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                   III

  MY VISIT TO LONDON

        (November, 1893)

On the 19th of November last, at nine in the evening, I took the train at the Gare Saint-Lazare for Dieppe-Newhaven. On reaching Dieppe, I found the buffet crammed with travellers, who had been kept by the bad weather from taking the preceding boats. The boat corresponding with my train was equally unable to put out to sea, on account of a storm which had already lasted twenty-four hours, and was to last, with redoubled violence, till the next evening. So there was nothing for it but, in company with a good hundred people, to spend part of the night on a bench, till the worthy host (to whom thanks, and thanks again !) made me the offer, not indeed of a room, but of a sofa in the dining-room of his hotel opposite the station, and I was thus enabled, if not to sleep with much comfort, at all events to take a little rest, to the accompaniment of the boom of the sea, which reminded me of the too Parisian uproar and the cannonade of September, 1870, to January, 1871. All the next day a diluvian rain fell, and I consumed the time in déjeuners, lunches, and dinners, apéritifs, coffees, and cigars, at the said buffet. Of Dieppe I saw no more than the whitish cliffs against an iron-gray sky, across the lances as of a mass of armed men—

        "les lances de l'averse"—

the terrible downpour, under which the sea, gradually calming, growled like a gorged beast, still terribly, with a ravenous delight, one might have said, for many fishing-boats, alas ! had gone down, and were still going down, with all hands on board, in the harbour and out at sea.

At last, on the 20th of November, at nine in the evening, there was some talk of setting out, and, hobbling along as fast as I could, I managed to secure half a berth in the second-class cabin. When the bell had sounded for the last time, and the great white chimney, like a vast phantom in the opaque night, had uttered its lugubrious shriek, I felt, after some minutes of uneasy motion in port, a prodigious pitching of the vessel, then a quite sufficient rolling, stupefying at first by their continuity and their almost rhythmical regularity, and becoming a literal rocking to sleep, at least as far as I was

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concerned, fatigued as I already was by a sleepless night, or all but, and a day of interminable boredom. And there was something, too, in the immensity of the "caress," not unpleasing to a poet, and I made a little poem about it not long afterwards, which is to appear some day in an English paper.¹ Any- way, I slept the sleep of the just during the whole passage, and never opened my eyes till within sight of Newhaven, when, the sea being now quite calm, the boat glided along without needing to turn on steam, and the very lull and comparative silence awoke me as pleasantly as possible. When I reached London at two in the morning, and had a quarter of an hour's drive to the Temple, in the fine moonlight, the wind quite bracing, I felt already the good effect of what was really one of the best crossings I had ever had. London, so impressive as one passes its superb buildings from the formidable Thames towards Westminster, the rich, elegant London between Victoria Station and the Strand, seemed to me that night exquisite, delicate, almost dainty— luminous.

At the Temple awaited me the poet Arthur Symons, who (as, afterwards, Herbert Home, poet himself, and architect) was to give me a charming hos- pitality. He had been to look for me three or four times in vain at Victoria Station, and, imagining after these fruitless errands that I should not come till night, he had waited up for me, and came to welcome me at the very door of the house which he inhabits in that vast caravanserai of the Law—and of Silence. (For how exquisite a corner of London, in which there are so many exquisite and infamous corners, so few common or vulgar !) My host led me up into his charming little flat, from which, next day, I was to have one of the most ravishing and peaceful views, in the exceptionally fine weather, as if made on purpose for the traveller, which bathed the London sky and the whole aspect of the immense city of pale rose and pearl gray. Blithe birds, blackbirds even, on the infinitely twisted branches of those beautiful, immense English trees ; to the left, in a paved and grassy angle, regular to the point of being beautiful, in its way, the fountain, which gives its name to the spot (Fountain Court), with its babbling jet of water. But for the moment I was hungry, fagged out by those hours of vehement sea ; and Symons, following my example, ate—while we talked, for two good hours, about everything under the sun, Paris, poetry, money too (poets think of nothing else . . . and with reason !), my future lectures—an entire box, one of those long, tall, tin boxes, of tea-biscuits, "muffins" in English,² washed down with plenty of "gin and

                        ¹ It appeared in the "New Review."—Ed. "Savoy."

                        ² They were Osborne biscuits.—Ed. "Savoy."

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soda,"¹ and perfumed with vague cigarettes. And it was, I assure you, one of the best and gayest meals I ever had in my life !

But I had not come to London merely as a tourist. The very date of my arrival is sufficient evidence to the contrary. I had to give two con- férences, or rather two lectures, as they say, more justly, more simply, and more modestly, in English : one at London, the other, on the following day, at Oxford. The London one was to take place next day (or rather the very day of my archi-matutinal arrival) at 8.30 P.M., at a hall in Holborn, of which I shall have something to say in a few moments.

