Léon Hennique Novel

Notes

¹ Reading collections of parliamentary speeches is equally instructive. Berryer, Montalembert retain some interest, at least a possibility: Gambetta, the most recent of these times’ “great orators,” is utterly intolerable, owing to the gibberish.

² M. de Villiers de l’Isle-Âdam.

³ Scientists have, in the Poet’s eyes, yet another fault, doubtless linked to the one just stated, more apparent than it, but, all told, less grave and one which more or less legitimate reprisals excuse: formerly literature had invaded the domain of science, today science invades that of literature. Reprisals and reactions without human responsibility.

⁴ I say the learned and not the writers. On the contrary, the latter have enriched the language with novelties—which, moreover, the learned do not accept without protest. But the creative faculty of writers is that very faculty of the Crowd: Intuition. It is the old rem tene, verba sequentur: a new thing demands a new word and conjures it up, without vain searches for roots and endings, through a return, perhaps, to that omniscient ignorance of the first man, who designated with a name each of the beings and each of the things that God had just created.

⁵ Pathologie, tératogénie, pachyderme, cortical, etc…

⁶ I am, of course, not speaking of poets whose devotion was purely religious—like the Hebrews, for example, whose prophets and psalmists did indeed write for all, precisely because in doing so they wrote also for themselves, sharing with the multitude but one and the same concern: God.

⁷ One wouldn’t wish to suggest any lack of appreciation for that book, but one admires still more the Œuvres Philosophiques, where, it must be feared, minds “a cut above the average” will find less pleasure and less clarity than in studies of more ordinary life: yet if they have taken the necessary pains to properly grasp Louis Lambert, Séraphîta, La Peau de chagrin, La Recherche de l’Absolu, and so forth, their spiritual development will have profited thereby.

⁸ See: III, Influences nouvelles [New Influences]

⁹ M. Leconte de Lisle.

¹⁰ M. Théodore de Banville.

¹¹ M. Villiers de l’Isle-Adam.

¹² M. H. Becque.

¹³ M. Vacquerie.

¹⁴ M. François Coppée.

¹⁵ Though in this book of pure Aesthetics—albeit Aesthetics grounded in Metaphysics—one intends as far as possible to abstain from philosophising for its own sake, we must nonetheless offer some approximate definition of a word we shall employ more than once and which, in the principal sense used here, is not beyond definition. — God is the first and universal cause, the final and universal end, the bond between minds, the intersection where two parallel lines would meet, the fulfilment of our half-formed wishes, the perfection answering to our dreams’ splendours, the very abstraction of the concrete, the unseen and unheard yet certain Ideal of our yearnings towards Beauty in Truth. God is, par excellence, the “mot juste”—the precise word, that is to say, that unknown yet certain verb of which every writer has an indubitable though indiscernible notion, that evident yet hidden goal he will never reach but forever approaches as closely as possible. — In practical aesthetics, so to speak, it is the atmosphere of joy where the triumphant spirit disports itself, having reduced the irreducible Mystery to Symbols that shall not perish.

¹⁶ Edmond et Jules de Concourt, Manette Salomon.

¹⁷ M. Paul Verlaine.

¹⁸ One ought properly to pause at the fifteenth century of Italian painting. Living faith—universal, unquestioned—was the wellspring of all those masterpieces in bloom. But a comprehensive historical survey is not the aim here, and the simultaneous decline of Art and Faith seemed to offer more compelling proof. Moreover, this entire book maintains an exclusively French perspective, mentioning foreign poets only when they have exercised notable influence upon us.

¹⁹ We shall return later to the literary significance of this seventeenth century that opens the modern era: here we are concerned only with Literature’s evolution around religious Ideas. (See: Formules accomplies [Accomplished Formulae].

²⁰ “The lowest of men, after those who admire him.” Joseph de Maistre.

²¹ Nothing in French music. On the contrary, this was the great century of German, Protestant music; but as Literature is the main focus of these studies, the other arts are neglected here. Yet they would certainly not contradict the theory. To take Painting alone, for instance, the era of the great painters closes on the eve of this eighteenth century and reopens the day after. And from the Primitives to Leonardo da Vinci, from Vinci to Veronese, from Veronese to Murillo, Art and Faith advance or retreat in lockstep.

²² A. de Vigny.

²³ “The narrow moralities of old will give way to the broad sympathy of modern man, who loves Beauty wherever Beauty may be found and who, refusing to mutilate human nature, finds himself at once pagan and Christian.” M. Taine.

²⁴ M. Paul Verlaine.

²⁵ I haven’t forgotten his theatre or his lyric poetry, but this part of his work hasn’t contributed most to his glory: for it is indeed above all through his Contes and his Fables that La Fontaine has done his part for his century. [In the original French, Morice writes “la tâche de son siècle” (the task/work of his century). However, the word “tâche” (task) is virtually identical in sound and nearly identical in spelling to “tache” (stain), differing only by the circumflex accent.]

