With them one descends along the gloomy mountain to the doleful city of _Fleurs du Mal_. All the present literature and especially that which is called symbolistic, is Baudelairian, not doubtless by its external technique, but by its internal and spiritual technique, by the sense of mystery, by the anxious care to hear what things say, by the desire to harmonize, from soul to soul, with the obscure thought diffused in the night of the world, according to those so often quoted and repeated verses: La nature est un temple où de vivants piliers Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles; L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers. Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité, Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté, Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent. (Tr. 17) Baudelaire had read the first poems of Mallarmé before dying. He was troubled; poets do not like to leave a brother or son behind them. They would like to be alone and have their genius perish with their brain. But Mallarmé was Baudelairian only by filiation. His so precious originality quickly asserted itself. His _Proses_, his _Après-midi d'un Faune_, his _Sonnets_, came, at too long intervals, to tell of the marvelous subtlety of his patient, disdainful, imperiously gentle genius. Having voluntarily killed in him the spontaneity of being impressionable, the gifts of the artist by degrees replaced the gifts of the poet. He loved words more for their possible sense than for their true sense, and combined them in mosaics of a refined simplicity. It has been well said of him that, like Perseus or Martial, he was a difficult author. Yes, and like Anderson's man who wove invisible threads, Mallarmé assembles gems colored by his dreams, whose richness our care does not always succeed in divining. But it would be absurd to suppose that he is incomprehensible. The trick of quoting certain verses, obscure by their isolation, is not loyal, for, even in fragments, Mallarmé's poetry, when good, is incomparably so, and if later in a corroded book we only find these debris: La chair est triste, hélas! et j'ai lu tous les livres. Fuir! là-bas fuir! Je sens que des oiseaux sont ivres D'être parmi l'écume inconnue et les cieux.... Un automne jonché de taches de rousseur.... Et tu fis la blancheur sanglotante des lys.... Je t'apporte l'enfant d'une nuit d'Idumée.... Tout son col secouera cette blanche agonie.... (Tr. 18) we must attribute them to a poet who was an artist to the highest degree. Oh! that sonnet of the swan (of which the last verse quoted above is the ninth) where all the words are white as snow! But everything possible has been written on this beloved poet. I end with this comment. Recently a question, something like this, was asked: