The logic of an amateur of literature is offended upon his discovering
that his admirations disagree with those of the public; but he is not
surprised, knowing that there are the elect of the last hour. The
public's attitude is less benignant when it learns the disaccord which
is noticeable between it, obscure master of glories, and the opinion
of the small oligarchic number. Accustomed to couple these two ideas,
renown and talent, it shows a repugnance in disjoining them; it does
not admit, for it has a secret sense of justice or logic, that an
illustrious author might be so by chance alone, or that an unknown
author merits recognition. Here is a misunderstanding, doubtless old
as the six thousand years ascribed by La Bruyère to human thought,
and this misunderstanding, based on very logical and solid reasoning,
sets at defiance from the height of its pedestal all attempts at
conciliation. To end it, it is needful to limit oneself to the timid
insinuations of science and to ask if we truly know the "thing in
itself," if there is not a certain inevitable little difference
between the object of knowledge and the knowledge of the object. On
this ground, as one will be less understood, agreement will be easier
and then the legitimate difference of opinions will be voluntarily
admitted, since it is not a question of captivating Truth--that
reflection of a moon in a well--but to measure by approximation, as is
done with stars, the distance or the difference existing between the
genius of a poet and the idea we have of it.
Were it necessary, which is quite useless, to express oneself more
clearly, it might be said that, according to several persons whose
opinion perhaps is worth that of many others, all the literary history,
as written by professors according to educational views, is but a
mass of judgments nearly all reversed, and that, in particular, the
histories of French literature is but the banal cataloguing of the
plaudits and crowns fallen to the cleverest or most fortunate. Perhaps
it is time to adopt another method and to give, among the celebrated
persons, a place to those who could have attained it--if the snow had
not fallen on the day they announced the glory of the new spring.
Stuart Merrill and Saint-Pol-Roux are of those whom the snow gainsaid.
If the public knows their names less than some others, it is not that
they have less merit, it is that they had less good fortune.
The poet of _Fastes_, by the mere choice of this word, bespeaks the
fair frankness of a rich soul and a generous talent. His verses, a
little gilded, a little clamorous, truly burst forth and peal for
the holidays and gorgeous parades, and when the play of sunshine has
passed, behold the torches illumined in the night for the sumptuous
procession of supernatural women. Poems or women, they doubtless are
bedecked with too many rings and rubies and their robes are embroidered
with too much gold; they are royal courtisans rather than princesses,
but we love their cruel eyes and russet hair.
After such splendid trumpets, the _Petits Poèmes d'Automne_, the noise
of the spuming wheel, a sound of a bell, an air of a flute in tone of
moonlight: it is the drowsiness and dreaming saddened by the silence of
things, the incertitude of the hours:
C'est le vent d'automne dans l'allée,
Soeur, écoute, et la chute sur l'eau
Des feuilles du saule et du bouleau,
Et c'est le givre dans la vallée,
Dénoue--il est l'heure--tes cheveaux
Plus blonds que le chanvre que tu files....
Et viens, pareille à ces châtelaines
Dolentes à qui tu fais songer,
Dans le silence où meurt ton léger
Rouet, ô ma soeur des marjolaines!
(Tr. 52)
Thus, in Stuart Merrill we discover the contrast and struggle of a
spirited temperament and a very gentle heart, and according as one
of the two natures prevails, we hear the violence of brasses or the
murmurings of viols. Similarly does his technique oscillate from
_Gammes_ to his latest poems, from the Parnassian stiffness to the
_verso suelto_ of the new schools, which only the senators of art do
not recognize. Vers libre, which is favorable to original talent,
and which is a reef of danger to others, could not help winning over
so gifted a poet, and so intelligent an innovator. This is how he
understands it:
Venez avec des couronnes de primevères dans vos mains,
O fillettes qui pleurez la soeur morte à l'aurore.
Les cloches de la vallée sonnent la fin d'un sort,
Et l'on voit luire des pelles au soleil du matin.
Venez avec des corbeilles de violettes, ô fillettes
Qui hésitez un peu dans le chemin des hêtres,
Par crainte des paroles solennelles du prêtre.
Venez, le ciel est tout sonore d'invisibles alouettes....
C'est la fête de la mort, et l'on dirait dimanche,
Tant les cloches sonnent, douces au fond de la vallée;
Les garçons se sont cachés dans les petites allées;
Vous seules devez prier au pied de la tombe blanche....
Quelque année, les garçons qui se cachent aujourd'hui
Viendront vous dire à toutes la douce douleur d'aimer,
Et l'on vous entendra, autour du mât de mai,
Chanter des rondes d'enfance pour saluer la nuit.
(Tr. 53)
Stuart Merrill did not embark in vain, the day he desired to cross the
Atlantic, to come and woo the proud French poetry, and place one of her
flowers in his hair.