²⁶ I see no need to belabour the literary language of the seventeenth century, nor to detail how medieval naïvetés gave way to the logical clarity of Latin and French genius; how the very structure of style emerged in those regular, forceful constructions, in those impeccable and majestic periods. All such matters have already been treated admirably by M. Nisard in Littérature française.

²⁷ The first of these two propositions contains this truth: it is good to tell man he is capable of goodness, for this restores the inner confidence without which his will remains barren and cowardly. The second contains this falsehood: it is wrong and illogical to tell man that society serves only as an agent of evil and misery within him, since society is necessary and since he himself created it.

²⁸ Yet for those with even the slightest taste for anecdote, here’s one among many similar tales that Thomas Moore relates in his Memoirs of Lord Byron, which seems rather telling and shows us the despairing poet quite willing to smile at his own fame. Moore had joined Byron in Venice: “He had ordered dinner at some trattoria, and whilst we awaited it, along with Mr Scott whom he had invited to join us, we settled on the balcony to savour, before twilight quite faded, some glimpses of the Grand Canal’s vistas. Looking up at the clouds still glowing in the west, I remarked that ‘what struck me most about Italian sunsets was that rosy tint peculiar to the country.’ Scarcely had I uttered the word ‘rosy’ when, clapping his hand over my mouth, Lord Byron said with a laugh: ‘Come now, damnation! Tom, don’t go getting poetical on me.’ Among the few gondolas gliding past us, one at some distance carried two gentlemen who appeared to be English; and noticing they were looking our way, Lord Byron, setting his fists on his hips, exclaimed with comic swagger: ‘Ah! John Bull, if you knew who the two fellows standing here were, I fancy you’d goggle your eyes!’ / [This anecdote brilliantly exposes the paradox at Byron’s core. The despairing Romantic who built his reputation on melancholic verse here literally silences his friend for being “poetical” about a sunset—only to immediately strike a pose and preen over his own celebrity, addressing the English tourists as “John Bull” (the personification of England). The juxtaposition is perfect: Byron simultaneously mocks the very sensibility he trades in whilst revelling in the fame it has brought him. This is precisely Morice’s point—that Byron was both author and amused spectator of his own myth, capable of playing the tortured soul whilst thoroughly enjoying life and glory. The self-aware irony here suggests that his cultivated despair was, at least partly, a performance he could step out of at will]

²⁹ Kunst und Alterthum. 1820.

³⁰ One should add Macpherson’s Ossian, Paul et Virginie, and Clarisse Harlowe—these three sources of inspiration, while secondary in merit, are by no means secondary in influence. All three helped inflame to the point of sentimentality the three feelings that underpin all Romanticism: the heroic sentiment, which in Ossian troubles itself with no reality whatsoever; the feeling for nature, which Bernardin de Saint-Pierre corrupts with the most nauseating puerilities; and finally sentiment proper—the sentiment of love besieging virtue that resists and laments (Rousseau’s snivelling becomes in Richardson a torrent, a cataract, a deluge). One should further add the Spanish dramatists and the Romancero. But the Romantics found in them only what they had already discovered in Shakespeare: the external appearance and the movement.

³¹ A single novel by Walter Scott would refute these harsh judgements: Ivanhoe. This book stands alone in the English novelist’s work, and is indeed extraordinary for its time.

³² M. Gabriel Sarrazin, in a forthcoming volume, La Renaissance de la Poésie anglaise, at last provides the comprehensive study of Shelley we have long awaited. See also M. Rabbe’s biographical volume accompanying his translation of the poet of Prometheus Unbound.

³³ We must except Lamartine, who delights in visions of happiness, even if tinged with melancholic joy, though he is, no doubt, easily satisfied.

³⁴ Another did as well: Heinrich Heine. Despite his actual nationality, Heine is, alongside Musset, the most thoroughly French of poets. His wit is French; his common sense is distinctly un-German. He writes of Legends, yet lacks the feeling for them that, say, Schubert possessed. His masterpiece (Reisebilder) is a work entirely French in spirit.

³⁵ “In what was finest in it,” not in what was most distinctive. As we shall see, if it were a matter of the latter, it is Théophile Gautier who ought to be named.

³⁶ La Chute d’un Ange.

³⁷ “Criticism is the conscience of Art.” — Ernest Ilello.

³⁸ La Critique scientifique.

³⁹ If we are to understand that M. Zola intended Le Rêve to demonstrate the extent to which Naturalism admits and embraces transcendent realities, then more’s the pity.

