -<br /> -The monkey never lets his eyes<br /> -Wander from the fair woman's breast,<br /> -White wonder that to be possessed<br /> -Would call a god out of the skies.<br /> -<br /> -Sometimes the little negro seems<br /> -To lift his sumptuous burden up<br /> -Higher than need be, in the hope<br /> -Of seeing what all night he dreams.<br /> -<br /> -She goes by corridor and stair,<br /> -Still to the insolent appeals<br /> -Of her familiar animals<br /> -Indifferent or unaware.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">IX. LES COQUILLAGES</span><br /> -<br /> -Each shell incrusted in the grot<br /> -Where we two loved each other well<br /> -An aspect of its own has got.<br /> -<br /> -The purple of a purple shell<br /> -Is our souls' colour when they make<br /> -Our burning heart's blood visible.<br /> -<br /> -This pallid shell affects to take<br /> -Thy languors, when thy love-tired eyes<br /> -Rebuke me for my mockery's sake.<br /> -<br /> -This counterfeits the harmonies<br /> -Of thy pink ear, and this might be<br /> -Thy plump short nape with rosy dyes.<br /> -<br /> -But one, among these, troubled me.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">X. EN PATINANT</span><br /> -<br /> -We were the victims, you and I,<br /> -Madame, of mutual self deceits;<br /> -And that which set our brains awry<br /> -May well have been the summer heats.<br /> -<br /> -And the spring too, if I recall,<br /> -Contributed to spoil our play,<br /> -And yet its share, I think, was small<br /> -In leading you and me astray.<br /> -<br /> -For air in springtime is so fresh<br /> -That rose-buds Love has surely meant<br /> -To match the roses of the flesh<br /> -Have odours almost innocent;<br /> -<br /> -And even the lilies that outpour<br /> -Their biting odours where the sun<br /> -Is new in heaven, do but the more<br /> -Enliven and enlighten one,<br /> -<br /> -So stealthily the zephyr blows<br /> -A mocking breath that renders back<br /> -The heart's rest and the soul's repose<br /> -And the flower's aphrodisiac,<br /> -<br /> -And the five senses, peeping out,<br /> -Take up their station at the feast,<br /> -But, being by themselves, without<br /> -Troubling the reason in the least.<br /> -<br /> -That was the time of azure skies,<br /> -(Madame, do you remember it?)<br /> -And sonnets to my lady's eyes,<br /> -And cautious kisses not too sweet.<br /> -<br /> -Free from all passion's idle pother,<br /> -Full of mere kindliness, how long,<br /> -How well we liked not loved each other,<br /> -Without one rapture or one wrong!<br /> -<br /> -Ah, happy hours! But summer came:<br /> -Farewell, fresh breezes of the spring!<br /> -A wind of pleasure like a flame<br /> -Leapt on our senses wondering.<br /> -<br /> -Strange flowers, fair crimson-hearted flowers<br /> -Poured their ripe odours over us,<br /> -And evil voices of the hours<br /> -Whispered above us in the boughs.<br /> -<br /> -We yielded to it all, ah me!<br /> -What vertigo of fools held fast<br /> -Our senses in its ecstasy<br /> -Until the heat of summer passed?<br /> -<br /> -There were vain tears and vainer laughter,<br /> -And hands indefinitely pressed,<br /> -Moist sadnesses, and swoonings after,<br /> -And what vague void within the breast?<br /> -<br /> -But autumn came to our relief,<br /> -Its light grown cold, its gusts grown rough,<br /> -Came to remind us, sharp and brief,<br /> -That we had wantoned long enough,<br /> -<br /> -And led us quickly to recover<br /> -The elegance demanded of<br /> -Every quite irreproachable lover<br /> -And every seemly lady-love.<br /> -<br /> -Now it is winter, and, alas,<br /> -Our backers tremble for their stake;<br /> -Already other sledges pass<br /> -And leave us toiling in their wake.<br /> -<br /> -Put both your hands into your muff,<br /> -Sit back, now, steady! off we go.<br /> -Fanchon will tell us soon enough<br /> -Whatever news there is to know.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">XI. FANTOCHES</span><br /> -<br /> -Scaramouche waves a threatening hand<br /> -To Pulcinella, and they stand,<br /> -Two shadows, black against the moon.<br /> -<br /> -The old doctor of Bologna pries<br /> -For simples with impassive eyes,<br /> -And mutters o'er a magic rune.