ings which Gautier and his companions
did, not alone the first night of _Hernani_, but at all times and in
all places. They unquestionably saw to it that Victor Hugo had fair
play the evening of February 25, 1830. The occasion was an historic
one, and they with their Merovingian hair, their beards, their
waistcoats, and their enthusiasm helped to make it an unusually lively
and picturesque occasion.

I have quoted a very few of the good things which one may read in
Gautier's _Histoire du Romantisme_. The narrative is one of much
sweetness and humor. It ought to be translated for the benefit of
readers who know Gautier chiefly by _Mademoiselle de Maupin_ and that
for reasons among which love of literature is perhaps the least
influential.

It is pleasant to find that Renduel confirms the popular view of
Gautier's character. M. Jullien says that Renduel never spoke of
Gautier but in praise. 'Quel bon garcon!' he used to say. 'Quel brave
coeur!' M. Jullien has naturally no large number of new facts to give
concerning Gautier. But there are eight or nine letters from Gautier
to Renduel which will be read with pleasure, especially the one in
which the poet says to the publisher, 'Heaven preserve you from
historical novels, and your eldest child from the smallpox.'

Gautier must have been both generous and modest. No mere egoist could
have been so faithful in his hero-worship or so unpretentious in his
allusions to himself. One has only to read the most superficial
accounts of French literature to learn how universally it is granted
that Gautier had skillful command of that language to which he was
born. Yet he himself was by no means sure that he deserved a master's
degree. He quotes one of Goethe's sayings,--a saying in which the
great German poet declares that after the practice of many arts there
was but one art in which he could be said to excel, namely, the art of
writing in German; in that he was almost a master. Then Gautier
exclaims, 'Would that _we_, after so many years of labor, had become
almost a master of the art of writing in French! But such ambitions
are not for us!'

Yet they were for him; and it is a satisfaction to note how invariably
he is accounted, by the artists in literature, an eminent man among
many eminent men in whose touch language was plastic.

STEVENSON: THE VAGABOND AND THE PHILOSOPHER

A certain critic said of Stevenson that he was 'incurably literary;'
the phrase is a good on