Leconte de Lisle supports Malvina Blanchecotte Autograph letter signed, 1871

  

One page on a double octavo leaf. Size: 21.5 x 13 cm.

Precious testimony of support from the leader of the Parnassian movement to the poet of working-class origin, who had just sent him the revised and enlarged third edition (1971) of her critically acclaimed collection: Dreams and Realities.

I am very grateful for the copy you were so kind as to send me. Your eloquent, passionate, or graceful verses have been well known to me for a long time, but I will now be able to reread them as a whole and better absorb their charm and rare artistic quality. Believe me, dear Madam, in my sincere gratitude and in the respectful sympathies of your devoted servant.

Excerpt from Dreams and Realities (1971 edition) “To the Muse.

”

Let us put far from us the hours of distress!
Memory is dead in my devastated heart.
Let every name be erased from it, and let nothing oppress it.

“What is no longer for man, has it ever been?
Now that, unknown and bound to my chain,
I drag obscurely the weight of my past,
I feel your gaze shining upon my sorrow
Like a little sunlight on my faded dream.