[D] Read at the Academy of Rouen, at a public meeting, Aug. 7th, 1865. (See analytical summary of the works of the Academy of Rouen.)
You are really versatile—whether you praise photograph collections: “It is a pleasant pastime, and everyone has a large collection,” or Saint-Ouen Park: “Your fate is that of the great stream once so sought after, and you in your turn are deserted.”[E] Or dancing: “As everything must follow the fashion, Terpsichore has submitted to the law of exchange. Ignoring prohibition, the Lancers have already reached us from Albion.”[F] Or dinners in town: “You must not expect me to divulge what the menu consists of; but from the beginning the dessert adorns the table. Alas! those pleasures are not had for nothing; a winter in the city is more costly than one thinks!”[G] Or the marvels of modern industry: “And now, thanks to special trains, we can visit Belgium or Switzerland in eight days, and at much less cost. And when De Lesseps has at last made a passage through the Suez Canal, the tourist can take a pleasure trip to India or the extreme Orient as easily as travelling through France.”[H]
[E] Letter of condolence to Saint-Ouen park.—Meeting of June 2, 1865. (See analytical summary of the Academy of Rouen.)
[F] Winter in the city. (Letter.—Meeting of Aug. 6th, 1863.)
[G] Winter in the city. (Letter.—Meeting Aug. 6th, 1863.)
[H] Vacations. (Familiar letter.—Meeting of Aug. 6th, 1861.)
Do not stop, by any means! Write dramas even, you who have such a keen conception of dramatic form! And rest assured, honourable sir, that if your “reputation were sufficiently established,” and although like Louis Bouilhet’s, your “talent” is not “proof against criticism,” you are not “original” not “a first-class author,” you will never be called “an imitator,” even “sometimes successful,” of Alfred de Musset!
Besides, your memory is at fault on this point. Did not one of your colleagues of the Academy of Rouen, at the meeting of Aug. 7th, 1862, praise Louis Bouilhet in flattering terms? He praised him so highly as a dramatic author, and denied so energetically that he was an imitator of Alfred de Musset, that when I wrote the preface to Dernières Chansons, I simply copied the words of my old friend, Alfred Nion, brother of M. Emile Nion, the gentleman that lacked boldness!
What was the gentleman “who has special charge of the fine arts” afraid of? Of obstructing your public by-ways? Poets like this one (begging your pardon) are not precisely innumerable. Since you have refused to accept his statue, notwithstanding our gift of a fountain, you have lost one of your colleagues, M. Thubeuf. I do not wish to speak unbecomingly, or to insult a sorrowful family I have not the honour of knowing, but it seems to me that Nicholas-Louis-Juste Thubeuf is at the present moment as forgotten as if he never had existed, while Bouilhet’s name is known over all Europe. Aïssé is being played in St. Petersburg and London. His plays and verses will be printed in six, twenty, even a hundred years hence, and perhaps beyond that. A man is seldom remembered unless he has been amusing or serviceable. You are not able to be the former; grant us the latter. Instead of devoting your time to literary criticism, a pastime that is beyond your powers, attend to more serious things such as: the construction of a bridge; the construction of a bonded-warehouse; the widening of the Rue du Grand-Pont; the opening of a street, running from the Court-House to the docks; the much delayed completion of the spire of the cathedral, etc. Queer collection, indeed! It might be called “Museum of deferred projects.”
You are so afraid of compromising yourselves, so afraid to act, that each outgoing administration hands its caution down to its successor. You think caution such a virtue that it would be a crime for you to act. Mediocrity is not detrimental, you think, but one must avoid being enterprising. When the public clamours, a committee is at once appointed; and from that time nothing is done. “We can do absolutely nothing; we await the committee’s decision.” Invincible argument to soothe public impatience!