LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MUSS FT. 3 quoting as showing the master’s influence and the student’s aptness. Of a certain sombre Don Carlos it was said that he spoke little and mysteriously : — ’Et semblait regarder plus loin que l’horizon.’ In the same year (1828) that saw the production of this effort Musset published his first printed verses, ’ Un Reve,’ in Le Provincial, and also won the praise of Sainte-Beuve later on by reading him some verses with the spoken preface, ’ Moi aussi je fais des vers.’ Sainte-Beuve, having heard them, wrote to a friend: ’II y a parmi nous un enfant plein de genie.’ At a later period, that of the famous answer to Becker, Le R/ii)i Allemand, Sainte-Beuve made the odd mistake of placing Musset in the third order of poets, but at a yet later time he went back completely on this judgment. Other poems, all composed in the first instance for recitation to friends, and among them the ’Ballade a la Lune,’ were produced in 1828, and at the end of the year Prosper Chalas, editor of the Temps, made a curious prophecy to Paul de Musset, after watching Alfred de Musset through an evening : ’ N’en doutez pas, votre frere est destine a devenir un grand poete ; mais je crains fort pour lui les Dalila? The judgment was sagacious and proved too true. Musset was weak in this as on other points throughout his life, but from his very weakness it must be added came some of his most beautiful poems, some of that work which he has, uncon- sciously or half-consciously, described in the Nuit de Mai’. ’Les plus desesperes sont les chants les plus beaux, Et j’en sais d’immortels qui sont de purs sanglots.’ This is so with much of Musset’s work, and the influence of a desperate sorrow — desperate at least while it lasted, and strong to leave an enduring mark— can be traced in the very midst of the unrivalled brilliancy of wit and gaiety that lights up those of his plays which pass under the name of comedy. And here one is brought into contact with the curious duality of life and experience which he himself noted, as we learn from Paul de Musset, to exist in him early in 1829, when he was only nineteen years old. Paul remonstrated with him on leading a life in which he burnt the candle at both ends, and B 2
