“‘_En ta dentelle où n’est notoire_ _Mon doux évanouissement,_ _Taisons pour l’âtre sans histoire_ _Tel vœu de lèvres résumant._ _Toute ombre hors d’un territoire_ _Se teinte itérativement_ _A la lueur exhalatoire_ _Des pétales de remuement._’.... “One of them, however, has explained to us what they intended doing, in a pamphlet modestly entitled, _Traité du Verbe_, by Stéphane Mallarmé. By this it appears that they have invented two things--the symbol, and ‘poetic instrumentation.’ “The invention of the symbolists seems to consist in _not saying_ what feelings, thoughts, or states of mind they express by images. But even this is not new. A SYMBOL is, in short, an enlarged comparison of which only the second term is given--a connected series of metaphors. Briefly, the symbol is the old ‘allegory’ of our fathers.[355] “Now, here is the second discovery made by our wild-eyed symbolists. Men have suspected, ever since Homer’s time, that there are relations, correspondences, affinities, between certain sounds, forms, and colours, and certain states of mind. For instance, it was felt that the repeated sound of a had something to do with the impression of freshness and peace produced by this line of Virgil-- “‘_Pascitur in silva magna formosa juvenca._’ It was known that sounds may, like colours, be striking or subdued; like feelings, sad or joyful. But it was thought that these resemblances and relations are somewhat fugitive, having nothing constant or sharply-defined, and that they are, at least, hinted at by the sense of the words which compose the musical phrase. “Now, attend to this! For these gentlemen, _a_ = black, _e_ = white, _i_ = blue, _o_ = red, _u_ = yellow. “Again, black = the organ, white = the harp, blue = the violin, red = the trumpet, yellow = the flute. “Again, the organ expresses monotony, doubt, and simplicity; the harp, serenity; the violin, passion and prayer; the trumpet, glory and ovation; the flute, smiles and ingenuousness. “It is difficult to make out to what degree the young _symbolards_ still take account of the sense of words. That degree, however, is, in any case, very slight, and, for my part, I cannot well distinguish the passages where they are obscure from those where they are only unintelligible. “In short, a poetry without thoughts, at once primitive and subtle, which does not (like classic poetry) express a connected series of ideas, nor (like the poetry of the _Parnassiens_) the physical world in its exact outlines, but states of mind in which we can scarcely distinguish ourselves from surrounding objects, where sensation is so closely united to sentiment; where the latter grows so rapidly and naturally out of the former, that it is quite sufficient for us to note down our sensations at random just as they present themselves, to express _ipso facto_ the emotions which they successively give rise to in the mind.