<br /> -<br /> -The while his daughter, scarce half-dressed,<br /> -Glides slyly 'neath the trees, in quest<br /> -Of her bold pirate lover's sail;<br /> -<br /> -Her pirate from the Spanish main,<br /> -Whose passion thrills her in the pain<br /> -Of the loud languorous nightingale.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">XII. CYTHÈRE</span><br /> -<br /> -By favourable breezes fanned,<br /> -A trellised harbour is at hand<br /> -To shield us from the summer airs;<br /> -<br /> -The scent of roses, fainting sweet,<br /> -Afloat upon the summer heat,<br /> -Blends with the perfume that she wears.<br /> -<br /> -True to the promise her eyes gave,<br /> -She ventures all, and her mouth rains<br /> -A dainty fever through my veins;<br /> -<br /> -And, Love fulfilling all things, save<br /> -Hunger, we 'scape, with sweets and ices,<br /> -The folly of Love's sacrifices.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">XIII. EN BATEAU</span><br /> -<br /> -The shepherd's star with trembling glint<br /> -Drops in black water; at the hint<br /> -The pilot fumbles for his flint.<br /> -<br /> -Now is the time or never, sirs.<br /> -No hand that wanders wisely errs:<br /> -I touch a hand, and is it hers?<br /> -<br /> -The knightly Atys strikes the strings,<br /> -And to the faithless Chloris flings<br /> -A look that speaks of many things.<br /> -<br /> -The abbé has absolved again<br /> -Eglé, the viscount all in vain<br /> -Has given his hasty heart the rein.<br /> -<br /> -Meanwhile the moon is up and streams<br /> -Upon the skiff that flies and seems<br /> -To float upon a tide of dreams.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">XIV. LE FAUNE</span><br /> -<br /> -An aged faun of old red clay-Laughs<br /> -from the grassy bowling-green,<br /> -Foretelling doubtless some decay<br /> -Of mortal moments so serene<br /> -<br /> -That lead us lightly on our way<br /> -(Love's piteous pilgrims have we been!)<br /> -To this last hour that runs away<br /> -Dancing to the tambourine.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">XV. MANDOLINE</span><br /> -<br /> -The singers of serenades<br /> -Whisper their faded vows<br /> -Unto fair listening maids<br /> -Under the singing boughs.<br /> -<br /> -Tircis, Aminte, are there,<br /> -Clitandre has waited long,<br /> -And Damis for many a fair<br /> -Tyrant makes many a song.<br /> -<br /> -Their short vests, silken and bright,<br /> -Their long pale silken trains,<br /> -Their elegance of delight,<br /> -Twine soft blue silken chains.<br /> -<br /> -And the mandolines and they,<br /> -Faintlier breathing, swoon<br /> -Into the rose and grey<br /> -Ecstasy of the moon.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">XVI. A CLYMÈNE</span><br /> -<br /> -Mystical strains unheard,<br /> -A song without a word,<br /> -Dearest, because thine eyes,<br /> -Pale as the skies,<br /> -<br /> -Because thy voice, remote<br /> -As the far clouds that float<br /> -Veiling for me the whole<br /> -Heaven of the soul,<br /> -<br /> -Because the stately scent<br /> -Of thy swan's whiteness, blent<br /> -With the white lily's bloom<br /> -Of thy perfume,<br /> -<br /> -Ah! because thy dear love,<br /> -The music breathed above<br /> -By angels halo-crowned,<br /> -Odour and sound,<br /> -<br /> -Hath, in my subtle heart,<br /> -With some mysterious art<br /> -Transposed thy harmony,<br /> -So let it be!<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">XVII. LETTRE</span><br /> -<br /> -Far from your sight removed by thankless cares<br /> -(The gods are witness when a lover swears)<br /> -I languish and I die, Madame, as still<br /> -My use is, which I punctually fulfil,<br /> -And go, through heavy-hearted woes conveyed,<br /> -Attended ever by your lovely shade,<br /> -By day in thought, by night in dreams of hell,<br /> -And day and night, Madame, adorable!<br /> -So that at length my dwindling body lost<br /> -In very soul, I too become a ghost,<br /> -I too, and in the lamentable stress<br /> -Of vain desires remembering happiness,<br /> -Remembered kisses, now, alas, unfelt,<br /> -My shadow shall into your shadow melt.<br /> -<br /> -Meanwhile, dearest, your most obedient slave.