L.A.S., April 1857, to André Basset, editor-in-chief of the country; 3 pages in-8 in red ink.
Virulent critique of Théophile
Poydenot's POEMS AND POETIES.
He had promised to report on the volume of Poydenot's verses, but he spent his morning looking for "a few verses, a veritable verse", in vain! "Imagine a bunch of mechanically spun worms - a deplorable ability to lay them, to push them like endless solitary worms that are unfortunately not solitary, because there are some! There are some!..... this man does everywhere. If it were bad! By the way, the bad one has a face. It is an animal that the bad one has ears by which to take it and shake it. But the mediocre all round, all silly, the donkey's head without ears, how can we take that? How to praise the mediocre, the flat and the easy together... I can say it's mediocre completed, but do you want it?... Lamartine fell into imbecility, that's Mr. Poydenot!
Faucet of warm water that flows heavily. But the good Lord vomits up the lukewarm and I am not the good Lord!"..... If Basset has made a commitment, he can unload himself on Barbey: "it is I (and not you) who refuse to do something shameful, my position of serious criticism given"... Instead of dealing with such a "literary vermin", it would be better to "criticize a book like Renan's, for example[Religious History Studies]. A talented and dangerous book!".....
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