ANDRÉ GIDE AND HIS WORK
Shakespeare and William Blake, Walt Whitman and Joseph Conrad), he is not always easy to read. Always a poet, although he has written but little verse, his phrases hâve unusual cadences, lengthening out into slow beauty. His thought is expressed not so much in words as in the music, the rise and fa.ll, of the sentence ; his aim is to make the reader not only see, but feel. Modem as he is, in his choice of words he seems closely akin, at times, to the seventeenth century — to Molière, Pascal, Bossuet. Moreover, he has a way of using words which hâve become defaced by long ill-usage, and making them shine out in their first beauty.
His critical articles are délicate, penetrating, subtle. His novels owe little to plot or incident, but show chiefly a soul’s development; a soûl often set in obscure surroundings, since he is attracted most to those who walk in dimness with their glory hidden.
His books differ widely one from the other. From the romantic mysticism of Les Cahiers cT André Walter (1891) he passes to the pantheism of Les Nourritures terrestres (1897), the darkness of L' Immoraliste (1902), the spiritual abnégation of La Porte étroite (1909), the half-veiled irony of Isabelle (1911), and the grave wisdom of La Symphonie pastorale (1920).
If the earth is for him at times ‘a land of twilight and of prayer’, it is at others a world of wonder, of perpétuai surprise, where, crowning effort, the watcher sees dawn break on the horizon and cries, 'Voici le jour et nous y croyons’.
NOTES
Page 7, line 4. Rue St.-Sulpice and the rue de Tournon are two streets in Paris on the south bank of the Seine, in the Quartier Luxembourg, near the church of St. Sulpice.
sur quoi . . . Note here, and on pp. 16, 27, 39 and elsewhere, the use of quoi as a relative pronoun. Qui, de qui , quoi, &c., were much used, instead of lequel, by the great writers of the seventeenth century, especially Molière and Pascal.
Page 8. 2. caler, to tbrow with, i. e. it was a ‘ taw the marble actually used by the player. ‘ Alleys ‘ taws ’, or ‘ bouncers ’ are marbles too scarce ever to be used as forfeits.
Page 9. 29. décalcomanie'. ‘ decalcomania ’ was very popular between 1862 and 1870. Coloured figures were eut from specially prepared paper and gummed on to a plate» cup, &c. The paper was then washed off in warm water, and the coloured figure remained.
Page 10. 3. au Luxembourg, the jardin du Luxembourg, the beautiful garden with its roses, chestnut-trees, and statues, which lies on the south bank of the Seine. In the garden stands the palace of the same name, built (1615-26) for Marie de Médicis.
Page 11. 16-18. grande douceur ... ‘ Vir probus ' (Lat.), ‘ an upright man Paul Gide won not only the respect of his colleagues but the love of his students. His lectures on Roman law were remarkable not only for scholarship but for style. His portrait is drawn in a work by R. Valléry-Radot, D Étudiant d'aujourd'hui.
NOTES
29. Coutume de Bourgogne, a book on the customary law of Burgundy, or a history of customs which, through long usage, hâve become law.
Page 12. 1. tn-folio\ folio, the largest-sized book, in which the sheet of printing-paper is only folded once, into two leaves.
3. insecte rongeur , the book-worm, a tiny white maggot, hard to find alive. It ravages old books in a capricious manner, sometimes gnawing a little zig-zag pattern through a few leaves only, at other times piercing little holes right through the book.
PAGE 13. 5. Madame de Ségur. The comtesse de Ségur (1799-1874) wrote several books for children, beginning with Nouveaux contes de fée in 1857.
xo. Molière : really Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (1622-73), actor, dramatist, and brilliant wit, the greatest French writer of comédies — Les femmes savantes , Le malade imaginaire , &c.
11. la farce de Pathelin. Patelin, a conventional character in French comedy, an insinuating cajoler. He had his origin in a fifteenth-century comedy Maistre Pierre Pathelin, written probably by A. de Sale.
12. les aventures de Sindbad . . . d'Ali Baba. Sindbad the Sailor, so called because of his seven wonderful voyages, in one of which he kills the Old Man of the Sea ; and Ali Baba, a poor woodcutter, and hero of the story of the Forty Thieves. Both are characters in The Arabian Nights.
14-16. les ‘ Masques' de Maurice S and . . .figures d’ Arlequin, &c. Maurice Sand, the pseudonym of Maurice Dudevant. His Masqîies et Bouffons (the book referred to) is a history of the old improvised theatre or puppet-shows of Italy and France. The characters so well known in English pantomime — Columbine, loved by Arlequin (Harlequin), Polichinelle , or Punch, the Italian Pulcinella — were known centuries ago in Italy. The book contains fascinating coloured pictures.