<br /> -<br /> -How does the sweet society behave,<br /> -Thy cat, thy dog, thy parrot? and is she<br /> -Still, as of old, the black-eyed Silvanie<br /> -(I had loved black eyes if thine had not been blue)<br /> -Who ogled me at moments, palsambleu!<br /> -<br /> -Thy tender friend and thy sweet confidant?<br /> -One dream there is, Madame, long wont to haunt<br /> -This too impatient heart: to pour the earth<br /> -And all its treasures (of how little worth!)<br /> -Before your feet as tokens of a love<br /> -Equal to the most famous flames that move<br /> -The hearts of men to conquer all but death.<br /> -Cleopatra was less loved, yes, on my faith,<br /> -By Antony or Cæsar than you are,<br /> -Madame, by me, who truly would by far<br /> -Out-do the deeds of Cæsar for a smile,<br /> -O Cleopatra, queen of word and wile,<br /> -Or, for a kiss, take flight with Antony<br /> -<br /> -With this, farewell, dear, and no more from me;<br /> -How can the time it takes to read it, quite<br /> -Be worth the trouble that it took to write?<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">XVIII. LES INDOLENTS</span><br /> -<br /> -Bah! spite of Fate, that says us nay,<br /> -Suppose we die together, eh?<br /> -—A rare conclusion you discover<br /> -<br /> -—What's rare is good. Let us die so,<br /> -Like lovers in Boccaccio.<br /> -—Ha! ha! ha! you fantastic lover!<br /> -<br /> -—Nay, not fantastic. If you will,<br /> -Fond, surely irreproachable.<br /> -Suppose, then, that we die together?<br /> -<br /> -—Good sir, your jests are fitlier told<br /> -Than when you speak of love or gold.<br /> -Why speak at all, in this glad weather?<br /> -<br /> -Whereat, behold them once again,<br /> -Tircis beside his Dorimène,<br /> -Not far from two blithe rustic rovers,<br /> -<br /> -For some caprice of idle breath<br /> -Deferring a delicious death.<br /> -Ha! ha! ha! what fantastic lovers!<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">XIX. COLUMBINE</span><br /> -<br /> -The foolish Leander,<br /> -Cape-covered Cassander,<br /> -And which<br /> -Is Pierrot? 'tis he<br /> -With the hop of a flea<br /> -Leaps the ditch;<br /> -<br /> -And Harlequin who<br /> -Rehearses anew<br /> -His sly task,<br /> -With his dress that's a wonder,<br /> -And eyes shining under<br /> -His mask;<br /> -<br /> -Mi, sol, mi, fa, do!<br /> -How gaily they go,<br /> -And they sing<br /> -And they laugh and they twirl<br /> -Round the feet of a girl<br /> -Like the Spring,<br /> -<br /> -Whose eyes are as green<br /> -As a cat's are, and keen<br /> -As its claws,<br /> -And her eyes without frown<br /> -Bid all new-comers Down<br /> -With your paws!<br /> -<br /> -On they go with the force<br /> -Of the stars in their course,<br /> -And the speed:<br /> -O tell me toward what<br /> -Disaster unthought,<br /> -Without heed<br /> -<br /> -The implacable fair,<br /> -A rose in her hair,<br /> -Holding up<br /> -Her skirts as she runs<br /> -Leads this dance of the dunce<br /> -And the dupe?<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">XX. L'AMOUR PAR TERRE</span><br /> -<br /> -The other night a sudden wind laid low<br /> -The Love, shooting an arrow at a mark,<br /> -In the mysterious corner of the park,<br /> -Whose smile disquieted us long ago.<br /> -<br /> -The wind has overthrown him, and above<br /> -His scattered dust, how sad it is to spell<br /> -The artist's name still faintly visible<br /> -Upon the pedestal without its Love,<br /> -<br /> -How sad it is to see the pedestal<br /> -Still standing! as in dream I seem to hear<br /> -Prophetic voices whisper in my ear<br /> -The lonely and despairing end of all.<br /> -<br /> -How sad it is! Why, even you have found<br /> -A tear for it, although your frivolous eye<br /> -Laughs at the gold and purple butterfly<br /> -Poised on the piteous litter on the ground.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">XXI. EN SOURDINE</span><br /> -<br /> -Calm where twilight leaves have stilled<br /> -With their shadow light and sound,<br /> -Let our silent love be filled<br /> -With a silence as profound.<br /> -<br /> -Let our ravished senses blend<br /> -Heart and spirit, thine and mine,<br /> -With vague languors that descend<br /> -From the branches of the pine.<br /> -<br /> -Close thine eyes against the day,<br /> -Fold thine arms across thy breast,<br /> -And for ever turn away<br /> -All desire of all but rest.