Hugo's heroic bearing and giant's stride had compelled reverence; his imposing rhetoric roused respectful admiration; but this miraculous jaunty grace, this genius for shameless drollery, had both an emancipatory and a fascinating effect. There was a diabolical irresistibility about it, a quality which women as a rule are, and in this case were, the first to appreciate. De Musset wrote of women, always of women, and not, like Hugo, with precocious maturity, with chivalrous tenderness, with romantic gallantry--no, with a passion, a hatred, a bitterness, a fury, which showed that he despised and adored them, that they could make him writhe and scream in agony, and that he took his revenge in clamorous accusation and fiery scorn. There is here no ripeness, wholesomeness, or moral beauty, but a youthful, seething, incredible intensity of life, any description of which would be no more successful than the description of scarlet given to the blind man, which drew forth the remark: "Then it is like the sound of a trumpet." And in this poetry there is, verily, a quality which suggests scarlet and the flourish of trumpets. That beauty in art is immortal is true; but there is something still more certainly immortal, namely, life. These first poems of De Musset lived. They were followed by his mature, beautiful works; and all men's eyes were opened to his merits. In the poem "Après une lecture" he has himself described his art: "Celui qui ne sait pas, quand la brise étouffée Soupire au fond des bois son tendre et long chagrin, Sortir seul au hazard, chantant quelque refrain, Plus fou qu'Ophélia de romarin coiffée, Plus étourdi qu'un page amoureux d'une fée Sur son chapeau cassé jouant du tambourin; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Celui qui n'a pas l'âme à tout jamais aimante, Qui n'a pas pour tout bien, pour unique bonheur, De venir lentement poser son front rêveur Sur un front jeune et frais, à la tresse odorante, Et de sentir ainsi d'une tête charmante La vie et la beauté descendre dans son cœur; Celui qui ne sait pas, durant les nuits brûlantes Qui font pâlir d'amour l'étoile de Vénus, Se lever en sursaut, sans raison, les pieds nus, Marcher, prier, pleurer des larmes ruisselantes, Et devant l'infini joindre des mains tremblantes, Le cœur plein de pitié pour les maux inconnus; Que celui-là rature et barbouille à son aise; Il peut, tant qu'il voudra, rimer à tour de bras, Ravauder l'oripeau qu'on appelle antithèse, Et s'en aller ainsi jusqu'au Père-Lachaise, Traînant à ses talons tous les sots d'ici-bas; Grand homme, si l'on veut; mais poëte, non pas."