⁴⁰ It’s curious that the Moderns, like the Ancients, have treated incest—which is only a vice because society has decreed it so, incest which Israel practised religiously—with excessive timidity. Phèdre’s incest is merely one of affinity, as is Renée’s, as is that of M. Caraguel’s Barthozouls. René’s incest would be genuine, but remains confined to desire. Only Zo’har’s is at once genuine and consummated. Yet on this subject, and quite uncharacteristically, M. Mendès transforms himself into a stern moralist—rather artificially, I suspect—and speaks only with horror that condemns the beautiful transgression he has just described in a style nonetheless enamoured of it.

⁴¹ Amiel.

⁴² M. de Goncourt.

⁴³ Ibid.

⁴⁴ A single Poet sometimes achieves—though still imperfectly—this life of the crowd: Michelet, in his Histoire. Michelet, one of this century’s greatest poets, remains without influence on the art of the future. A case to be examined elsewhere, not in a few lines. For other causes yet the same reason, this book has had to neglect a figure of the Duke de Saint-Simon’s magnitude.

⁴⁵ Joubert.

⁴⁶ Baudelaire.

⁴⁷ Carlyle.

⁴⁸ “An article, a page, is something achieved at a stroke, like a child: either it is or it isn’t. I never think about what I’m going to write. I take up my pen and write. I am a man of letters: I ought to know my trade. Here I am before the paper: it’s like a clown on the springboard… And then, I have a very orderly syntax in my head: I toss my sentences in the air… like cats! I’m certain they’ll land on their feet. My entire worth—and they have never spoken of this—is that I am a man for whom the visible world exists…” No one is unaware who Masson is in Charles Demailly.

⁴⁹ M. Théodore de Banville.

⁵⁰ A. de Musset.

⁵¹ “…He withdraws into himself, marshals his forces, and fears to act in haste. This perpetual student knows that for him, work means reverie. His dream is nearly as precious to him as all that one loves in the actual world, and more formidable than all one fears there. Along each path of his life, he gathers and hoards the treasures of his experience like stones proven and sound. He keeps them long in reserve before setting them to work. He selects from among them the cornerstone of his monument. Around this foundation he traces his design, and when he has contemplated it from every angle, remade and remodelled it, only then does he permit his hands to obey inspiration’s impulse. Yet even in the work itself, he remains constrained by his love of the ideal, by his ardent pursuit of perfection. Dissatisfied with all that fails to enter the pure order he has conceived, he distances himself from his work, averts his gaze, forgets it for long stretches before returning. He does more—he forgets the very epoch in which he lives, and the men who surround him, or if he observes them, it is only to paint them. He thinks solely of the future, of his construction’s permanence, of what peoples yet to come will say of it…”

⁵² Sénancour is so forgotten that I think it appropriate to cite here some preferred passages from Obermann, scattered throughout. “May I once, before death, say to someone who understands me: If only we had lived! — … Thus, seeing in things relationships that scarcely exist there and seeking what I shall never obtain, a stranger in actual nature, ridiculous amongst men, I shall have only empty affections; and whether I live according to myself or according to men, I shall have in external oppression or in my own constraint only the eternal torment of a life forever repressed and forever wretched. — … A jonquil had bloomed. It is the strongest expression of desire. — … I am ashamed of the business of civic life. — … Opposing my enemies with this conviction that places me inwardly beside man as he ought to be. — … I ask whether happiness isn’t a child’s dream. — … I am condemned to await life forever. — … I feel only what is extraordinary. — … I know not satiety; I find emptiness everywhere. — … As for me, I began to dream instead of taking pleasure. — … Impatiently seeking what doesn’t interest me… — How many unfortunates will have said, century after century, that flowers were granted us to disguise our chains, to deceive us all at the beginning and even help keep us bound until the end! They do more, though perhaps in vain; they seem to hint at what no mortal mind will fathom. If flowers were merely beautiful before our eyes, they would still seduce; but sometimes, this perfume carries us away, like a blessed condition of existence, like a sudden summons, a return to more intimate life. Whether I have sought these invisible emanations or they offer themselves, surprise me, I receive them as a powerful yet precarious expression of a thought whose secret the material world contains but veils… To hope, then hope no more, is to be or be no more: that, surely, is man. But how is it that after the songs of a stirred voice, after the perfumes of flowers, and imagination’s sighs, and thought’s soarings, one must die? And it may happen that, fate willing it so, one hears a woman full of loving grace secretly approaching, and that, behind some curtain, but certain of being clearly visible in the sunset’s rays, she shows herself without other veil, for the first time, quickly withdraws, and returns of her own accord, smiling at her voluptuous resolve. But afterwards, one must grow old… If I reach old age, if one day, still full of thoughts but renouncing speech with men, I have beside me a friend to receive my farewell to earth, let them place my chair on the short grass, and let tranquil daisies be there before me, under the sun, under the immense sky, so that in leaving this passing life, I may recover something of the infinite illusion. — Man’s real life is within himself; what he receives from outside is merely accidental and subordinate. Things act upon him far more according to the state in which they find him than according to their own nature.”

