d of high, delicate, rare sounds--which melts us
and enthralls us and liberates us, whatever the subject and whatever
the manner or the method! Verse which is cramped and harsh and
unmelodious may have its place in human history; it may have its
place in human soothsaying and human interest; it has no place or
lot in poetry. Individual phrases may have their magic; individual
words may have their colour; individual thoughts may have their
truth; individual sentences their noble rhetoric;--all this is well and
right and full of profound interest. But all this is only the material,
the atmosphere, the medium, the instrument. If the final result does
not touch us, does not move us, does not rouse us, does not quiet us,
as _music_ to our ears and our souls--it may be the voice of the
prophet; it may be the voice of the charmer; it is not the voice of the
immortal god.

Verlaine uses the term _nuance_ in his "ars poetica" to express the
evasive quality in poetry which appeals to him most and of which he
himself is certainly one of the most delicate exponents; but
remembering the power over us of certain sublime simplicities,
remembering the power over us of certain great plangent lines in
Dante and Milton, where there is no "nuance" at all, one hesitates to
make this a dogmatic doctrine.

But in what he says of music he is supremely right, and it is for the
sake of his passionate authority on this matter--the authority of one
who is certainly no formal traditionalist--that I am led to quote
certain lines.

They occur in "Jadis et Naguere" and are placed, appropriately
enough, in the centre of the volume of Selections which I have now
before me.

De la musique avant toute chose,
Et pour cela prefere l'Impair
Plus vague et plus soluble dans l'air,
Sans rien en lui qui pese ou qui pose.

Il faut aussi que tu n'ailles point
Choisir tes mots sans quelque meprise:
Rien de plus cher que la chanson grise
Ou l'Indecis au Precis se joint.

Car nous voulons la Nuance encor,
Pas la Couleur, rien que la nuance!
Oh! la nuance seule fiance
Le reve au reve et la flute au cor!

Fuis du plus loin la Pointe assassine,
L'Esprit cruel et le Rire impur,
Qui font pleurer les yeux de l'Azur,
Et tout cet ail de basse cuisine!

Prends l'eloquence et tords-lui sou cou!
Tu feras bien, en train d'energie
De rendre un peu la Rime assagie