The sun., 1908-11-22

/ strings Of his auditors. yerlaine ones ed
dressed poem 70 Poiotevin the frsk ilnt
Of which runs: HToujourS Inecontsnt de-
son puvre.' Maurice Barres evidently
had read "Seuls" before he wrote 'Le
Jardin de Berenjce" QsoD. The young
woman In Polctevins tale has the same
feverish languors her male companion
though not the egotist of Barres. Ia
very modern person, slightly consump-
tive; one Of whom II may be said. In the
words OF Poictevin, els there anything
sadder under the sun than q soul incapa-
BILE OF sadness?" In their room hang
portraits OF Baudelaire and the Cure
d'Ars. Odder still is the monk, p Martin
Martin is the name OF the adversary" In
"The Garden OF Berenioe." Huysmans,
too, must have admired Poictsvin's de-
scriptions OF the Gr1newald Christ at
Colmar, and of the portrait Of the Young
Florentine in the Stadel Museum at Frank
fort. 1t would be instructive to compare
the differing opinions OF the two critics
concerning this last named picture. There
re half dozen we'll known French writer's
who have studied the work Of Poictevin
10 good purpose, but without acknowl-
edging the source.
A mirror. Poictevn's soul reflects the
moods Of landscapes. Without dogma
tism he could say with st. Anselm that he
would rather go to hell sinless than be
in heaven smudged by a single trans
gression. To his tender temperament
shadows OF doubt. Apersistentd dreamer,
the world for him is but the garment in
vesting God. Flowers. stars, the wind
that weeps in little corners, the placid
bosom Of lonely lakes, far away noun
tains and their mystic silhouettes. the
Rhine and its many curvings, the clamor
of cities and the joy Of the grass are his
themes. Life with its frantic gestures is
quite iputile. Let it he avoided. You
turn after reading Poictevin to the Min
oration" of Emile Hennequin: "IIet all
that is be no more. Let glanoes fade
and the vivaoity Of gestures fall. Let us
be humble. soft, and slow. Let US love
without passion. and let us exchange
weary caresses.' Or the tragic cry of
Ephraim Mikhael: "Ah! to see behind
me no longer. on the lake of Eternity, the
implacable wake of Time.'
"Poictevin's men and women once
wrote Aline Gorren in a memorable study
of French symbolism, ARE subordinate to
these wider curves Of wave and sky; they
come and go. emerging from their set
ting briefly and fading into it again; they
have no personality apart from it; and
amid the world symbols of the heavens in
marshalled movements and the thousand
reeded winds, they in their human SYM
bols are allowed to seem. as they are.
proportionately small. They are pos
sessed as are clouds, waters. trees, but no
more than clouds, waters. trees, of baf-
fling significance. forever riddle to itself.
They have bowed attitudes; the weight
of the mystery they carry on their shoul-
ters."
The humanity that secretly evaporates
when the prose poet notes the attrition of
two souls is shed upon his landscapes
with their sonorous silences. A picture
of the life contemplative, of the adven-
lures of timorous gentle souls in search
of spiritual adventures. set before us in a
style of sublimated preciosity by an or
chestra Of sensations that has been re-
duced to the string quartet, the dreams
of Francis Poictevin-does he not speak
of the human forehead as a dream dome?
are not the least consoling of his CEN
tury. He is the white robed acolyte
among mystics of modern literature.