⁵³ Among the most beautiful and least known passages, we should note the historical pages that conclude the volumes of Le Rhin in certain editions. Victor Hugo there achieves historical synthesis. These pages, empty of facts, full of thoughts, quite exceptional in all Romantic output, are perhaps, along with moments in Michelet, what best achieves history proper in our literature—this futurition of the past.

⁵⁴ We know Monsieur de Banville’s worship of Hugo. Messieurs Barbey d’Aurevilly and Goncourt seem to escape him. But Sainte-Beuve and Baudelaire, Flaubert and Monsieur Leconte de Lisle owe him much. Messieurs Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, Mallarmé, and Verlaine maintain their respect for him.

⁵⁵ This idea belongs neither to Balzac alone nor to Vigny. Victor Hugo knows it; Lamartine attempts to realise it: Jocelyn, Les Pêcheurs (lost book), La Chute d’un Ange are episodes of a single, immense poem. But it’s Balzac who has taken this idea furthest.

⁵⁶ “With much patience and courage I would create, on nineteenth-century France, that book we all regret—which Rome, Athens, Tyre, Memphis, Persia, India unfortunately didn’t leave us about their civilisations, and which, following the Abbé Barthélemy’s example, the courageous and patient Monteil had attempted for the Middle Ages, though in an unappealing form.” This historical viewpoint, quite prominent in the pretensions of the Rougon-Macquart series as well, is at once secondary, false, and dangerous. Secondary and almost useless, for what does the historical reality of customs and a civilisation’s social physiognomy ultimately matter to future civilisations? The legacy of thoughts and images survives revolutions and alone matters: the clothes worn by men long dead whose words still govern us can only prompt idle curiosity. But this viewpoint is false because it isn’t human: it forces whoever adopts it to imagine themselves in the place of people who will come two hundred years hence. Yet nothing is more urgent and vital than to live one’s true life sincerely, one’s contemporary life, and to make one’s thoughts as a person of this time flower most beautifully within oneself. But can we imagine a succession of generations whose highest geniuses would have no other concern than to compile for the future a faithful historical tableau of the moment’s customs? To what future would such works dedicate themselves, since it would also be the future’s task to add its own page? — And besides! Who can know what about us will interest the twenty-first century? Perhaps there were many histories of civilisations in Alexandria’s library. From a poem, verses survive that defy fire because they are themselves flames: from a history book… — Moreover, this historical viewpoint carries the great danger that, by turning genius’s eye away from itself, it risks making us lose the only history that interests us, that stirs our passion: history itself, the inner history of this unique soul. — This history Balzac has given us, despite himself, and because his genius wouldn’t allow him to remain always at the little window he had chosen—too small for his infinite gaze.

⁵⁷ See Émile Hennequin’s article in the 8 November 1883 issue of the Revue Wagnérienne: “Wagner’s Aesthetics and Spencerian Doctrine”.

⁵⁸ “One might say that when religion becomes artificial, it falls to art to save religion’s soul by restoring the figurative value of those mythic symbols which religion takes literally, thus illuminating the truth contained in their ideal representations. Whilst the priest endeavours to treat religious allegories as factual truths, the artist, by contrast, openly and freely presents his work as the fruit of his own invention. Yet religion can only survive for art insofar as it cloaks its dogmatic symbols and veils its element of truth beneath an ever-mounting heap of incredibilities imposed upon faith. Religion has sensed this, which is why it has always sought art’s collaboration—though art itself could not reach its highest development whilst obliged to represent this supposed reality of symbols in the form of idols designed to encourage sensual worship and ritual, and has fulfilled its true mission only when it has facilitated the understanding of the inexpressible divine truth contained within religion through an ideal representation of its allegories.”

⁵⁹ The French Edgar Poe is now complete, thanks to Stéphane Mallarmé’s magnificent new translation of the Poems.

⁶⁰ The expression comes from M. J.-K. Huysmans.

⁶¹ “Edgar Poe is the last foreign Poet we shall consider here. Others might seem indispensable to this survey of synthetic attempts and influences, however brief: Hoffmann, for instance, and above all Carlyle. But Hoffmann represents an exception—what a delightful one!—rather than an influence. As for Carlyle—more philosopher than poet anyway—his thought will surely leave its deep imprint on the rising generation. Unfortunately, his work remains untranslated. (We have good reason to expect that this much-needed translation is not far off.)

⁶² J.-K. Huysmans.

⁶³ J.-K. Huysmans.

⁶⁴ From the Lévy edition. The portrait in the Lemerre edition is more mediocre still.

⁶⁵ From the Parnassians I except MM. Verlaine, Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, Mallarmé.

