dy, irritating inertia
Others found delight in the most ordinary amusements
Plead the lie to get at the truth
Sensitiveness and disposition to self-blame
The ease with which he is forgotten
There are some men who never have had any childhood
Those who have outlived their illusions
Timidity of a night-bird that is made to fly in the day
To make a will is to put one foot into the grave
Toast and white wine (for breakfast)
Vague hope came over him that all would come right
Vexed, act in direct contradiction to their own wishes
Women: they are more bitter than death
Yield to their customs, and not pooh-pooh their amusements
You have considerable patience for a lover
You must be pleased with yourself--that is more essential

CONFESSION OF A CHILD OF THE CENTURY

(Confession d'un Enfant du Siecle)

By ALFRED DE MUSSET

With a Preface by HENRI DE BORNIER, of the French Academy

ALFRED DE MUSSET

A poet has no right to play fast and loose with his genius. It does not
belong to him, it belongs to the Almighty; it belongs to the world and to
a coming generation. At thirty De Musset was already an old man, seeking
in artificial stimuli the youth that would not spring again. Coming from
a literary family the zeal of his house had eaten him up; his passion had
burned itself out and his heart with it. He had done his work; it
mattered little to him or to literature whether the curtain fell on his
life's drama in 1841 or in 1857.

Alfred de Musset, by virtue of his genial, ironical temperament,
eminently clear brain, and undying achievements, belongs to the great
poets of the ages. We to-day do not approve the timbre of his epoch: that
impertinent, somewhat irritant mask, that redundant rhetoric, that
occasional disdain for the metre. Yet he remains the greatest poete de
l'amour, the most spontaneous, the most sincere, the most emotional
singer of the tender passion that modern times has produced.

Born of noble parentage on December 11, 1810--his full name being Louis
Charles Alfred de Musset--the son of De Musset-Pathai, he received his
education at the College Henri IV, where, among others, the Duke of
Orleans was his schoolmate. When only eighteen he was introduced into the
Romantic 'cenacle' at Nodier's. His first work, 'Les Contes d'Espagne et
d'Italie' (1829), shows reckless daring in the choice of subjects quite
in the spirit of