ly playing at poetry, and in his next
things, produced in the following year or two, Musset struck a graver
and more resonant chord. The pieces published under the title of "Un
Spectacle dans un Fauteuil" have all the youthful grace and gayety of
those that preceded them; but they have beyond this a suggestion of the
quality which gives so high a value to the author's later and best
verses--the accent of genuine passion. It is hard to see what, just
yet, Alfred de Musset had to be passionate about; but passion, with a
poet, even when it is most genuine, is very much of an affair of the
imagination and the personal temperament (independent, we mean, of
strong provoking causes), and the sensibilities of this young man were
already exquisitely active. His poems found a great many admirers, and
these admirers were often women. Hence for the young poet, says M. Paul
de Musset, a great many romantic and "_Boccaciennes_" adventures. "On
several occasions I was awaked in the middle of the night to give my
opinion on some question of high prudence. All these little stories
having been confided to me under the seal of secrecy, I have been
obliged to forget them; but I may affirm that more than one of them
would have aroused the envy of Bassompierre and Lauzun. Women at that
time were not wholly absorbed in their care for luxury and dress. To
hope to please, young men had no need to be rich; and it served a
purpose to have at nineteen years of age the prestige of talent and
glory." This is very pretty, as well as very Gallic; but it is rather
vague, and we may without offence suspect it to be, to a certain
extent, but that conventional _coup de chapeau_ which every
self-respecting Frenchman renders to actual or potential, past,
present, or future gallantry. Doubtless, however, Musset was, in the
native phrase, _lance_. He lived with his father and mother, his
brother and sister; his purse was empty; Seville and Granada were very
far away; and these "Andalusian passions," as M. Paul de Musset says,
were mere reveries and boyish visions. But they were the visions of a
boy who was all ready to compare reality with romance, and who, in
fact, very soon acceded to a proposal which appeared to offer a
peculiar combination of the two. It is noticeable, by the way, that
from our modest Anglo-Saxon point of view these same "Andalusian
passions," dealing chiefly with ladies tumbling about on disordered
couches, and pairs of lovers who take re