⁶⁶ I speak from the standpoint of form: as regards substance, on the contrary, in writings such as Un cœur simple, Flaubert has specialised more than any other; yet even in this very specialisation of a rudimentary soul, he has only general ideas to deduce.

⁶⁷ As for Sainte-Beuve’s personal work, entirely one of egotistical psychology, it is sufficiently characterised by the very form he invented; like the form, the thought wavers between the fear and the desire to say everything.

⁶⁸ To this work, as we have seen, Baudelaire was no stranger; but it seemed logical, Baudelaire’s influence being more upon substance than expression, to treat it before discussing the wholly formal Parnassian doctrine.

⁶⁹ I cite a passage from a recent work: Nos Poètes by M. Jules Tellier—though I cite it… with emendations.

⁷⁰ “Thus, in the calm silence of nights, in those hours when the pendulum’s oscillating tick grows a thousand times more terrible than thunder, when celestial rays touch and caress the naked, living soul, when conscience finds its voice, when the poet distinctly hears the dance of rhythms freed from their ridiculous envelope of words—in these hours of painful and sweet contemplation, often, oh! often! I have questioned myself with dread and trembled almost to the marrow of my bones. And who, pondering this, would not tremble at the thought of perhaps living amongst a race of gods, among beings who perhaps read our thoughts as easily as turning pages whilst theirs remain hidden from us beneath triple armour of diamond! When one considers it… The mystery of childbearing has been entrusted to them, and perhaps they understand it… Perhaps there exists a solemn moment when, were the husband not lost in stupid slumber, he would see his wife hold his palpable soul between her hands and tear from it a piece that shall become his child’s soul.”

⁷¹ La légende de Parnasse contemporain.

⁷² “The soul and charm of modern beauty: physiognomy. Depth, reflection, the smile come into the gaze and the eye speaks. Irony plays at the corners of the mouth and glistens, like a touch of light, on the lips it parts. Wit passes across the face, erases and transfigures it: there it quivers, there it trembles, there it breathes; and setting in motion all those invisible fibres that transform it through expression, making it supple to the point of manner, lending it a thousand shades of caprice, guiding it through the finest modulations, endowing it with every kind of delicacy, the spirit of the eighteenth century moulds the woman’s face upon the mask of Marivaux’s comedy, so mobile, so nuanced, so delicate, and so charmingly animated by all the coquetries of heart, grace and taste.” — This is said, as one sees, apropos of the eighteenth century. But from the very first words, which I have underlined for this reason, who can fail to hear that M. de Goncourt speaks here of an idea that has become universal for him, of a characteristic belonging to this century at least as much as to that other? — One further note. Nearly everything I say of M. Edmond de Goncourt should properly be divided between him and his brother. While naming only the elder as representative of the two brothers’ admirable union, let no one suppose I forget, in the gratitude owed him by all who revere the Art of writing, the one who is no more.

⁷³ “Enclose it within the matrix of dead languages; press it in their iron mould: it will emerge struck like a coin, without burr and clean as La Bruyère’s diamond-sharp language. I am not telling you, of course, to sleep with Latin books, to translate them; what matters is that genius of language which one must catch by surprise, feel, and carry away; for as to knowing them by heart and never leaving them… Look, here’s another problem and another puzzle: have you noticed—how very strange it is—that nearly all lovers of fine Latinity possess a style most contrary to the style in whose intimacy they live?” (Charles Demailly.)

⁷⁴ M. Paul Verlaine: Les Poètes Maudits.

⁷⁵ Charles Murice: Paul Verlaine.

⁷⁶ Ibid.

⁷⁷ Ibid.

⁷⁸ M. Paul Verlaine: Les Poètes maudits.

⁷⁹ These four verses which may perhaps convey my admiration: Adonaï! In the Latin terminations Of green-moiréd skies bathing vermillion Brows, And stained with pure blood from celestial breasts, Great snowy linens fall upon the suns.

⁸⁰ We should not forget that M. Mallarmé has published Les Dieux de la Grèce as well as volumes on English linguistics and translation.

⁸¹ From Le Guignon by Stéphane Mallarmé:

Ils pouvaient faire aussi sonner comme un tambour La servile pitié des races à l’œil terne…

[They could also make resound like a drum The servile pity of the dull-eyed races…]

⁸² Several of those that appear in Part V of this book. A forthcoming Study, as thorough as possible, will moreover explain what we can merely indicate here concerning M. Stéphane Mallarmé’s work and ideas.

⁸³ I don’t suggest M. Loti has never encountered a charming legend in his travels; he has duly relayed it: our thanks. But heavens! that hardly warrants M. Bourget’s “the divine Loti.” — Nor do I suggest M. Daudet has never struck upon a felicitous phrase: I could cite several, even in L’Immortel, regarding the Seine. But that scarcely entitles this pleasant raconteur, all cheap tricks and no substance, to the extraordinary daily privilege of seeing his name sandwiched in the press between M. de Goncourt and M. Zola.

