Countess de Noailles, signed autograph letter (19)26, in response to an inquiry

  

Signed handwritten letter from March (19)26 on her letterhead at her Paris address. She responds to the inquiry conducted on the role and literary importance of Théophile Gautier. “I must admit that I rarely think of Théophile Gautier, that his verses have not intoxicated me, that they are not among those which 'like a knife thrust into my plaintive heart have entered' (underlined text), and finally that the memory they leave me is that of a skillful and magnificent work where a carnival of Venice and a swallow from Egypt throb.

The famous 'Journey to Spain' seemed long to me, and I stopped at the point where the prodigious oleander blooms.