now veiled, according to the movement of the mists. High up, blue spaces fringed with light. Such was the beauty of yesterday. Shall I speak of the evenings that went before, when, on my way along the road, the moon brought out the pattern of the trees, the pathetic Calvaries, the touching spectacle of houses which one knew were ruins, but which night seemed to make stand forth again like an appeal for peace. I am glad to see you like Verlaine. Read the fine preface by Coppee to the selected works, which you will find in my library. His fervour has a spontaneity, I might almost say a grossness, which always repels me a little, just because it belongs to that kind of Catholic fervour which on its figurative side will always leave me cold. But what a poet! He has been my almost daily delight both here and when I was in Paris; often the music of his _Paysages Tristes_ comes back to me, exactly expressing the emotion of certain hours. His life is as touching as that of a sick animal, and one almost wonders that a like indignity has not withered the exquisite flowers of his poetry. His conversion, that of an artist rather than of a thinker, followed on a great upsetting of his existence which resulted from grave faults of his. (He was in prison.) In the _Lys Rouge_ Anatole France has drawn a striking portrait of him, under the name of Choulette; perhaps you will find we have this book. In _Sagesse_ the poems are fine and striking because of the true impulse and sincerity of the remorse. A little as though the cry of the _Nuit de Mai_ resounded all through his work. Our two great poets of the last century, Musset and Verlaine, were two unhappy beings without any moral principle with which to stake up their flowers of thought--yet what magnificent and intoxicating flowers. Perhaps I tire you when I speak thus on random subjects, but to do so enables me to plunge back into my old life for a little while. Since I had the happiness of getting your letters, I have not taken note of anything. Do not think that distractions by the way make me forgetful of our need and hope, but I believe it is just the beautiful adornment of life which gives it, for you and me, its value. I am still expecting letters from you after that of the 22nd, but I am sure to get them here in this billet. Thank you for the parcel you promise: poor mothers, what pains they all take! _December 1, in the morning_ (from a billet).