Our conversation, much against our will, finally came to an end, in spite of its twofold interest, intellectual and gastronomic, for "the Sandman," as Hoffmann says, "Madame la Poussière," as they say in my mother's country, Arras, to represent sleep, had passed, and a well-deserved repose parted us until eleven, when the very sympathetic journalist, Mr. Edmund Gosse, came to take us out to lunch in a sumptuous restaurant near by, where my forces were sufficiently recuperated to enable me to put the finishing touches to my causerie for the evening. I say nothing of many other visits, among which I remember those of William Heinemann, the great publisher, Home, Rothenstein, whom I had met the summer before, and who had sketched, in the Hôpital Broussais, a portrait of me which has since appeared in the "Pall Mall Budget," Lane, the publisher of "les Jeunes," and others whose names I forget.

The evening came, and our little band, after a dinner à la française, not less copious than the morning's lunch, set out, in a confusion of vehicles, towards the spot where I was to speak of "Contemporary French Poets." It was, as I have said, in Holborn, the long, immemorial street of the venerable capital. I knew London long since, and I remembered to have seen, in Holborn, almost at the intersection formed by the Viaduct, a row of some dozen houses, as picturesque as could be, and extremely old, dating from at least the time of Elizabeth. I was not so very much surprised, guided as I was by artists and poets, to find myself, after passing through indefinite corridors, in an extraordinary hall, very ancient, of a sort of rustic Gothic— there is a little too much Gothic among our neighbours (and yet even their modern Gothic is so charming !) as, among us, there is an outrageous deal too much Roman, and what not ! in architecture—but the Gothic of Barnard's Inn is sincere, natural, and marvellous in its simplicity. There is some talk of pulling down this intimate remnant of the end of the Middle Ages. (Barnard's

                        ¹There was no soda.—Ed. "Savoy."

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Inn formerly served for corporative meetings and ceremonies.) In our days the hall is used for private exhibitions, and the artists protest vigorously against this act of vandalism. If the voice of a humble stranger can be heard in this most reasonable hue and cry, here is mine, and loudly.

In front of me was a platform, where, behind a bare table of oak, lit by an old bronze lamp, rose an armchair of oak, also bare, and of colossal proportions, in which there was room enough for even the ventripotent syndics of old "merry England."

I, "chétif trouvère de Paris," intimidated by the imposing place, and the rude, majestic furniture, but encouraged by the numerous and very select audience, installed myself as best I could in the immense chair, at the immense table, and unfolding a roll of notes, expressed myself much as follows :

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I should be unworthy of the title of poet—of the glorious, and sorrowful, and thereby the more glorious, name of poet—if I were to forget that I speak here in the country which is par excellence that of poetry. Some acquaintance (alas ! but imperfect), with your language, and necessarily incomplete readings in that language, have taught me modesty, Frenchman as I am—and modesty is not specially the portion of us Frenchmen—in regard to this as to many other truths. Thus it is not without timidity that I ask for the indulgence of this picked audience.

"Nevertheless I shall venture, since I have been so graciously invited, to attempt here the most difficult of all endeavours, and, asking forgiveness for not doing it in English, the English which a great writer of ours, Barbey d'Aurévilly, declared was evidently the idiom spoken at the beginning of the world by our grandmother Eve, I begin.

"I am not wanting in experience of lectures. Last year I went to Holland and to Belgium, where I met with some success. Quite lately I visited Nancy and Lunéville, and I was touched at receiving so warm a welcome from my compatriots, for I belong to that part of the country, I was born at Metz, and it was here in London, in 1872, that I declared for the French nationality.

"But under the present circumstances, I cannot repeat too often, I expe- rience a quite special kind of emotion, and I would specially ask your kind attention.

"May I merit it !

"I shall speak, too, during these few moments, so flattering and so formidable for me, of things of which I have some knowledge, for I have

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taken part in them to the best of my ability. I allude to contemporary French poetry.

"I do not intend, be assured, to recapitulate the whole history of the poetic evolution of the present time : Romanticism, the Parnasse contemporain, itself an output of Romanticism, an advanced Romanticism in which thun- dered the formidable verse of Leconte de Lisle, flickered and tinkled that of Théodore de Banville, while that of Baudelaire sighed and shone like a corpse- candle—revered and venerated trinity, from whom, undoubtedly, proceeded the first works of a generation already ripe, very ripe, too ripe, think and say some impatient ones among us ; a generation to which I belong, to which Stéphane Mallarmé belongs, and others also, whose talent has retained the impress of the past, not without some necessary modifications (doubtless for the better) which time brings with it in its passing.

"I give here only the name of Mallarmé, who, along with myself, was most in sympathy with those younger men about whom I intend to speak. It was about the year 1881 that the various tendencies of the new 'batch' of poets began to make themselves felt, tendencies confirmed by a most often happy audacity, and a true love of letters. I do not always agree with them ; I should raise many objections to the vers libre, for example, and the rime libre, preached and practised by these latest friends of mine. But what merits, already, and rightly, noised abroad, are there not in Jean Moréas in particular, aonce the courageous, the indefatigable critic, and the protagonist of his work, still constantly under discussion, so to speak. It was at first pure Romanticism, without a shadow of resemblance to the Parnasse contemporain, then it adopted Symbolism, in whose definition of itself he was not slow to recognize the insufficiency, and which he replaced by the École Romane, gathering about him, with a well-merited pride, men of such fine talents, original within even the limits of the accepted poetic discipline, as Ernest Raynaud, Maurice du Plessys, and, more recently, Raymond de la Tailhède.

"In addition to the 'Romans,' for, in spite of all, the name has had to be recognized, there is an independent pléiade of poets, powerful or charming, each seeking a way of his own, and the most having found it ; some fervent adepts, others sceptical partisans, it would seem, of that vers libre which, once and for all, I am by no means too fond of. Others, again, hold by verse pure and simple, verse as I have known and used it, with yet others who are legion.

"Undoubtedly the most remarkable among these is Laurent Tailhade, at once subtle and mystical, and so terribly and so stingingly méchant. It is

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certainly well to be among his friends ; as for his literary enemies, they can be but the foolish or the ignorant. I am infinitely fond of his books of pure beauty, but I confess I have a weakness for Au Pays du Mufle, which might be rendered in English, imperfectly enough, by In the Country of the Snob : that formidable farrago of violence and of irony, in which the ferocity of the subject-matter corresponds, in some sort, with a certain ferocity of the form, a form at once learned and amusing, furiously yet quite intelligibly archaic. Next follow Paul Vérola ; Henri de Régnier ; Vielé-Griffin, Stuart Merrill, both of Anglo-Saxon origin, but brought up mainly in France ; Adolphe Retté ; Edouard Dubus ; George Suzanne ; Dauphin Meunier ; all remark- able in their different degrees, and of an assured future. I am not mentioning names at random, be sure, for, if I desired to be interminable, I easily could be, so many young poets are there in these days of surrounding materialism and rationalism, whose extent, however, is perhaps somewhat exaggerated. Many of these will renounce the fray, and honourably re-enter the ordinary intellec- tual life. As for those I have named, never ! and so much the better for all of us.

"These poets, I repeat, are independent of one another. The 'Romans,' of whom I have just spoken, form, on the contrary, a group to themselves, and, whatever may be the very real originality, on which I have but now insisted, of one and another among them, taken separately, they follow a common principle, which is, to go straight back to the origin of the French language, which, it is well known, comes of Gallo-Roman stock. But is 'Roman' really the word ? I doubt it ; indeed, I deny it. The Roman is still Latin, liturgical Latin, in my opinion, of the time of the Roman basilicas ; and I do not quite understand, on the part of the poets in question, the leap from this time to that of Ronsard, whose idiom, whose rhythm, whose very tricks, are a good deal too much borrowed by these amiable, and, at their moments, admirable poets. They have science (a little at random, for they are young) ; they have music, or at least almost all the four who form the group ; they have faith, and, above all, good faith. They have all that, I admit willingly, gladly, indeed, on behalf of my art which they honour, my country which they adorn ; but, but, though that is enough to be or to become a perfect artist, is it enough to become an incontestable poet ? Perhaps not ; unkind as it may seem to suggest the doubt.

"But life is hard, as it is essentially uncertain, obscure; indecisive, complex ; and again charming, smiling, friendly, simple, when it wills. And in order to be a poet, it seems to me, one must live much, and remember much. Alfred

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de Musset has said that infinitely better than I could possibly say it, and he has left a living work, the typical living work, though, indeed, he has not put all of himself into it. He had his reasons, which were, in the main, that he chose to do as he did ; but he might, perhaps he should, have done more. In spite of all, he remains a great poet. An artist ? yes, a hundred times, yes. A perfect artist ? No ; for life, felt and rendered, even well, even admirably felt and rendered, is not all which that task requires. You must work, you must work like a labourer ; and that these 'Roman' poets undoubtedly do.

"So, it seems to me, the poet should be absolutely sincere, but absolutely conscientious as a writer ; hiding nothing of himself, but employing, in the expression of this frankness, all needful dignity, and a care of that dignity which should manifest itself in, if not the perfection of form, at all events an invisible, insensible, but effective endeavour after this lofty and severe quality ; I was about to say, this virtue.

"A poet (alas ! only myself) has essayed this undertaking ; very probably he has failed, but certainly he has done his best to acquit himself honourably.

"I began, in 1867, with 'Poèmes Saturniens,' a youthful affair, marked by- imitations to right and left : Hugo, Gautier, Baudelaire, Banville. In addition, thanks to a mistaken taste for Leconte de Lisle, I was an impassible, 'im- pas-si-ble,' as the word was pronounced then in the Passage Choiseul and on the Boulevard des Batignolles.