⁸⁴ I’m being rather generous in counting the representatives of this generation. I’m tempted to salute M. Arsène Houssaye here. Besides, there are evident similarities between the pale figures of all the transitions—from Romantics to Parnassians and from Parnassians to Décadents.

⁸⁵ I refer here to the versifier. We’ll see the critic presently.

⁸⁶ There’s also M. Fabié, “poet of Rouergue,” H. Delthil, “poet of Quercy”… who knows who else!

⁸⁷ When M. Paul Verlaine (Romances sans Paroles) shows us Belgian or London landscapes he traverses, all the interest for us lies in the Poet’s soul, in the correspondence between that soul and the landscape—it’s what these landscapes teach us of humanity that matters. When Flaubert shows us the desert where the Saint dwells, or the vast plains crossed by the mercenary army, it’s the feeling—sadness, pitiless immensity—that nature imposes upon man, it’s the feeling and meaning the Poet draws from the spectacle. Quite the contrary with the versifiers I have just named: they are enamoured—moderately, mind you—of visual details whose meaning they don’t seek and which they copy like humble photographers.

⁸⁸ This name appears and I must discharge it. M. Sully-Prudhomme is no poet. Of the three acts composing aesthetic creation (Thought, Idea, Expression), he manages only the first, and that insufficiently, his abstractions never transcending worn generalities. As for the sentimental “poet” who forms this philosophical “poet’s” other face, I believe he has already joined in mankind’s thankless memory those romance-mongers of the First Empire, with Reboul and Dupaty; his saccharine tenderness rings hollow—this lover surely always sported grey locks. They claim M. Sully-Prudhomme contains yet a lyric poet, deputised to deliver official verses before fresh statues: Baour-Lormian awaits him at Paradise’s gate.

⁸⁹ La Vie Inquiète and Les Aveux. Otherwise I would mention Edel and verses scattered through reviews, destined for M. Bourget’s forthcoming collections.

⁹⁰ Emile Ilennequin.

⁹¹ Yesterday the pamphlet was defunct; the chronicle had drowned it: the Restoration’s slim brochures surrendered to journalism’s present deluge. M. de Rochefort’s Lanternes seemed throwbacks. Today the pamphlet resurfaces as brochure and book, infiltrates the novel, colonises philosophical and social inquiry; our pamphleteers include MM. Bloy, Mirbeau, above all M. Drumont, a philosopher of the most exalted Catholic pedigree, and others still.

⁹² The Critical Spirit seems to be mistaken here for Criticism itself. But clearly the latter is merely the product of the former. Since it preserves the former’s characteristics in reduced form, it has become its personification.

⁹³ Jean Dolent, Amoureux d’Art.

⁹⁴ The formula invites criticism; philosophically speaking, the phrasing lacks rigour. In Art, are there really Truths beyond Dream itself—each artist’s particular dream? Yet I grasp his meaning perfectly, as will any reader.—We should note that M. Jean Dolent has authored several novels: Le Roman de la Chair, L’Insoumis—penetrating modern studies of passion—and Les Parades de Jean Dolent, distillations of a most individual wit.

⁹⁵ For the Present threatens to forget them overmuch.

⁹⁶ Émile Hennequin.

⁹⁷ Rather than didactic procedure—successive studies devoted to those diverse points where new Art distinguishes itself from accomplished Art—we preferred the method of a broadly and freely historical criticism, deeming it paramount to demonstrate how innovations spring from tradition. This approach precluded certain developments whose absence leaves this book incomplete: theories of Novel, Theatre, Poem—(books, perhaps, for the future). Moreover, as the old “genres” increasingly tend to dissolve into the singular and essential Written-work-of-art, it bears repeating that we neither sought nor could produce here the manifesto of a School that does not exist.

⁹⁸ I need not enquire what conditions perfected Industry will impose upon Poets—when that age dawns of machines definitively and universally supplanting human labour. That this ultimate phase of progress would consummate universal wretchedness and will likely never exist save in the ghastly visions of philanthropists, I am convinced, though this is not the place for full exposition. I need only record the circumstances of this present instant, a “transitional moment,” our sociologists proclaim, and if I grasp their meaning, the majority of the living already anticipate that mechanical golden age which shall be their dominion, already deafen the earth with the appalling clamour of their coming, already begin to repel those exceptional souls, those minds born sovereign: for not only would their native and sacred sovereignty perpetually affront Mediocrity Enthroned, but they would find neither sanctuary nor purpose in a world where nothing exceptional can henceforth arise.