<br /> -<br /> -Let the lulling breaths that pass<br /> -In soft wrinkles at thy feet,<br /> -Tossing all the tawny grass,<br /> -This and only this repeat.<br /> -<br /> -And when solemn evening<br /> -Dims the forest's dusky air,<br /> -Then the nightingale shall sing<br /> -The delight of our despair.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">XXII. COLLOQUE SENTIMENTAL</span><br /> -<br /> -In the old park, solitary and vast,<br /> -Over the frozen ground two forms once passed.<br /> -<br /> -Their lips were languid and their eyes were dead,<br /> -And hardly could be heard the words they said.<br /> -<br /> -In the old park, solitary and vast,<br /> -Two ghosts once met to summon up the past.<br /> -<br /> -—Do you remember our old ecstasy?<br /> -—Why would you bring it back again to me?<br /> -<br /> -—Do you still dream as you dreamed long ago?<br /> -Does your heart beat to my heart's beating?<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">—No.</span><br /> -<br /> -—Ah, those old days, what joys have those days seen<br /> -When your lips met my lips!—It may have been.<br /> -<br /> -—How blue the sky was, and our hope how light!<br /> -—Hope has flown helpless back into the night.<br /> -<br /> -They walked through weeds withered and grasses dead,<br /> -And only the night heard the words they said.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<i>From Poèmes Saturniens</i><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">I. SOLEILS COUCHANTS</span><br /> -<br /> -Pale dawn delicately<br /> -Over earth has spun<br /> -The sad melancholy<br /> -Of the setting sun.<br /> -Sad melancholy<br /> -Brings oblivion<br /> -In sad songs to me<br /> -With the setting sun.<br /> -And the strangest dreams,<br /> -Dreams like suns that set<br /> -On the banks of the streams,<br /> -Ghost and glory met,<br /> -To my sense it seems,<br /> -Pass, and without let,<br /> -Like great suns that set<br /> -On the banks of streams.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">II. CHANSON D'AUTOMNE</span><br /> -<br /> -When a sighing begins<br /> -In the violins<br /> -Of the autumn-song,<br /> -My heart is drowned<br /> -In the slow sound<br /> -Languorous and long.<br /> -<br /> -Pale as with pain,<br /> -Breath fails me when<br /> -The hour tolls deep.<br /> -My thoughts recover<br /> -The days that are over,<br /> -And I weep.<br /> -<br /> -And I go<br /> -<br /> -Where the winds know,<br /> -Broken and brief,<br /> -To and fro,<br /> -As the winds blow<br /> -A dead leaf.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">III. FEMME ET CHATTE</span><br /> -<br /> -They were at play, she and her cat,<br /> -And it was marvellous to mark<br /> -The white paw and the white hand pat<br /> -Each other in the deepening dark.<br /> -<br /> -The stealthy little lady hid<br /> -Under her mittens' silken sheath<br /> -Her deadly agate nails that thrid<br /> -The silk-like dagger-points of death.<br /> -<br /> -The cat purred primly and drew in<br /> -Her claws that were of steel filed thin:<br /> -The devil was in it all the same.<br /> -<br /> -And in the boudoir, while a shout<br /> -Of laughter in the air rang out,<br /> -Four sparks of phosphor shone like flame.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<i>From La Bonne Chanson</i><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">I</span><br /> -<br /> -The white moon sits<br /> -And seems to brood<br /> -Where a swift voice flits<br /> -From each branch in the wood<br /> -That the tree-tops cover....<br /> -<br /> -O lover, my lover!<br /> -<br /> -The pool in the meadows<br /> -Like a looking-glass<br /> -Casts back the shadows<br /> -That over it pass<br /> -Of the willow-bower....<br /> -<br /> -Let us dream: 'tis the hour....<br /> -<br /> -A tender and vast<br /> -Lull of content<br /> -Like a cloud is cast<br /> -From the firmament<br /> -Where one planet is bright....<br /> -<br /> -'Tis the hour of delight.