It was in the already far-off and perhaps heroic times of the Art Theatre; we were brought to hear and see _la Fille aux Mains coupées_: To me there remains a most pleasant, complete and perfect memory of a play that truly gave the exquisite and keen sensation of the definitive. That hardly endured an hour; of it remains verses which makes a poem with difficulty forgotten.
Pierre Quillard has reunited his early poetic writings under a title which for more than one will be presumptuous: _La Gloire du Verbe_. To dare this, is to be sure of oneself; to have the consciousness of mastery; to affirm, more or less, that coming after Leconte de Lisle and De Heredia, one will not flag in a craft demanding, along with splendor of imagination, a singular sureness of hand. He has not lied; a very skillful setter, he truly glorifies the multiple jewels of the word. He makes the water of pearls smile and the rainbow of decomposed diamonds laugh.
Captain of a galley filled with precious; slaves, he sails among the tempting perils of purple archipelagos (as the Greek isles are said to appear at certain hours), and when the night comes he seeks the sandy shore of a violet gulf,
Dans la splendeur des clairs de lune violets.
Alors des profondeurs et des ténèbres saintes Comme un jeune soleil sort des gouffres marins, Blanche, laissant couler des épaules aux reins Ses cheveux où nageaient de pâles hyacinthes, Une femme surgit....
whose eyes are gulfs of joy, love and terror, and where one sees reflected the whole world of things from grass to the infinity of seas. And she speaks: "Poet who, amidst life, exhibits astonishments and desires and loves, you appear moved by sensual joys and you suffer, for these joys you feel are truly vain, but
Si tu n'étreins que des chimères, si tu bois L'enivrement de vins illusoires, qu'importe! Le soleil meurt, la foule imaginaire est morte Mais le monde subsiste en ta seule âme: vois! Les jours se sont fanées comme des roses brèves, Mais ton Verbe a créé le mirage où tu vis....
and my beauty, you give it form and gesture; I am your creation, I exist because you think of me and because you evoke me."
Such is the leading idea of that _Gloire du Verbe_, one of the rare poems of that time, where the idea and word march in harmonious rhythm.