le, and a contradiction in terms, seeing that all superiority
which manifests itself among a people means cheapness, and tends only to
impart force to all other nations. Let us banish, then, from political
economy all terms borrowed from the military vocabulary: _to fight with
equal weapons, to conquer, to crush, to stifle, to be beaten, invasion,
tribute_, etc. What do such phrases mean? Squeeze them, and you obtain
nothing. Yes, you do obtain something; for from such words proceed
absurd errors, and fatal and pestilent prejudices. Such phrases tend to
arrest the fusion of nations, are inimical to their peaceful, universal,
and indissoluble alliance, and retard the progress of the human race.

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

(1821-1867)

BY GRACE KING

Charles Baudelaire was born in Paris in 1821; he died there in 1867.
Between these dates lies the evolution of one of the most striking
personalities in French literature, and the development of an influence
which affected not only the literature of the poet's own country, but
that of all Europe and America. The genuineness of both personality and
influence was one of the first critical issues raised after Baudelaire's
advent into literature; it is still one of the main issues in all
critical consideration of him. A question which involves by implication
the whole relation of poetry, and of art as such, to life, is obviously
one that furnishes more than literary issues, and engages other than
literary interests. And thus, by easy and natural corollaries,
Baudelaire has been made a subject of appeal not only to judgment, but
even to conscience. At first sight, therefore, he appears surrounded
either by an intricate moral maze, or by a no less troublesome confusion
of contradictory theories from opposing camps rather than schools of
criticism. But no author--no dead author--is more accessible, or more
communicable in his way; his poems, his theories, and a goodly portion
of his life, lie at the disposition of any reader who cares to know him.

[Illustration: CHARLES BAUDELAIRE]

The Baudelaire legend, as it is called by French critics, is one of the
blooms of that romantic period of French literature which is presided
over by the genius of Theophile Gautier. Indeed; it is against the
golden background of Gautier's imagination that the picture of the
youthful poet is best preserved for us, appearing in all the delicate
and illusive radiance of the youth and beauty of lege