The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1907-08-16
NEW BOOKS.

Whether they style themselves decad-
ents or symbolists, it is mere roman
ticism, disguised and debaptized
springing up anew in their productions,
but yet easy to detect beneath the
mask, and in spite of altered labels.
1t has grown to be far more mystic.
1t has lost the arrogance which re-
called Corneille and the heroines of the
Fronde, and it has borrowed from the
moral or mental something scant and
fiabby, but hard to delineate. 1t is
helped along by a complicated and
learned art, tested by which the art of
the Cenacle is merely Ghild's play, but
which seems rather Byzantine when
compared with the bold and potent de-
velopment of the romantic phrase. This
IS the same, with thinner blood, weak
er temperament-yes, it is the same
old romanticism. What interest could
the poet Of the Souvenir awake. with
his simple sorrows within all mems
scope and with his classic French, in
those merely curious as to rare sensa-
tlons-the inventors of decadent writ?
Accordingly, Musset has been one dis
dained by them The violence also of
his feelings has been an injury to him
with the later generations. 1t is with
Wonderment that they contemplate the
rawlings of passion and storms of SEN
sibility in the folk of 1880. They are too
practical or too intellectual to devour
their own hearts; the woes which Mus
set cursed and blessed by turns with
equal vehemence inspire them with
nothing more than the ironical pity US
ually bestowed upon ridiculous mis-
fortunes. What attraction can a poetry
possess which is all sentiment and
passion in the eyes of youth who call
sentiment mere weakness, love an in
trinity? None, assuredly. And they
have forsal1en Musset after pronounce
ing him to be all out of fashion, as
much in substance as in form. He will
bide his time. His great fault lies in
still being too near u.s. The ideas and
literary forms Of yesterday always
shock because they form an awkward
restraint, and because we make haste
to be free from them. 1t is only when
they have, for good and ALL yielded
the ground, and can no longer offer
hindrance to anyone, that we Judge of
them with impartialty SO, for exam
pie, Larmartine, after an almost to-
tai eclipse, is now coming forth again
from clouds which once enshrouded
him. So Vigny is having a second au-
roya, more brilliant than the first. For
Musset the time has not yet come. Be-
fore men return to him they must have
quite left him, and Musset continues
to reign, like a tyrant, without sharing
the throne with another, over a great
many grey and grizzled heads, who
really cannot listen to another "A
few years more and the generation
who submitted to him will have van
ished. Then, for him, II will not be an
hour of oblivion, but rather an hour
cf justice, serene and unclouded Pos
terity is 10 make its own choice among
his works, and when it shall hold In
the hollow Of it's hand the bunch of
leaves in which the soul of an entire
epoch shhdders and weps with Musset,
it will eXclaim. understanding his SOW
ereign empire and repeating the words
Of Taine: He was more than a poet,
he was d man
The book has an admirable frontls-
piece portrait of the poet representing
him attired as a page.