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THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY Of the death of Gdrard de Nerval

passed without much in the way of celebration here. Oblivion has swallowed so many of the eminent ministers, officials, economists, and other experts who peopled the nineteenth century, and who gave not a thought during their important lives to the strange poet who hanged himself in the Ile de la Cite on January 25, 1855. Their ponderous works have vanished while a few sonnets stand rock-firm. In one sense it does not matter that Nerval's end was tragic. His books are read—and the fact that they are entered in the London Library under G instead of N only reflects the more ironically a life continually placed in the wrong categories by outside observers.

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