27. pour. Incorrect use of pour without an object; the other popular phrases have already been noted.
[243.]--18. malin. The feminine of this adjective, maligne, is only apparently irregular; the Latin etyma are malignum and malignam (French words, except those used in address, are derived from the Latin accusative), these give regularly malin and maligne, because final Latin vowels fall except a which becomes e and final gn is reduced to n, whereas gn between vowels gives the modern French sound.
30. il pleurait du sang. Compare the English phrase "to sweat blood."
[244.]--18. il savait plus. Popular omission of ne.
ALFRED DE MUSSET
Paris, 1810--Paris, 1857
De Musset at an early age became a member of the cénacle or inner circle of the Romantic writers, with whom he is intimately connected. In 1829 he published a volume of verse of great merit; this and the Spectacle dans un Fauteuil made him famous at once. He had an extremely excitable, poetic temperament and a weak will, which rendered him incapable of entering any useful employment, such as a position in the French Embassy at Madrid, or writing regularly for periodicals, both of these positions having been offered him. He was elected to the French Academy in 1852 and did little work thereafter. His best work was done in verse and in the drama, but his short stories are of extraordinary merit. His poems (especially the Nuits) possess preëminently the lyric quality, genuineness, originality and passion; his dramas, having usually some proverb as a title, show great delicacy, grace, ingenuity and wit; his short stories are exquisite. His style, in contrast to that of Gautier, shows little care for form, and in many respects he may be compared with the English poet Byron.
Important works: Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie (1829), Spectacle dans un Fauteuil (1829), Rolla (1833), Nuits (1835 ff.); Lettre à Lamartine (1836), Confessions d'un Enfant du Siècle (1836), Poésies Nouvelles (1840), Comédies et Proverbes (1850-1851, about fifteen), besides several Nouvelles and Contes (1837-1854), such as: Emmeline, Frédéric et Bernerette, Fils du Titien, Margot, Le Merle Blanc, Croisilles (published in 1841), etc.
Edition: Charpentier, in 9 vols.; Lemerre, in 10 vols.
CROISILLES