The following pages (not included in the "complete" French edition)
contain notes found after the death of Baudelaire; disconnected
fragments; echoes; pistils of ideas, promising wondrous blossom, to
which no pollen came. They epitomize the moral and intellectual life of
the artist. In his own art, Baudelaire is the creator of a new mood, in
which Maeterlinck and Verlaine are among his disciples, where Swinburne
and Wilde have followed him; in painting and in music, his criticism
was seeking in 1850 all that the later development of these arts has
brought forth. The reflection of that brilliant mind glows in these
intimate pages.
In the almost absolute isolation in which he confined himself more and
more, Baudelaire, who had so loved to expand in conversation, felt the
need of a confidant that would not importune him with useless counsels,
nor with expressions of sympathy he would have repulsed, if only
through dandyism. Paper alone could be that confidant.
The poet is wholly within these journals, with his religious,
political, moral and literary theories, above all, with the explicit
evidence of his weaknesses and his griefs. What skilled theologian has
made a more haughty confession than this: "There are none great among
men save the poet, the priest and the soldier; the man who sings, the
man who blesses, the man who sacrifices others and himself. The rest is
made for the whip"? What political economist has made a more absolute
declaration of principles than this: "There is no reasonable, stable
government save the aristocratic. Monarchy and republic, based on
democracy, are equally weak and absurd"?
His ideal of the greatness of the individual is derived logically from
his conception of an aristocratic society under the triumvirate of the
poet, the priest and the soldier. "Before all, to be a great man and
a saint for one's self;" that, for Baudelaire, is the one ambition
worthy of a superior nature. He has indicated the principal traits of
the ideal "dandy" that he has sought unceasingly. The dandy is not
only the most elegant of men, of the most original and discriminating
tastes, which he exercises in his habits, in the choice of his books
or his mistress; he is armed with a will superior to all obstacles,
opposing caprice with invincible energy, and correcting in himself the
inevitable faults of nature with all the resources of art.
The two manuscripts in which these ideals are scattered differ so
slightly that it might seem impossible to decide which should be read
first. A closer examination, however, indicates that _Rockets_ is of
the period about ten years before the author's death, while _My Heart
Laid Bare_ belongs entirely to the days when he felt the first attacks
of the illness that was to bear him off. No effort has been made to
group the paragraphs according to topic; they are printed as they
appear in the manuscript (the page divisions of which are indicated
by the successive numbers). The documents furnish an interesting
supplement to the more formal works of the poet, and a valuable
contribution to literature.