agical
termination. This particular love affair is commemorated, in accents of
bitter melancholy, in the "Nuit de Decembre," just as the other, which
had found its catastrophe at Venice, figures, by clear allusion, in
"Nuit de Mai," published a few months before. It may provoke a
philosophic smile to learn, as we do from M. Paul de Musset--candid
biographer!--that the "motives" of these two poems are not identical,
as they have hitherto been assumed to be. It had never occurred to the
reader that one disillusionment could follow so fast upon the heels of
another. When we add that a short time afterward--as the duration of
great intimacies of the heart is measured--Alfred de Musset was ready
to embark upon "two years of love without a cloud" with still another
object--to say nothing of the brief interval containing a sentimental
episode of which our biographer gives the prettiest account--we seem to
be justified in thinking that, for a "blighted" life, that of Alfred de
Musset exhibited a certain germinal vivacity.

During his stay in Italy he had written nothing; but the five years
which followed his return are those of his most active and brilliant
productivity. The finest of his verses, the most charming of his tales,
the most original of his comedies, belong to this relatively busy
period. Everything that he wrote at this time has a depth and intensity
which distinguishes it from the jocosely sentimental productions of his
debut, and from the somewhat mannered and vapidly elegant compositions
which he put forth, at wide intervals, during the last fifteen years of
his life. This was the period of Musset's intellectual virility. He was
very precocious, but he was at the same time, at first, very youthful.
On the other hand, his decline began early; in most of his later
things, especially in his verses (they become very few in number), the
inspiration visibly runs thin. "Mon verre n'est pas grand, mais je bois
dans mon verre," he had said, and both clauses of the sentence are
true. His glass held but a small quantity; the best of his
verses--those that one knows by heart and never wearies of
repeating--are very soon counted. We have named them when we have
mentioned "Rolla," the "Nuit de Mai," the "Nuit d'Aout" and the "Nuit
d'Octobre"; the "Lettre a Lamartine," and the "Stances a la Malibran."
These, however, are perfection; and if Musset had written nothing else,
he would have had a right to say that it was from his o