⁹⁹ See in particular Charles Henry’s study in the Revue Indépendante, vol. VII, no. 19 (May 1888): Cercle chromatique et sensation de couleur; and by the same author in the Revue Contemporaine, vol. II, no. 4 (August 1885): Une Esthétique scientifique. “This scientific path will doubtless lead us towards understanding the laws of that superior and delicate harmony of noises and sounds. Needless to say, poetics must henceforth reckon with rhythmic numbers: through classifications of rhythms it will gain the science of possible metaphors. A metaphor in spoken or written language is simply the feeling of a relation linking two more or less similar changes of direction: the subtler and deeper the changes, the more complex the formula, the more beautiful the metaphor.” — I don’t dispute the compelling interest of such research, but I confess its practical value for Art utterly eludes me. I can scarcely picture a Poet consulting his “classification of rhythms” before hazarding a metaphor. Our expression symbolises our dream, our dream symbolises our thought; everything springs from it, everything radiates from it: the complete emotion of its secret life—this is what we must possess, and this is what any scientific procedure threatens to corrupt. Nor can I imagine a painter consulting the Chromatic Circle before risking a particular tint. — Yet Charles Henry doesn’t presume to subordinate artistic creation to scientific aesthetic principles: “Science,” he writes, “can never create beauty—I speak of relative science and leave aside whether ‘absolute science’ might be a contradiction in terms. The feeling of beauty resolves into perceiving infinite rhythms with minimal effort, that is, in the infinitesimally small of time. But these elements lie beyond our control. Just as a geometric figure’s beauty resolves into feeling its formula, so the beauty of a being or form resolves into feeling its formula, which is merely a special case of the universal formula. To create beauty, one would need to possess the universal formula: but would possessing it mean understanding it? And when humanity approaches this problem, might it not thereby revert to Nature’s unconsciousness?” — Still, according to Henry, science “should spare the artist futile hesitations and experiments by showing the path to ever richer aesthetic elements: it should equip criticism with swift means to identify ugliness that, though felt, often defies articulation.” — But are these hesitations and experiments that science promises to spare the artist truly futile? Might there not be considerable merit in going astray? Does book-learning match lived experience? And isn’t the artist’s native sensibility more trustworthy than any geometric proof? Let Henry point out a single flaw in a Rembrandt that knowledge of Aesthetic laws would have prevented. — This leaves only the potential resources such an Aesthetic might offer criticism. But here again, as Émile Hennequin observed (Critique Scientifique), Henry can analyse only the pleasingness of visual and musical artworks, not their beauty—beauty being wrought as much from discord as from harmony, if not more so. The aesthetic and the normal share no common ground.” Put simply, scientific methods excel at revealing nature’s patterns: but genius and its works are anomalies, and whilst they too follow natural laws, they bend these to their own peculiar logic, which differs from universal logic as surely as theatrical perspective differs from nature’s own.

¹⁰⁰ Had I not confined myself strictly to French Art, I should certainly discuss the English Pre-Raphaelites. Here I can only attest to my profound sympathy for an aesthetic conception that, above all others, accords most harmoniously with my own Ideal.

¹⁰¹ Note in passing that this creative impotence of modernity in architecture and furnishing, coupled with our taste for antiques and exotic curios—a taste resembling old men’s passion for the very young—signals most starkly that the present cycle of civilisation is closing. Man is not a finished creature; if he finds nothing further on his current path, he will not cease walking but change direction. The very creations discussed here bear witness to the hour that strikes through their synthetic character: they are terminal products, flowers bent so far from the maternal stem that they droop to earth, nearest the single common root, their long branches spent.

¹⁰² Three albums are to appear: Fêtes Réelles, Apparitions, Chant de l’Océan. The first, purely architectural, presents the new monuments. The second, a broad commentary on the first, reveals through figures the origin and motive of architectural lines whilst showing, in pure fictional light, the marriage of coloured rhythms with these lines; the third, reaching further still, raises structures upon the sea itself, building with the very waves constructions forever governed by the law of human reflection. This third album achieves the impossible and, as its title proclaims, is a “Song”. Elsewhere we hope to expound fully the thought and work of Albert Trachsel.

¹⁰³ De la Vérité et de la Beauté, p. 27.

¹⁰⁴ I trust there’s no need to elaborate how Literature and Journalism, despite sharing an alphabet, remain two entirely distinct Arts. Granted, the old monarchical press could exploit certain lesser intellectual faculties: timing, cunning, a knack for oblique parallels, the craft of insinuation—all deployed to voice what couldn’t be stated outright. Soon enough, with all restraints removed, journalism will have degenerated into such a din that even Stentor’s Homeric bellow would barely register. (Barring those few established papers still held in check by the ballast of tradition.)

