Astre brillant, Phébé aux ailes étendues, O flamme de la nuit qui croîs et diminues, Favorise la route et les sombres forêts Où mon ami errant porte ses pas discrets! Dans la grotte au vain bruit dont l'entrée est tout lierre, Sur la roche pointue aux chèvres familière, Sur le lac, sur l'étang, sur leurs tranquilles eaux, Sur les bords émaillés où plaignent les roseaux. Dans le cristal rompu des ruisselets obliques, Il aime à voir trembler tes feux mélancoliques. * * * * * Phébé, ô Cynthia, dès sa saison première, Mon ami fut épris de ta belle lumière; Dans leur cercle observant tes visages divers, Sous ta douce influence il composait ses vers. Par dessus Nice, Eryx, Seyre et la sablonneuse Ioclos, le Tmolus et la grande Epidaure, Et la verte Cydon, sa piété honore Ce rocher de Latmos où tu fus amoureuse. (Tr. 51) Moréas, like his Phoebe, has tried to put on many diverse countenances and even to cover his face with masks. We always recognize him from his brothers: he is a poet. STUART MERRILL The logic of an amateur of literature is offended upon his discovering that his admirations disagree with those of the public; but he is not surprised, knowing that there are the elect of the last hour. The public's attitude is less benignant when it learns the disaccord which is noticeable between it, obscure master of glories, and the opinion of the small oligarchic number. Accustomed to couple these two ideas, renown and talent, it shows a repugnance in disjoining them; it does not admit, for it has a secret sense of justice or logic, that an illustrious author might be so by chance alone, or that an unknown author merits recognition. Here is a misunderstanding, doubtless old as the six thousand years ascribed by La Bruyère to human thought, and this misunderstanding, based on very logical and solid reasoning, sets at defiance from the height of its pedestal all attempts at conciliation. To end it, it is needful to limit oneself to the timid insinuations of science and to ask if we truly know the "thing in itself," if there is not a certain inevitable little difference between the object of knowledge and the knowledge of the object. On this ground, as one will be less understood, agreement will be easier and then the legitimate difference of opinions will be voluntarily admitted, since it is not a question of captivating Truth--that reflection of a moon in a well--but to measure by approximation, as is done with stars, the distance or the difference existing between the genius of a poet and the idea we have of it.