EXPLANATORY NOTES

Page 1, title. Dernière nuit de travail. With regard to this Préface we find in the poet's diary: ' What is lacking in the literary realm is sincerity. In accordance with this idea, I in the night of the 2 9th to 3oth of June yielded to a necessity of imparting to the public, as to a friend, what I had just done for it. I was still greatly excited by the feverish enthusiasm of my work, and I could not help rushing along beyond the last word of my drama. The mould was full, and I had more melting matter left. — Now, on the point of having thèse pages printed, when coolly reading them over, I felt impelled to burn them as I often did many works of mine. I thought that such rapture was likely to be deemed by heedless readers a ridiculous one; but I bethought myself of those too who are more deeply impressed by such émotions as are aroused by earnest work, and I felt bound to give them a faithful account of my labour by showing them the fountainspring of the very thoughts, the flow of which was still before their eyes. — Therefore, expecting the charge of impropriety, I hâve not been deterred by the opinion of cool-minded

people about the ingenuousness or the exaggeration of inspiration.' (Journal d'un poète, pp. 109-110.)

1. I. dans le silence d'un traimil de dix-sept nuits, It is interesting to note that De Vigny, like Balzac, Flaubert, and many other men of letters, preferred writing during the still hours of the night, when their mind, being undisturbed, could more easily work itself to a high pitch of more or less visionary ecstasy. It is almost needless to add that, though occasionally productive of superior literary achievement, such a practice, whenever protracted, has invariably proved baneful to the writer's mental equilibrium. De Vigny, who knew and felt the dangerous conséquences of such a pernicious habit, vainly tried to get rid of it ; he remained, according to his own phrase, whether at his country seat or in his tovvn lodgings, ' a lyrical somnambulist.' (Cf. Introd., p. Ixiii.)

1. 2. Les bruits de chaque jour . , . De Vigny has dwelt over and over again upon the continuous strain of his inspiration (cf. Introd., p. Ixxiii) ; we need hère but quote this entry of the diary : ' My perpétuai habits of brooding méditation keep me so bent upon some ideas, that my night Avork is not brought to an end by sleep, but is resumed again as soon as I awake. Day-business is for me just what play-time was at school, and at night the morning work begins again with its usual steadiness.' {Journal, p. 150.)

1. 7. des souffrances qu^il m'a causées. In Stello as well as in his diary, De Vigny has repeatedly alluded to the sufferings of the poet which are the unquestionable outcome not only of his native morbidity, but also of his fréquent overwork and. of his occasional over-excitement.

1. 8. aussi saint que la prière. De Vigny has written elsewhere : * Le beau, c'est la croyance ; l'art, c'est la prière,' a sentence quite in accordance with the usual mysticism of ail ecstatic thinkers. Likewise the philosopher Malebranche, who used to ponder over his metaphysical ideas in the darkness of his cell, defined attention * as a natural prayer through which we obtain the enlightenment of our mind.' Besides this religious feeling of the inspired poet, the social mission which he has undertaken may also account for the solemn and somewhat biblical tone of this beginning. At any rate, it is quite obvions from thèse very words that De Vigny assumes himself to be no mère man of letters, but, above ail, some providential reformer, a literary Moses. (Cf. Introd., p. xxxi.)

1. 19. Les étrangers ont bien 'voulu en traduire les mots. The only translation of Stello into any language we know of is a