Solitary suffering makes men philosophers or poets. Philosophy requiring some intellectual capacity and mental preparation, Henri Dubois often took the further step from crying in the wilderness to enshrining his laments in metre, being encouraged in this by the certain fact that young men and true poets were indeed striking the Romantic harp to a new and surprising tune. The poet was the real "homme supérieur" of the time, not only in fancy but in fact. Henri accordingly proceeded another stage towards sublimity by way of the faulty syllogism: "The poet has an exquisite soul; I have an exquisite soul; therefore I am a poet." The Romantics conceived the poet as a God-sent prophet. This was the attitude, above all, of de Vigny; Lamartine and Sainte-Beuve adopted it in their early days, and certain passages of Victor Hugo--for instance: _O poètes sacrés, échevelés, sublimes,_ _Allez, et répandez vos âmes sur les cimes,_ _Sur les sommets de neige en butte aux aquilons,_ _Sur les déserts pieux où l'esprit se recueille,_ _Sur les bois que l'automne emporte feuille à feuille,_ _Sur les lacs endormis dans l'ombre des vallons!_ --show that he was not averse to it. So every youth who could rhyme "âme" with "flamme" put on the aureole of a "poète échevelé," revelled in the ecstasies of solitary contemplation, and sneered magnificently at all who attended to business as soulless _épiciers_. This was a harmless enough delusion, but it became less harmless when combined with the idea that for the sake of experience the poet should abandon himself entirely to his passions. The great artist, indeed, has his own morality, but Victor Hugo's "Mazeppa" or Lamartine's stanza _Mais nous, pour embraser les âmes,_ _Il faut brûler, il faut ravir_ _Au ciel jaloux ses triples flammes:_ _Pour tout peindre, il faut tout sentir._ _Foyers brûlants de la lumière,_ _Nos cœurs de la nature entière_ _Doivent concentrer les rayons,_ _Et l'on accuse notre vie!_ _Mais ce flambeau qu'on nous envie_ _S'allume au feu des passions_