Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
Thursday 4th May, 1865.
MY DEAR SAINTE-BEUVE,—As I take up a pen to write you some words of congratulation on your nomination, I find a letter that I wrote you on March 31st which has not yet gone, probably because of stupidity on my part or on the part of the hotel people.
I have read it again. I find it boyish, childish. But I send it to you just the same. If it makes you laugh, I shall not say “So much the worse,” but “So much the better.” I am not at all afraid, knowing your indulgence, to strip myself before you.
To the passage which treats of J. L. I shall add that I have finished the fragments in question (except the book on Belgium, which I have not the courage to finish here) and that, obliged to go to Honfleur to seek all the other pieces composing the books announced to L..., I shall doubtless go on to Paris on the 15th, in order to torment him a little. If, by chance, you see him, you can tell him.
As for Malassis, his terrible affair happens on the 12th, He thinks he is sure to be condemned to five years. The serious thing is that this closes France to him for five years. That this momentarily cuts off supplies, I do not think so great an evil. He will be constrained to do other things. It is more to count on the universal mind than to brave compulsory public decency. As for me, who am not a prude, I have never possessed one of these silly books, even printed in beautiful characters and with beautiful illustrations.
Alas! the “Poems in Prose” to which you have again sent a recent encouragement, are much delayed. I am always giving myself difficult work. To make a hundred laborious trifles which demand unfailing good-humour (good-humour necessary even to treat of sad subjects), a strange stimulant which needs sights, crowds, music, even street-lamps, that is what I wanted to do! I am only at sixty and I can go no further. I need this famous “bath of the multitude” of which the error has justly shocked you.
M. has come here. I have read your article. I have admired your suppleness and your aptitude to enter into the soul of all the talents. But to this talent there is something lacking which I cannot define. M. has gone to Anvers, where there are magnificent things—above all, examples of this monstrous, Jesuitical style which pleases me so much, and which I hardly know except from the chapel of the college at Lyons, which is made with different coloured marbles. Anvers has a museum of a very special kind, full of unexpected things, even for those who can put the Flemish school in its true place. Finally, this town has the grand, solemn air of an old capital, accentuated by a great river. I believe that this fine fellow has seen nothing of all this. He has only seen a fat fry that he has gone from the other side of the Escaut to eat. He is, nevertheless, a charming man.
Decidedly, I congratulate you with all my heart. You are now the equal (officially) of many mediocre people. That matters little. You wished it, did you not? need, perhaps? You are content, then I am happy.
Yours always.