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">II</span><br /> -<br /> -The fireside, the lamp's little narrow light;<br /> -The dream with head on hand, and the delight<br /> -Of eyes that lose themselves in loving looks;<br /> -The hour of steaming tea and of shut books;<br /> -The solace to know evening almost gone;<br /> -The dainty weariness of waiting on<br /> -The nuptial shadow and night's softest bliss;<br /> -Ah, it is this that without respite, this<br /> -That without stay, my tender fancy seeks,<br /> -Mad with the months and furious with the weeks.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<i>From Romances sans Paroles</i><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">I</span><br /> -<br /> -'Tis the ecstasy of repose,<br /> -'Tis love when tired lids close,<br /> -'Tis the wood's long shuddering<br /> -In the embrace of the wind,<br /> -'Tis, where grey boughs are thinned,<br /> -Little voices that sing.<br /> -<br /> -O fresh and frail is the sound<br /> -That twitters above, around,<br /> -Like the sweet tiny sigh<br /> -That lies in the shaken grass;<br /> -Or the sound when waters pass<br /> -And the pebbles shrink and cry.<br /> -<br /> -What soul is this that complains<br /> -Over the sleeping plains,<br /> -And what is it that it saith?<br /> -Is it mine, is it thine,<br /> -This lowly hymn I divine<br /> -In the warm night, low as a breath?<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">II</span><br /> -<br /> -I divine, through the veil of a murmuring,<br /> -The subtle contour of voices gone,<br /> -And I see, in the glimmering lights that sing,<br /> -The promise, pale love, of a future dawn.<br /> -<br /> -And my soul and my heart in trouble<br /> -What are they but an eye that sees,<br /> -As through a mist an eye sees double,<br /> -Airs forgotten of songs like these?<br /> -<br /> -O to die of no other dying,<br /> -Love, than this that computes the showers<br /> -Of old hours and of new hours flying:<br /> -O to die of the swing of the hours!<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">III</span><br /> -<br /> -Tears in my heart that weeps,<br /> -Like the rain upon the town.<br /> -What drowsy languor steeps<br /> -In tears my heart that weeps?<br /> -<br /> -O sweet sound of the rain<br /> -On earth and on the roofs!<br /> -For a heart's weary pain<br /> -O the song of the rain!<br /> -<br /> -Vain tears, vain tears, my heart!<br /> -What, none hath done thee wrong?<br /> -Tears without reason start<br /> -From my disheartened heart.<br /> -<br /> -This is the weariest woe,<br /> -O heart, of love and hate<br /> -Too weary, not to know<br /> -Why thou hast all this woe.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">IV</span><br /> -<br /> -A frail hand in the rose-grey evening<br /> -Kisses the shining keys that hardly stir,<br /> -While, with the light, small flutter of a wing,<br /> -And old song, like an old tired wanderer,<br /> -Goes very softly, as if trembling,<br /> -About the room long redolent of Her.<br /> -<br /> -What lullaby is this that comes again<br /> -To dandle my poor being with its breath?<br /> -What wouldst thou have of me, gay laughing strain?<br /> -What hadst thou, desultory faint refrain<br /> -That now into the garden to thy death<br /> -Floatest through the half-opened window-pane?<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">V</span><br /> -<br /> -O sad, sad was my soul, alas!<br /> -For a woman, a woman's sake it was.<br /> -<br /> -I have had no comfort since that day,<br /> -Although my heart went its way,<br /> -<br /> -Although my heart and my soul went<br /> -From the woman into banishment.<br /> -<br /> -I have had no comfort since that day,<br /> -Although my heart went its way.<br /> -<br /> -And my heart, being sore in me,<br /> -Said to my soul: How can this be,<br /> -<br /> -How can this be or have been thus,<br /> -This proud, sad banishment of us?<br /> -<br /> -My soul said to my heart: Do I<br /> -Know what snare we are tangled by,<br /> -<br /> -Seeing that, banished, we know not whether<br /> -We are divided or together?<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">VI</span><br /> -<br /> -Wearily the plain's<br /> -Endless length expands;<br /> -The snow shines like grains<br /> -Of the shifting sands.<br /> -<br /> -Light of day is none,<br /> -Brazen is the sky;<br /> -Overhead the moon<br /> -Seems to live and die.<br /> -<br /> -Where the woods are seen,<br /> -Grey the oak-trees lift<br /> -Through the vaporous screen<br /> -Like the clouds that drift.