Je cesse lentement d'être moi. Ma personne
Semble s'anéantir chaque jour un peu plus
C'est à peine si je le sens et m'en étonne.
His poetry is not of single and startling emotions, but--for better or
worse--of progressive states of consciousness. It is as useless for the
disciple to try and imitate Romains, without having as much thought of
his own, as it is for the tyro in words to try imitations of Jules
Laforgue. The limitation of Romains' work, as of a deal of Browning's,
is that, having once understood it, one may not need or care to re-read
it. This restriction applies also in a wholly different way to
"Endymion"; having once filled the mind with Keats' color, or the beauty
of things described, one gets no new thrill from the re-reading of them
in not very well-written verse. This limitation applies to all poetry
that is not implicit in its own medium, that is, which is not
indissolubly bound in with the actual words, word music, the fineness
and firmness of the actual writing, as in Villon, or in "Collis O
Heliconii."
But one can not leave Romains unread. His interest is more than a prose
interest, he has verse technique, rhyme, terminal syzygy, but that is
not what I mean. He is poetry in:
On ne m'a pas donné de lettres, ces jours-ci;
Personne n'a songé, dans la ville, à m'écrire,
Oh! je n'espérais rien; je sais vivre et penser
Tout seul, et mon esprit, pour faire une flambée,
N'attend pas qu'on lui jette une feuille noircie.
Mais je sens qu'il me manque un plaisir familier,
J'ai du bonheur aux mains quand j'ouvre une enveloppe;
* * * * * * * *
But such statements as: