would be in the "line" of Hugo. Hugo--how impossible it is to speak of
French literature without referring to him. Let these, however, be
concluding words that he thought he could by saying everything, and,
saying everything twenty times over, for ever render impossible the
rehearsal of another great poet. But a work of art is valuable, and
pleasurable in proportion to its rarity; one beautiful book of verses is
better than twenty books of beautiful verses. This is an absolute and
incontestable truth; a child can burlesque this truth--one verse is
better than the whole poem, a word is better than the line, a letter is
better than the word, but the truth is not thereby affected. Hugo never
had the good fortune to write a bad book, nor even a single bad line, so
not having time to read all, the future will read none. What immortality
would be gained by the destruction of one half of his magnificent works,
what oblivion is secured by the publication of these posthumous volumes.

To return to the Leconte de Lisle. See his "Discours de Réception." Is
it possible to imagine anything more absurdly arid? Rhetoric of this
sort, "_des vers d'or sur une éclume d'airain_" and such sententious
platitudes as this (speaking of the realists), "_Les épidémies de cette
nature passent, et le génie demeure_."

Theodore de Banville. At first I thought him cold, infected with the
rhetorical ice of the Leconte de Lisle. He had no new creed to proclaim
nor old creed to denounce, the inherent miseries of human life did not
seem to touch him, nor did he sing the languors and ardours of animal or
spiritual passion. But there is this: a pure, clear song, an
instinctive, incurable and lark-like love of the song. He sings of the
white lily and the red rose, such knowledge of, such observation of
nature is enough for the poet, and he sings and he trills, there is
trilling magic in every song, and the song as it ascends rings, and all