To this priority, of which he knew the full value, Alfred de Vigny laid
insistent claim. "The only merit," he says in one of his prefaces, "that
any one ever has disputed with me in this sort of composition is the
honor of having promulgated in France all works of the kind in which
philosophic thought is presented in either epic or dramatic form."

But it was not alone priority in the sense of time that gave him right of
way over his contemporaries; he was the most distinguished representative
of poetic philosophy of his generation. If the phrases of Lamartine seem
richer, if his flight is more majestic, De Vigny's range is surer and
more powerful. While the philosophy of the creator of 'Les Harmonies' is
uncertain and inconsistent, that of the poet of 'Les Destinees' is strong
and substantial, for the reason that the former inspires more sentiment
than ideas, while the latter, soaring far above the narrow sphere of
personal emotion, writes of everything that occupies the intellect of
man.

Thus, by his vigor and breadth of thought, by his profound understanding
of life, by the intensity of his dreams, Alfred de Vigny is superior to
Victor Hugo, whose genius was quite different, in his power to portray
picturesque scenes, in his remarkable fecundity of imagination, and in
his sovereign mastery of technique.

But nowhere in De Vigny's work is that superiority of poetic thought so
clearly shown as in those productions wherein the point of departure was
farthest from the domain of intellect, and better than any other has he
understood that truth proclaimed by Hegel: "The passions of the soul and
the affections of the heart are matter for poetic expression only in so
far as they are general, solid, and eternal."