¹⁰⁵ So acutely does this generation, fragmented though it may be, grasp the true direction of its course, that whilst several championed Wagner, M. Jules Christophe does the same single-handedly for Balzac. Balzac and Wagner, the luminous centres, in the past, of all the new Art! Even today, in a literary journal, La Cravache, edited by young writers of considerable talent, M. Christophe each week reverently transcribes passages from Balzac.

¹⁰⁶ Today, under the publisher M. Savine and the direction of M. de Nyon, the Revue Indépendante combines, one might say, monarchical with democratic principles. It welcomes, without sectarian spirit, everything that bears the stamp of talent, whilst entrusting to an annual critic the task of indicating the periodical’s true direction. This arrangement, which inherits all the faults and virtues of both systems, has made a splendid start with the shrewd and wilful analyses of M. J.-H. Rosny, critic for the inaugural year. The Revue Indépendante is unquestionably now the principal voice of the younger literature.

¹⁰⁷ Baudelaire: Bénédiction.

¹⁰⁸ Laurent Tailhade: Sur champ d’or.

¹⁰⁹ Amis.

¹¹⁰ L’âme nue.

¹¹¹ See Chapter V for the theory of French verse.

¹¹² Jean Moréas, Les Iconostases.

¹¹³ Belgian. One of the curiosities of the so-called Decadent movement is that, whilst so thoroughly French in its Baudelairean and Verlainean origins, it was, in the latter days of its most clamorous phase, virtually commandeered by young writers of races foreign to our own.

¹¹⁴ René Ghil: Traité du Verbe.

¹¹⁵ Charles Vignier: Centon.

¹¹⁶ Mathias Morhardt: Hénor.

¹¹⁷ Ernest Jaubert: Poëmes Stellaires.

¹¹⁸ Edouard Dubus: Soir de Fête.

¹¹⁹ Jean Court: Les Trêves. In a novel, Jean Court has attempted to synthesise an entire life; a woman lies dying, very slowly, and throughout her agony, as though stepping outside herself, she witnesses the drama of her past life, which becomes foreign to her save for what it harbours unknown to all: a cherished sin that the dying woman, devout Christian though she is, still prefers to paradise itself. The book, divided into four parts marked by four phases of a sunset, is nothing but a succession of sensations, dreams and memories where everything mingles—the happiness of the past and the terror of the imminent future. Rather grandiose, the title Le Soir tragique.

¹²⁰ Henri de Régnier, Episodes.

¹²¹ Others have taken the same path. Let me mention only the poet Stanislas de Guaita and the novelist Joséphin Péladan. Here are two artists in the finest sense of the word, and had I undertaken to discuss all our young writers, I should have been bound to find room for the poet of Rosa Mystica and the novelist of Le Vice Suprême—though not without reservations concerning the latter’s most regrettable lapses, his prose too often redolent of the feuilleton, and the theatrical contrivance of his method. But I repeat: this is no catalogue. The poets I have selected suffice for the demonstration I wished to make. Yet let these names of worthy writers also be set down here: Vielé-Griffin, Paul Adam, Stuart Merrill, Darzens, Mikhaël, La Tailhède, de la Villehervé, Jean Lorrain, George Lorin, Guigou, Bozaire, Clerget, Michelet, Victor Margueritte, Louis Marsolleau, Ajalbert, Bunand, Leclercq, Randon, Tellier, Vallette, Aurier, Roux, Quillard, Roinard, Barthélemi, Vidal, Brinn’Gaubast.

¹²² Need I repeat for prose writers the caveat already noted for poets? Others, and yet others again, might have served equally well as examples alongside those I examine at length. But one must draw the line somewhere, make choices; perhaps I simply left it to chance.

¹²³ Emile Henneijuin, Revue contemporaine, tome III, n° 2.

¹²⁴ Francis Poictevin: Derniers Songes.

¹²⁵ Adrien Remacle: L’Absente.) turns on a double patrimony born of adultery ( ¹²⁶ A phenomenon scientifically attested: the enduring imprint, within a woman, of the man who first possessed her. Should she later belong to another and bear a child, that child may resemble—in character and physique—only the first lover, though it may equally embody both lineages.

¹²⁶ Édouard Dujardin: Les Hantises.

¹²⁷ Maurice Barrès: Sous l’œil des Barbares.

¹²⁸ Bibliography of Hennequin’s published and forthcoming works. Contes grotesques, by Edgar Poe (translation). La Critique scientifique; Les Écrivains francisés; Les Écrivains français; Poèmes en prose, with introduction by Édouard Rod. — Perrin, publisher.

¹²⁹ Already noted among the fine poets.

¹³⁰ Need I say that none of this forbids the poet from writing a psychological study or whatever else his fancy dictates? The author himself would be the last to impose such restrictions. He claims neither to prohibit nor prescribe anything whatsoever, and all this remains, once again, merely the expression of personal convictions.

¹³¹ M. Paul Verlaine: Jadis et Naguère.