only in the last line that the lily, which animates and gives life to
the whole, is introduced. But the exquisite poetic perceptivity Coppée
showed in his modern poems, the certainty with which he raised the
commonest subject, investing it with sufficient dignity for his purpose,
escaped me wholly, and I could not but turn with horror from such poems
as "La Nourrice" and "Le Petit Epicier." How anyone could bring himself
to acknowledge the vulgar details of our vulgar age I could not
understand. The fiery glory of José Maria de Hérédia, on the contrary,
filled me with enthusiasm--ruins and sand, shadow and silhouette of
palms and pillars, negroes, crimson, swords, silence, and arabesques.
Like great copper pans go the clangour of the rhymes.

"Entre le ciel qui brûle et la mer qui moutonne,
Au somnolent soleil d'un midi monotone,
Tu songes, O guerrière, aux vieux conquistadors;
Et dans l'énervement des nuits chaudes et calmes,
Berçant ta gloire éteinte, O cité, tu t'endors
Sous les palmiers, au long frémissement des palmes."

Catulle Mendès, a perfect realisation of his name, with his pale hair,
and his fragile face illuminated with the idealism of a depraved woman.
He takes you by the arm, by the hand, he leans towards you, his words
are caresses, his fervour is delightful, and to hear him is as sweet as
drinking a smooth perfumed yellow wine. All he says is false--the book
he has just read, the play he is writing, the woman who loves him,...he
buys a packet of bonbons in the streets and eats them, and it is false.
An exquisite artist; physically and spiritually he is art; he is the
muse herself, or rather, he is one of the minions of the muse. Passing
from flower to flower he goes, his whole nature pulsing with butterfly
voluptuousness. He has written poems as good as Hugo, as good as Leconte