Interesting signed autograph letter from Mrs. Alfred VALETTE known as RACHILDE (1926)

  

Response to a literary survey initiated by the writer Marius BOISSON (Paris, 1881 - Étrigny, 1959), on behalf of the cultural newspaper Comodia. 2 pages in-8°, dated Paris June 10, 1926, on the letterhead of Mercure de France, with attached envelope, as well as the printed questionnaire. 1° Do you not think that certain works have been harmful to the growth and happiness of humanity by making an old ideal disappear, or by creating a philosophy and even a religion?

I believe that, without exception, all so-called religious literatures have harmed humanity! The novel of the soul teaches or suggests to it the illusion of a better second life, making it forget real life and, consequently, neglect the improvement of purely human conditions. People have chased after goods that are not of this world and have even fought each other in the name of these chimerical goods: All happiness that the hand cannot reach... 2° Do you believe that literary works can corrupt a being or instill a disgust for life?

I do not believe that a literary work, without any pretension to sociology or philosophy, can harm anyone. The taste (or disgust) for life is carried within oneself. Reading a novel is like breathing a flower.

It is as fleeting as the wind carries away the good smell or the bad perfume! 3° If you could destroy all copies of a work in the world, which one would you condemn? But mine, with the exception of three... which is not much out of forty-eight volumes.