The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-28


Shallow beyond toleration, and yet COM
mon as it is shallow, is the understanding of
the poetry of the day merely as an amuse-
ment and grace for the parlor; Whereas in
truth, it is the most seriously expressive, the
most immediate and intimate sign of the
moral and spiritual condition of our social
being And vet instead of interrogating SO
valid a sign of the interior life of the modern
man, We often concern ourselves with the
artifce of the versifer, aud yet oftener fail
to understand the significance of poets while
we talk of their art, rebuke their license,
and, without glimmering of the philosophy
of expression, do not see that the dominant
poetioal utterance is the sympathetic, the
personal, the representative confession of the
generation that honors it.
So much in a general way. Now, 10 get at
our little lesson of the day, let us look again
at France-a country profitable for study in
every way, which, next to Italy, seems to DO
the most generally endeared in the imagina-
tions, in the memories, and in the affections
of foreigner3. Let us trace the secret trouble
which has had SO much public utterance in
France, which at this hour leaves her so uns
able to cope with the virle Prussians. How
much France has been corrupted and relaxed
in all the masculine conditions of great
state, we will show you Just by "a glance at
the first poet of the second empire.
And who 90 you think is the first poet of
triumphant Imperialism, without breathing so
much as the name of Louis Napoleon? We
say the first poet, because he was most hon
ored at the palace of the Tuileres, and be-
cause, in the spirit and expression of his
muse, all that was encouraged all that was
enjoyed, under the second empire, in the
most bewildering and feminine city of the
world, finds the most elaborate and exquisite,
and exclusive expression.
The poet of whom we speak is Theophile
ha hat ,,,tt h. -,
the opening of the Suez Canal; he that wrote
art and dramatic articles for the imperial
paper of yesterday, the M0niteur: he that
Indifferent to the struggles of French repubi-
cans, closed his windows during an ene1Jte,
and wrote verses, as goldsmith pleases him
self with the quaint and curious shapes which
he forms in the costly metal under his hand
Gautier, whose fortune it has been to put
forth two volumes of poems of the most
elegant, luxurious, egotistic, aud elaborate
art, just when Paris was most disturbed by
the struggles of liberty and the rival am5i-
tions Of dynastic families-Gautier, who cared
for none of these things, but thought only of
the pleasure of pleasure, the beauty OF beauty,
and the delightsomeness of royal and opulent
idleness-Gautier, the poet, par eece,yeace, of
| the second empire, of Paris under
| the second empire, and consequently the
veritable sign of its moral life. Readiag
| uautier, we do not wonder that France was
unequal to the struggle that her ruler of yes
| terday provoked.
From the time of the first empire to the
| last days of the second empire, France has
had q group of poets exquisitely aud pro-
| foundly related TO the political fluctuations
/ and changing moral aspects of French society.
First, Beranger, a light and gay singer, but
true lover of liberty, and man of great
simplicity of character and goodness of heart
then, Lamartine, noble and true expression
of French sensibility, in face of all the hopes
and fears of the most generous minds; then,
August Barber, who wrote in q strong
and masculine spirit, plucking many Of his
subjects from the very streets of Paris,
but giving them grand character. He WAS
without hope of the amelioration of the ills Of
France, whose trust and courage found ex-
preston only in the voice of an exiled poet
the illustlious Victor Hugo-while in Paris,
at home, De. Musset was the fashionable poet,
feeble thinker, but an exquisite and spirited
writer, unable to measure and cope with the
more serious interests of his time. Last came
Gautier-we say last, in view of his ascend
ency; in fact, his first volume of poetry was
put forth about the same time as Barbiers,
at the same time as De Musset's-
last came Gautier, having come
through and survived all the political changes
of his country without breathing one breath
for liberty, for revolution, or for progress.
lie was 1ounu, alter tne cup u tt0t, harmless,
because Indifferent to any political doctrine,
and wholly in accord with the spirit and ten
dency of imperialism-that isl friendly to a
luxurious, costly, immoral civilization, asking
no troublesome questions, and never address
ing a word to the ignorant and obscure vic
Tins at the base of the dazzling structure OF
imperial magnifcence. France at the cul
mination of the glory of the second empire,
in 1867 and 1868, had no poet in Paris more
hoGored at the Tuileries than Theophile
Gautier.
All of his poetry is suggested by the forms
of his face. There is about hin an air oil
imperial idleness, of Oriental calm, like Ten
nyson's lotus-eaters, who, tired of struggle
have no other wish but endless rest and obi
won of the dreadful past. Such poet could
be read at the Tuileries with perfect satisfac
tion: such poet was best for the immediate
interests of shopkeepers, and artists, anC
soldiers. His expressed sense of beauty fiat
tered the taste of artists; his love of luxury
was stimulative to expensive tastes which
pleased jewellers and merchants of costly
stuffs; while the military spirit was lef
unrebuked by his Etruscan-like muse
that uttered itself careless of po
litical and moral issues. Beyond any modern
French poet, he is the purest type of indif
ference to revolution, of Indifference to de
mocracy, of indifference to what is called pro
gress He is the only French poet who is, il
his preoccupations, the absolute antithesis o
poet of the people; and for this reason b
is the poet of the second empire, of its idl
, and opulent and snowy glory, of its material
, ism and negation of morality. And an EN-
, pire which reached no higher, that sounds
no deeper experience of the common hear