<br /> -<br /> -Light of day is none,<br /> -Brazen is the sky;<br /> -Overhead the moon<br /> -Seems to live and die.<br /> -<br /> -Broken-winded crow,<br /> -And you, lean wolves, when<br /> -The sharp north-winds blow,<br /> -What do you do then?<br /> -<br /> -Wearily the plain's<br /> -Endless length expands;<br /> -The snow shines like grains<br /> -Of the shifting sands.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">VII</span><br /> -<br /> -There's a flight of green and red<br /> -In the hurry of hills and rails,<br /> -Through the shadowy twilight shed<br /> -By the lamps as daylight pales.<br /> -<br /> -Dim gold light flushes to blood<br /> -In humble hollows far down;<br /> -Birds sing low from a wood<br /> -Of barren trees without crown.<br /> -<br /> -Scarcely more to be felt<br /> -Than that autumn is gone;<br /> -Languors, lulled in me, melt<br /> -In the still air's monotone.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">VIII. SPLEEN</span><br /> -<br /> -The roses were all red,<br /> -The ivy was all black:<br /> -Dear, if you turn your head,<br /> -All my despairs come back.<br /> -<br /> -The sky was too blue, too kind,<br /> -The sea too green, and the air<br /> -Too calm: and I know in my mind<br /> -I shall wake and not find you there.<br /> -<br /> -I am tired of the box-tree's shine<br /> -And the holly's, that never will pass,<br /> -And the plain's unending line,<br /> -And of all but you, alas!<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">IX. STREETS</span><br /> -<br /> -Dance the jig!<br /> -<br /> -I loved best her pretty eyes<br /> -Clearer than stars in any skies,<br /> -I loved her eyes for their dear lies.<br /> -<br /> -Dance the jig!<br /> -<br /> -And ah! the ways, the ways she had<br /> -Of driving a poor lover mad:<br /> -It made a man's heart sad and glad.<br /> -<br /> -Dance the jig!<br /> -<br /> -But now I find the old kisses shed<br /> -From her flower-mouth a rarer red<br /> -Now that her heart to mine is dead.<br /> -<br /> -Dance the jig!<br /> -<br /> -And I recall, now I recall<br /> -Old days and hours, and ever shall,<br /> -And that is best, and best of all.<br /> -<br /> -Dance the jig!<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<i>From Jadis et Naguère</i><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">I. ART POÉTIQUE</span><br /> -<br /> -Music first and foremost of all!<br /> -Choose your measure of odd not even,<br /> -Let it melt in the air of heaven,<br /> -Pose not, poise not, but rise and fall.<br /> -<br /> -Choose your words, but think not whether<br /> -Each to other of old belong:<br /> -What so dear as the dim grey song<br /> -Where clear and vague are joined together?<br /> -<br /> -'Tis veils of beauty for beautiful eyes,<br /> -'Tis the trembling light of the naked noon,<br /> -'Tis a medley of blue and gold, the moon<br /> -And stars in the cool of autumn skies.<br /> -<br /> -Let every shape of its shade be born;<br /> -Colour, away! come to me, shade!<br /> -Only of shade can the marriage be made<br /> -Of dream with dream and of flute with horn.<br /> -<br /> -Shun the Point, lest death with it come,<br /> -Unholy laughter and cruel wit<br /> -(For the eyes of the angels weep at it)<br /> -And all the garbage of scullery-scum.<br /> -<br /> -Take Eloquence, and wring the neck of him!<br /> -You had better, by force, from time to time,<br /> -Put a little sense in the head of Rhyme:<br /> -If you watch him not, you will be at the beck of him.<br /> -<br /> -O, who shall tell us the wrongs of Rhyme?<br /> -What witless savage or what deaf boy<br /> -Has made for us this twopenny toy<br /> -Whose bells ring hollow and out of time?<br /> -<br /> -Music always and music still!<br /> -Let your verse be the wandering thing<br /> -That flutters in flight from a soul on the wing<br /> -Towards other skies at a new whim's will.<br /> -<br /> -Let your verse be the luck of the lure<br /> -Afloat on the winds that at morning hint<br /> -Of the odours of thyme and the savour of mint ...<br /> -And all the rest is literature.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">II. MEZZETIN CHANTANT</span><br /> -<br /> -Go, and with never a care<br /> -But the care to keep happiness!