MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IN order to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Paul . Verlaine, the Centaur Press have published a charming edition of his " Poemes Saturniens." It is a neat little book bound in stiff blue caboard and of that welcome size which slips easily into the pocket. It contains only ninety-three pages and the printing is large and clear. This book has accompanied me around Paris during the last few days, and from time to time I have filled in an odd moment by re-reading the poems which were so familiar to me twenty-five years ago. I have read them, sitting for a spare minute or two, upon a bench in the Luxembourg Gardens ; and even in that little half-separate garden in which rises upon its plinth the Rodin bust of Verlaine, which gives to the poet the appearance, as he him- self remarked, of " an old faun in terracotta." I have read them sitting at a cafe while waiting for a bus, and while sipping those detestable cordials which are all that one can obtain today in place of the aperitifs of the old days. And I have read them even cling- ing to the steel supports of the Paris underground, that variable transport service in which Verlaine's son was for long employed. Verlaine would have been pleased if he could have foreseen that fifty years after his death his poems would still be read by elderly Eng- lishmen and in an edition published in London. The realisation that his popularity was not merely transitory, or even confined to his own country, would have given him " that posthumous feel." He would have regretted only that these posthumous editions could bring him no ready cash with which to soothe the inveterate appetite of Eugenie Krantz, or to purchase for himself a glass or two of that green liquid with which he stilled his conscience and bemused nis mind. In a slow, sleepy, rather maundering way, he would have been gratified by this occurrence. And let us hope that it would not have dawned upon the old man that in his own country his fame, in fifty years, would be almost wholly dimmed.
* * * * It is somewhat embarrassing to realise that the three French writers who made the deepest impression on me when I was twenty years of age, namely Anatole France, Paul Verlaine and Maurice Barre's, are regarded by the younger generation of Frenchmen as almost pathetically out of date. From Anatole France I had derived some conception at least of the nature and purpose of French literary style, and some idea of that calm irony which is so different from the turbulent invectives of our own satirists. From Barres I learnt that one could be sensitive to beauty without sliding into the flabby self-indulgence of our own aesthetic school, and that one could develop one's own potentialities without necessarily becoming self- centred or detached. And from Verlaine learnt, I suppose, to be appreciative of the finer gradations of emotion, and to have a tune in my ear, which was not perhaps a very virile tune, which was cer- tainly cast in the minor key, but which brought a melody into casual experiences which was half-sad and half-satisfactory. I refrain, when speaking to my younger French friends, from mentioning to them these shades of thought and feeling, which if confessed would render me a quaint survival hi their eyes. I listen humbly when they explain to me how little poetry there is in English litera- ture, although of course we possess great writers such as Galsworthy, Rosamund Lehmann, and Charles Morgan. And I listen readily enough to their endless discussions on the subject of Sartre and Eluard, pleased indeed by the indulgence with which they will seek, so politely, to educate the aged. Brit when they leave me, and their high-pitched voices echo down the street, I pull out the little volume from my pocket and read again the youthful poems of Verlaine.
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The " Poemes Saturniens " are indeed a curious medley. They were written at the time when Verlaine was under the influence of the infant Parnassien movement, and when he and his companions would spend hours together in the Passage Choiseul explaining to each other that poetry should be difficult and hard. .Verlaine himself was not by nature a Parnassien ; he was lazy and sentimental ; he had no taste at all for carving sonnets in agate or jade ; nor was he at his ease with the erudite images and associations in which the Parnassiens indulged: For him poetry; as he subsequently explained, must above all be musical ; it must by preference adopt the annul key ; it must be 'soft, floating, insinuating, stibtle ; it must be as delicate as the most delicate grasses when swayed by a like wind. It is very interesting to observe how in the collection of poems which he christened " Saturnien " he sought with amazing clumsiness to ape the manner of his fellow Parnassiens, and how suddenly, in and out of these really worthless experiments, comes the long low plaint of his natural tone. With -an immense effort he drags in all the exotic, mythological or erudite figures in which the Parnassiens delighted; we have Raghtl, Bhagavat, Alcaeus, Phidias and Theroldus ; we have a constant effort to be declamatory, precise and 'brave. And then, in complete contrast to these uncongenial poems, come a few authentic lines, a poem or two of amazing intimacy, a note of pure lyricism which in after life he never excelled. It is curious also to notice that Verlaine himself was aware that this Parnassien manner was not really suited to his own genius. In a poem entitled " Resignation," he begins in the true Parnassien way by invoking the " Ko-Hinnor" and the luxuries of Heliogabalus and Sardanapalus, . and he ends enchantingly by confessing, " I am not any good at all at writing this grand sort of stuff."
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For in truth after the " Poemes Saturniens" Verlaine did not again attempt the Pamassien style. His " Fetes Galantes " owe their elaboration to- a different form of experiment, and how good they are! But what puzzles, and indeed fascinates, me about this book of early poems is how a man who could write " Mon reve familier," or " Apres trois ans " or " Chanson d'automne," could at the same time write utter nonsense such as the " Croquis parisien." It seems strange that a poet sufficiently sensitive to his own inspiration and cadences as to begin a poem with the lovely line " Ayant pousse la porte etroite• qui chancelle," should not have realised that the un-1 _ gainly stanzas and the artificial sentiments of his prologue were com- pletely out of setting with his own genius. • It is possible, of course, to recognise in the " Poemes Saturniens " many of the themes and mannerisms which thereafter became the current stock-in-trade of Verlaine's poetic output. .There is already the preference for feminine endings, the note of intimacy, and that curious desire for dependence which persists throughout Verlaine's life and poetry. Already, in " Vceu," as well as in the more famous " Mon reve familier " one finds that longing for protection which dogged him all his life and which Rimbaud analysed so brutally. Already the note of helpless- ness, of hopelessness, creeps into his poems and 'affects his melodies. It may be that the utter weakness, the completely shameless weak- ness, of Verlaine's character, reflected as it is in all his poems, is the cause of the decline in his influence. An'active, combative generation, such as is the present generation of Frenchmen, has little time or patience for Le pauvre Lelian. They find him insipid.
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Is he so insipid? Seated there in tie garden which surrounds his statue, gaiing up at his fierce Mongolian face, I asked myself whether those young people might not be right after all—whether Verlaine really meant much more to me than the memory of a pretty tune which had delighted my_young years and which still had about it a nostalgic appeal. What strength did the man possess, unless it were the strength of constant complaint, of unending querulousness? But I refuse to repudiate my former loyalties. I owe a personal debt to Verlaine for having taught me to become attuned to things which I had not noticed or felt before ; I shall not ignore that debt now that he has been dead for fifty years. And what a tune it was! I open the book again:— "Et je m'en vais
Au vent mauvais Qui m'emporte Deck dela, • Pareil a la Feuille morte."
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