NOTES
Page 14. 20. Boulevard Saint-Michel , an important thoroughfare of Southern Paris, the principal Street of the Quartier Latin.
21. l'Observatoire, a large block of buildings at the Southern end of the Luxembourg garden, founded in 1672.
Page 15. 4. monture. The old bicycle had the small seat placed on the top of the front high driving-wheel, which measured about 68 inches in diameter. Compared with the front wheel, the little trailing-wheel behind seemed minute.
Page 16. 1. rue de Seine, a Street running north from near the Marché Saint-Germain towards the Institut de France and the Seine.
10. Les Plaideurs, a comedy by Racine (1668), and a satire on the legal profession. It won deserved and lasting popularity.
14. machine de Ramsden. J esse Ramsden (1735-1800) constructed his well-known form of plate electrical machine in 1768. A picture of it, with full description, will be found in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, nth édition, under ‘ Electrical machine ’.
20. poteaux de transmission, cernent uprights carrying the wire which transmits the electric current.
Page 18. 10. Bengalis, the dealers’ name for several small, brightly plumaged African birds.
22. Le Calvados, a maritime department in the northwest of France, known formerly as L’Orne-Inférieure. It received its présent name from a small rock which forms the western point of a great ledge of rocks which stretches along the coast between the mouths of the rivers Orne and Vire. Behind these rocks is a little anchorage called Fosse d’Espagne ; and tradition says that the rock Calvados derived its name from the San Salvador, a ship of the Invincible Armada wrecked there in 1588.
La Roque-Baignard, a little village in Calvados, between Lisieux and Pont-l’Evêque. [See note to page 60, line 14.]
NOTES
Page 19. 2. ... j'avais été contraint . . . The thought of constraint, of being forced to write, so as to reconcile the conflicting éléments in him, is characteristic of the author, who believes that great artists are those who, in their work, résolve discords into a final harmony.
15. Rue de Crosne et ... de Fontenelle-. two streets in the north-west quarter of Rouen.
20. ‘ rouenneries ’, a wide range of cotton stuffs, twills, &c., manufactured in the neighbourhood of Rouen.
Page 21. 4. l'entrée des Prussiens ... In the Franco- German war Rouen was occupied by the Prussians in December, 1870.
14. Bismarck. Otto Eduard L. von Bismarck-Schônhausen (1815-98), the great Prussian statesman.
15. Roi de Prusse. William I (1797-1888) accompanied the German armies, and was proclaimed German Emperor at Versailles in January, 1871.
24. Zim lai la! . . . The soft ^-sound persisted in street-songs and children’s songs, many of which are of unknown origin ; cf. the favourite II y a z'un -pommier doux . . .
Page 23. 16. d'où le regard cueille . . . Cueillir is used here and on page 61 in its older, wider sense of ‘ to gather, collect, bring together ’.
Page 24. 12. Hoffmann. Ernst Theodor A. Hoffmann (1776-1822), a German musician and romance-writer, author of various fairy taies, including Contes fantastiques. On these Jacques Offenbach (1819-80) wrote his opéra — his last and favourite work.
13. Andersen. Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75), Danish poet and novelist, known in England chiefly by his fairy taies — The Snow Qtieen, The Brave Tin Soldier, &c.
Page 25. 16. tulipes du duc de Thol : early flowering tulips, both single and double, the latter red edged with yellow.
Page 28. 26. fête de Sainte-Catherine : an allusion to
NOTES 87
the saying ‘ coiffer Sainte-Catherine ’, to remain an old maid, or to keep St. Catherine always as one’s patron saint.
PAGE 29. 30. Zola. Émile Zola (1840-1902), French novelist and politician.
Page 30. 25. ‘ Reinecke Fuchs ’ de Gœthe. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832); his Reineke Fuchs is from a German poem — Reinhart Fuchs — of the fourteenth century, which is itself derived from the still older version written about 1180 by the Alsatian Heinrich der Glichesære, and derived probably from a French original. In the German version, which — unlike the long French romance — is a single taie, the fox personnes the bad instincts of humanity.
28. les animaux . . . AU the characters in Reynard the Fox are animais ; there is the fox himself, Isengrim the vvolf, Hintze the cat, Grimbart the badger, Makart the jay, and so on.
29. le vieux fabliau. The word fabliau, although frequently used to dénoté any taie of the middle âges, means a humorous story versified. h fabliau was a story told,not sung. Unlike the romance, it hadbut one épisode; it was not a love-story, and it was without a moral.
Page 32. 16. spécieusement. The word is here used in its original meaning of fair, exact — cf. arithmétique spécieuse , O.F. for algebra — not in its modem sense of plausible.
