“One might almost say that Paul Verlaine is the only poet who has never expressed anything but sentiment and sensation, and has expressed them for himself, and for no one else,[356] which dispenses him from the obligation of showing the connection between his ideas, since he knows it. This poet has never asked himself whether he should be understood, and he has never wished to prove anything. This is why (_Sagesse_ excepted) it is almost impossible to give a _résumé_ of his collections, or to state their main idea in a succinct form. One can only characterise them by means of the state of mind of which they are most frequently the rendering--semi-intoxication, hallucination which distorts objects, and makes them resemble an incoherent dream; uneasiness of the soul which, in the terror of this mystery, complains like a child; then languor, mystic sweetness, and a lulling of the mind to rest, in the Catholic conception of the universe accepted in all simplicity. “There is something profoundly involuntary and illogical in the poetry of M. Paul Verlaine. He scarcely ever expresses movements of full consciousness or entire sanity. It is on this account, very often, that the meaning of his song is clear--if it is so at all--to himself alone. In the same way, his rhythms, are sometimes perceptible by no one but himself. I do not refer here to the interlaced feminine rhymes, alliterations, assonances within the line itself, of which none has made use more frequently or more successfully than he. “But there are two sides to him. On one, he looks very artificial. He has an _Ars Poetica_ of his own, which is entirely subtle and mysterious, and which, I think, he was very late in discovering:-- “‘_De la musique avant toute chose,_ _Et pour cela préfère l’impair_ _Plus vague et plus soluble dans l’air,_ _Sans rien en lui qui pèse ou qui pose._ _Il faut aussi que tu n’ailles point_ _Choisir tes mots sans quelque méprise:_ _Rien de plus cher que la chanson grise_ _Où l’indécis au précis se joint...._ _Car nous voulons la nuance encor,_ _Pas la couleur, rien que la nuance!_ _Oh! la nuance seule fiance_ _Le rêve au rêve, et la flute au cor...._’ “On the other side, he is quite simple:-- “‘_Je suis venu, calme orphelin,_ _Riche de mes seuls yeux tranquilles,_ _Vers les hommes des grandes villes:_ _Ils ne m’ont pas trouvé malin._’ “Or, elsewhere:-- “‘_J’ai peur d’un baiser_ _Connue d’une abeille._ _Je souffre et je veille_ _Sans me reposer,_ _J’ai peur d’un baiser._’” Thus far Lemaître. It will be seen that the _décadents_ correspond exactly to the diagnosis of literary mattoids, in all their old vacuity, but with the appearance of novelty. At the same time, there are among them, real men of genius who--amid the (frequently atavistic) oddities of mattoidism--have struck an original note.