remorse in
the ecstasy of the sin that caused the remorse.

The way a man "makes love" is always intimately associated with
the way he approaches his gods, such as they may be; and one need
not be in the least surprised to find that Verlaine's attitude to his
Creator has a marked resemblance to his attitude to those
too-exquisite created beings whose beauty and sweet maternal
tenderness so often betrayed him. He evidently enjoys a delicious
childish emotion, almost a babyish emotion, in giving himself up
into the hands of his Maker to be soothed and petted, healed and
comforted. He calls upon his God to punish him just as a child might
call upon his mother to punish him, in the certain knowledge that his
tears will soon be kissed away by a tenderness as infinite as it is just.
God, Christ, Our Lady, pass through the pages of his poems as
through the cypress-terraces of some fantastic mediaeval picture.
The "douceur" of their sweet pitifulness towards him runs like a
quivering magnetic current through all the maddest fancies of his
wayward imagination.

"De la douceur, de la douceur, de la douceur"! Even in the least
pardonable of light loves he demands this tenderness--demands it
from some poor "fille de joie" with the same sort of tearful craving
with which he demands it from the Mother of God.

He has a pathetic mania for the consoling touch of tender, pitiful
hands. All through his poetry we have reference to such hands.
Sometimes they are only too human. Sometimes they are divine. But
whether human or divine they bring with them that magnetic gift of
healing for which, like a hurt and unhappy infant, he is always
longing.

Les cheres mains qui furent miennes
Toutes petites, toutes belles,
Apres ces meprises mortelles
Et toutes ces choses paiennes,

Apres les rades et les greves,
Et les pays et les provinces,
Royales mieux qu'au temps des princes
Les cheres mains m'ouvrent les reves.

. . . .

Ment-elle, ma vision chaste,
D'affinite spirituelle,
De complicite maternelle,
D'affection etroite et vaste?

. . . .

That collection of passionate cries to God which ends with a sort of
rhapsody of pleading prayer, entitled "Sagesse," begins--and one
does not feel that it is in the least inappropriate--with

Beaute des femmes, leur faiblesse, et ces mains pales
Qui font souvent le bien et peuvent tout le mal.

It is very curio