Page 33. 23. Rue de Vaugirard, the longest Street in the Southern part of Paris, running from the suburb of Vaugirard (formerly the village of Valgérard). Rue Madame and Rue d’Assas are two streets which cross it in the Quartier Luxembourg.
Page 36. 4. Uzès. The ancient Ucetia, a little town in the department of Gard, about twelve miles north by east of Nîmes, on a hill above the valley watered by the Alzon, a tributary of the Gardon.
7. Nîmes. The Colonia Nemausus of the Romans, the chief town of the department of Gard.
NOTES
il. Pont Saint-Nicolas , a thirteenth-century bridge o ver the Gardon, midway between Nîmes and Uzès.
Page 39. 7. Arbre de Saturne : the growth formed in a solution of acetate of lead (Saturn was the ancient name for lead) round a sheet of zinc steeped in the solution. Arbre de Jupiter', the precipitate of tin which gathers in crystals on a sheet of zinc steeped in a solution of tin (Jupiter was the ancient name for tin).
7-9. M on oncle . . . Économie Politique. The author’s uncle Charles Gide, political economist, at one time Professor of Political Economy in the University of Montpellier. Professor Gide’s principal work — Principes d’ Économie Politique , 1883 — occupies a high place in économie literature both for its scholarly wisdom and for the brilliancy of its style.
Page 40. 3. huguenot austère. The term Huguenot seems first to hâve been used for the French Protestants in Languedoc about 1560, when they are called séditieux Huguenaulx in a document of the time. Uzès, Nîmes, Anduze, Montpellier, were ail Protestant strongholds and the scenes of persécution.
Page 41. 7. Anduze, a small town in the department of Gard, a few miles south-west of Alais, on the Gardon d’Anduze.
14. Balzac. Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), one of the chief of the realistic school of French novelists.
Page 42. 2. mas. Provençal for a little country-house, or farm.
Page 44. 26. ‘ Vous êtes le sel . . . ’ See Matt. v. 13.
Page 48. 29. gifles . . . The word is used here in its obsolète sense of face, cheeks ; in modem use it means a slap in the face.
Page 51. 22. brandade : cod prepared with cream, white of eggs, garlic, and oil ; a Provençal dish.
Page 52. 25. La Fontaine d'Eure ( Ura fons ). The spring where rises the Alzon. About a mile distant is the source of the Airan. The water of the two springs
NOTES
was carried to Nîmes by the famous Roman aqueduct of Pont du Gard. The aqueduct was destroyed in the fifth century, but the bridge over the Gardon remained.
La garrigue', a stony, hilly waste, without water or végétation, burnt by the sun.
Page 53. 4. chenilles ... du ‘ Machaon the larva of papilio Machaoti, the common swallow-tail butterfly. On its second segment the Caterpillar has a little orangecoloured tentacle which, when alarmed, it raises in a tiny V, and which gives out a scent of pine-apple.
21. comme dans la fable . . . Narcissus, in Greek mythology, was a beautiful youth who fell in love with his own image reflected in the water. Unable to grasp it, he pined away and became the flower which bears his name. Possibly it was the narcissi at Uzès which suggested to André Gide his symbolical work Le traite du Narcisse (1891).
Page 54. x. Pont du Gard: see note to page 52, line 25.
11. duché : the old castle of Uzès, part of which dates from the twelfth century.
24. la langue d'Aubanel et de Mistral: the langue d'oc, or Provençal, the language of the south of France. Joseph Marie Aubanel (b. 1829), a French publisher and author of books in Provençal. Frédéric Mistral (b. 1830), chief of the modem Provençal poets known as ‘ les Félibriges ’.
PAGE 55. 25. pr'ega-Diou : Provençal for the praying mantis, a little insect belonging to the family of Mantidae, rather like a large grasshopper, with a meek, alert face, and a habit of sitting upright with its front legs clasped together as though in prayer.
Page 56. 11. Stello, by Alfred de Vigny (1799-1863). The book contains only two characters— Stello, a poet (Vigny), and the mystic Black Doctor.
Page 57. 3. Montpellier , the chief town of the department of Hérault, on the Lez, near the Mediterranean.
PAGE 60. 10. et le ciel trop petit . . . , from F rancis J ammes,
NOTES
b. 1868 ( Élégie III in Le Deuil des Primevères, 1901). André Gide, in one of his délicate, penetrating, critical articles, describes him as a poet great by reason of his simplicity.
14. P Immoraliste, tlie novel by Gide published in 1902. La Roque-Baignard there becomes La Morinière.
Page 62. 12. Caen , chief town of the department of Calvados, on the Orne.