<br /> -Crumple a silken dress<br /> -And snatch a song in the air.<br /> -<br /> -Hear the moral of all the wise<br /> -In a world where happy folly<br /> -Is wiser than melancholy:<br /> -Forget the hour as it flies!<br /> -<br /> -The one thing needful on earth, it<br /> -Is not to be whimpering.<br /> -Is life after all a thing<br /> -Real enough to be worth it?<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<i>From Sagesse</i><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">I</span><br /> -<br /> -The little hands that once were mine,<br /> -The hands I loved, the lovely hands,<br /> -After the roadways and the strands,<br /> -And realms and kingdoms once divine,<br /> -<br /> -And mortal loss of all that seems<br /> -Lost with the old sad pagan things,<br /> -Royal as in the days of kings<br /> -The dear hands open to me dreams.<br /> -<br /> -Hands of dream, hands of holy flame<br /> -Upon my soul in blessing laid,<br /> -What is it that these hands have said<br /> -That my soul hears and swoons to them?<br /> -<br /> -Is it a phantom, this pure sight<br /> -Of mother's love made tenderer,<br /> -Of spirit with spirit linked to share<br /> -The mutual kinship of delight?<br /> -<br /> -Good sorrow, dear remorse, and ye,<br /> -Blest dreams, O hands ordained of heaven<br /> -To tell me if I am forgiven,<br /> -Make but the sign that pardons me!<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">II</span><br /> -<br /> -O my God, thou hast wounded me with love,<br /> -Behold the wound, that is still vibrating,<br /> -O my God, thou hast wounded me with love.<br /> -<br /> -O my God, thy fear hath fallen upon me,<br /> -Behold the burn is there, and it throbs aloud,<br /> -O my God, thy fear hath fallen upon me.<br /> -<br /> -O my God, I have known that all is vile<br /> -And that thy glory hath stationed itself in me,<br /> -O my God, I have known that all is vile.<br /> -<br /> -Drown my soul in floods, floods of thy wine,<br /> -Mingle my life with the body of thy bread,<br /> -Drown my soul in floods, floods of thy wine.<br /> -<br /> -Take my blood, that I have not poured out,<br /> -Take my flesh, unworthy of suffering,<br /> -Take my blood, that I have not poured out.<br /> -<br /> -Take my brow, that has only learned to blush,<br /> -To be the footstool of thine adorable feet,<br /> -Take my brow, that has only learned to blush.<br /> -<br /> -Take my hands, because they have laboured not<br /> -For coals of fire and for rare frankincense,<br /> -Take my hands, because they have laboured not.<br /> -<br /> -Take my heart, that has beaten for vain things,<br /> -To throb under the thorns of Calvary,<br /> -Take my heart that has beaten for vain things.<br /> -<br /> -Take my feet, frivolous travellers,<br /> -That they may run to the crying of thy grace,<br /> -Take my feet, frivolous travellers.<br /> -<br /> -Take my voice, a harsh and a lying noise,<br /> -For the reproaches of thy Penitence,<br /> -Take my voice, a harsh and a lying noise<br /> -<br /> -Take mine eyes, luminaries of deceit,<br /> -That they may be extinguished in the tears of prayer,<br /> -Take mine eyes, luminaries of deceit.<br /> -<br /> -Alas, thou, God of pardon and promises,<br /> -What is the pit of mine ingratitude,<br /> -Alas, thou, God of pardon and promises.<br /> -<br /> -God of terror and God of holiness,<br /> -Alas, my sinfulness is a black abyss,<br /> -God of terror and God of holiness.<br /> -<br /> -Thou, God of peace, of joy and delight,<br /> -All my tears, all my ignorances,<br /> -Thou, God of peace, of joy and delight.<br /> -<br /> -Thou, O God, knowest all this, all this,<br /> -How poor I am, poorer than any man,<br /> -Thou, O God, knowest all this, all this.<br /> -<br /> -And what I have, my God, I give to thee.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">III</span><br /> -<br /> -Slumber dark and deep<br /> -Falls across my life;<br /> -I will put to sleep<br /> -Hope, desire, and strife.<br /> -<br /> -All things pass away,<br /> -Good and evil seem<br /> -To my soul to-day<br /> -Nothing but a dream;<br /> -<br /> -I a cradle laid<br /> -In a hollow cave,<br /> -By a great hand swayed:<br /> -Silence, like the grave.