la Distraction j la Poésie, Cf, Introd., p. Ixxiii

1. 20. Parce qu'il le faut. The peculiar constitution of the true poet is forcibly marked in ail this scène.

1. 30. Les guérira qui pourra, ' let those cure them who can.' Compare such similar sentences as : qui vivra verra ; rira bien qui rira le dernier ; advienne que pourra.

It is but too obvious that the Quaker, instead of being the stern, clear-sighted doctor he believes himself to be, is on the contrary a lenient, partial, blind adviser, whose very indulgence is rather baneful than useful to his friendly patient ; for, by finding fault with the world rather than with the invalid, he fosters instead of curing the evil, and so becomes the worst of physicians. Such partiality may indeed most \ ' easily be accounted for : Chatterton and the Quaker are but i I two halves of De Vigny : his poetical sensibility and his argu- ■ ;< mentative reason ; and, of course, the poet's head, to use his own words, could not be too hard for the poet's heart ; or, if you prefer another way of putting it, what old man is not too prone to excuse his younger self?

Page 32. 1. 9. Où je vois un mystère, je vois une faute. A good trait in this coarse, unkind, pharisaic nature of John Bell.

1. 12. vous hère means ' one ' ; hence pourquoi vous être cachée ? means, * vvhy should it be hidden from any one ? *

1. 25. un bas-bleu. In the original it is une bas-bleu. Nowadays we usually say un bas-bleu, though always referring to a woman.

Page 33. (Third heading.) Scène première. In thfs scène the délicate promptings of a scrupulous conscience are subtly opposed to the coarse imperiousness of more or less conventional rights. As in the previous scène with the workmen, John Bell remains 'juste selon la loi,' whereas his wife is 'juste selon la conscience.'

Page 35. 1. 15. il ferait mieux de se faire sauter la cervelle : ' he'd better blow out his brains.'

1. 35. la contagion de mon infortune. The wild, disconnected, seemingly raving speeches of Chatterton in this scène betray a mind actually distracted by incipient madness. External nature can no longer counterbalance his wild ex- , ( citement. He has lost ail control over his distempered / sensibility. His sad notion about the contagiousness of his own fatalism is ranting, though not uncommon superstition. His frantic craving for solitude reminds us of De Vigny's own words : ' La solitude est sainte, ... La solitude est empoisonnée,'