Alphonse de Lamartine / Signed autograph letter / Poetic Meditations 1839

  

Autograph letter signed “Lamartine” to a critic.
Embossed letterhead with his monogram, topped by a crown.

Lamartine, affected by an unflattering review of his poem “The Village Bell,” the last piece in the volume Recueillements. An unpublished letter tolling the death knell of Lamartine’s great Romantic output.

“My dear friend,

I have just read what you wrote about me. This time I cannot agree.

The criticism is softened, but the mediocre is not seen. The artist, especially when he is as unconcerned as I am about his own glory, has a sense of what he has done.

The Bell of St-Point is not the knell of a poetic agony. At the very least, this could have been mentioned as an excuse.

Besides, I do not love you any the less tenderly.

One may disagree over an opinion, and over a taste, which is even more fleeting than an opinion, and still feel the most genuine affection for those with whom one differs. So farewell, then, and a long poetic farewell. I shall not publish again for many years. Even this was only a promised and compelled publication, a mere bookshop filler. But in my view there were a few flecks of pure gold in my copper.

Let us say no more of it, and until we meet again, whenever you or I have a moment.”

A review of the Poetic Reflections had just been published by a critic and, it seems, a friend, when Lamartine, visibly stung, could not restrain an outburst of pride. Put on sale on March 23, 1839, by the publisher Gosselin, the volume was a complete failure. This letter therefore allows us to fully grasp the state of mind of the disillusioned poet.