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">IV</span><br /> -<br /> -The body's sadness and the languor thereof<br /> -Melt and bow me with pity till I could weep,<br /> -Ah! when the dark hours break it down in sleep<br /> -And the bedclothes score the skin and the hot hands move;<br /> -Alert for a little with the fever of day,<br /> -Damp still with the heavy sweat of the night that has thinned,<br /> -Like a bird that trembles on a roof in the wind:<br /> -And the feet that are sorrowful because of the way,<br /> -<br /> -And the breast that a hand has scarred with a double blow,<br /> -And the mouth that as an open wound is red,<br /> -And the flesh that shivers and is a painted show,<br /> -And the eyes, poor eyes so lovely with tears unshed<br /> -For the sorrow of seeing this also over and done:<br /> -Sad body, how weak and how punished under the sun!<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">V</span><br /> -<br /> -Fairer is the sea<br /> -Than the minster high,<br /> -Faithful nurse is she,<br /> -And last lullaby,<br /> -And the Virgin prays<br /> -Over the sea's ways.<br /> -<br /> -Gifts of grief and guerdons<br /> -From her bounty come,<br /> -And I hear her pardons<br /> -Chide her angers home;<br /> -Nothing in her is<br /> -Unforgivingness.<br /> -<br /> -She is piteous,<br /> -She the perilous!<br /> -Friendly things to us<br /> -The wave sings to us:<br /> -You whose hope is past,<br /> -Here is peace at last.<br /> -<br /> -And beneath the skies,<br /> -Brighter-hued than they,<br /> -She has azure dyes,<br /> -Rose and green and grey.<br /> -Better is the sea<br /> -Than all fair things or we.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<i>From Parallèlement:</i><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">IMPRESSION FAUSSE</span><br /> -<br /> -Little lady mouse,<br /> -Black upon the grey of light;<br /> -Little lady mouse,<br /> -Grey upon the night.<br /> -<br /> -Now they ring the bell,<br /> -All good prisoners slumber deep;<br /> -Now they ring the bell,<br /> -Nothing now but sleep.<br /> -<br /> -Only pleasant dreams,<br /> -Love's enough for thinking of;<br /> -Only pleasant dreams,<br /> -Long live love!<br /> -<br /> -Moonlight over all,<br /> -Someone snoring heavily;<br /> -Moonlight over all<br /> -In reality.<br /> -<br /> -Now there comes a cloud,<br /> -It is dark as midnight here;<br /> -Now there comes a cloud,<br /> -Dawn begins to peer.<br /> -<br /> -Little lady mouse,<br /> -Rosy in a ray of blue,<br /> -Little lady mouse:<br /> -Up now, all of you!<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<i>From Chansons pour Elle</i><br /> -<br /> -You believe that there may be<br /> -Luck in strangers in the tea:<br /> -I believe only in your eyes.<br /> -<br /> -You believe in fairy-tales,<br /> -Days one wins and days one fails:<br /> -I believe only in your lies.<br /> -<br /> -You believe in heavenly powers,<br /> -In some saint to whom one prays<br /> -Or in some Ave that one says.<br /> -<br /> -I believe only in the hours,<br /> -Coloured with the rosy lights<br /> -You rain for me on sleepless nights.<br /> -<br /> -And so firmly I receive<br /> -These for truth, that I believe<br /> -That only for your sake I live.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<i>From Epigrammes</i><br /> -<br /> -When we go together, if I may see her again,<br /> -Into the dark wood and the rain;<br /> -<br /> -When we are drunken with air and the sun's delight<br /> -At the brink of the river of light;<br /> -<br /> -When we are homeless at last, for a moment's space<br /> -Without city or abiding-place;<br /> -<br /> -And if the slow good-will of the world still seem<br /> -To cradle us in a dream;<br /> -<br /> -Then, let us sleep the last sleep with no leave-taking,<br /> -And God will see to the waking.<br /> -</p> - - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Symbolist Movement in Literature, by -Arthur Symons - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE *** - -***** This file should be named 53849-h.htm or 53849-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/8/4/53849/ - -Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (online soon -in an extended version, also linking to free sources for -education worldwide ... 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