ST. MALLARME
289
short of the perfection at which he aims; and always he suffers
from a sense of his own unworthiness, his insufficiency.
HE.-Aren't you describing a quality that artists may also
possess?
I.-A
few exceptional artists, it is true; and we admire and ven–
erate them for that reason by itself, almost independently of their
work. Let us agree that every artist applies himself to his work as
best he can. But many other preoccupation<; are involved that have
nothing to do with art; he thinks of money, success, his public stand–
ing. No, the men who disregard their private interests and behave
toward their ideal (I can find no other word) as saints behave to–
ward the Master who told them, "My kingdom is not of this earth"–
such artists are very rare. I was thinking particularly of Flaubert
and Mallarme.
HE.-You
say that in this respect your admiration for the man
is independent of your admiration for his work?
/.-One moment: I admire the work of Mallarme, the work of
Flaubert; and on this fact depends my admiration for the lives of
both men. But the strange dominion that Mallarme exercised (oh,
without claiming to do so) over certain members of my generation
was something that owed no more to his work than it did to his con–
duct of life; to the unusual example of disinterestedne.c;s that he set
before us.
HE.-Isn't
that disinterestedness precisely the quality for which
he is being condemned today? The young poets I know either claim
to "think with their hands," as Denis de Rougemont says, or at least
to regard poetry as a form of participation in life. They protest that
the isolation of the poet, resulting from his adherence to the religion
of art, was extremely harmful both to poetry, which began to wither
when it lost contact with the masses, and to the masses as well, since
they were weaned away from poetry.
/.-Every age has new problems to confront. It may be that the
relationship between the spiritual and the temporal is one of the chief
problems today. Nevertheless I pity the young poet who lets himself
be obsessed with it.
HE.-Do
you want the poet to be unconcerned with the matters
that now preoccupy our thoughts and weigh upon our hearts? Do
you want him to live as if on the margins of the world? Do you want
him to keep out of difficulties by "making himself scarce," in every
meaning of the phrase?
I.-No.
There is part of his nature that can and should lend itself
to the sad business of human transactions. "I pray not that thou
