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dans l'âme comme des colombes mal étouffées ses anciens instincts poétiques qui voudraient sortir et revoir la pure lumière du soleil; l'un se couche sur le tapis, l'autre se perche sur le bras d'un fauteuil, on se fait un échafaudage de coussins, l'on s'endort si l'on veut ou l'on fait des cabrioles comme un brochet en belle humeur. Parlez-nous de musique ainsi écoutée dans le demi jour et le recueillement, à l'ombre des grands rideaux et au milieu du silence de la chambre d'étude "(12).

There is little evidence here for pleasure in sound as such, and indeed from this and other accounts of Gautier's agreeable experiences of music, it is apparent that it was not the music itself, but rather the relaxation and the relief, the opportunity for revery which it gave, that the poet appreciated. He was indeed sensitive to sound, but the pleasure which he occasionally derived from it was extra-musical:

". . . Ces chants, d'une bizarrerie mystérieuse, ont un pouvoir réel d'incantation; ils vous donnent le vertige et le délire, et vous jettent dans l'état d'âme le plus incompréhensible. En les entendant, vous sentez une mortelle envie de disparaître à jamais de la civilisation et d'aller courir les bois en compagnie d'une de ces sorcières au teint couleur de cigare, aux yeux de charbon allumé..."(13).

"Il est bien difficile, sinon impossible, de rendre par des paroles un effet musical; mais l'on peut du moins raconter le rêve qu'il fait naître. Certaines mélodies vous sonnent à l'oreille comme un Ranz des vaches maladivement irrésistible, et vous avez envie de jeter là votre fusil, d'abandonner votre poste et de gagner à la nage l'autre rive où l'on n'obéit à aucune consigne, à aucune loi, à aucune morale autre que le caprice. Mille tableaux brillants et confus vous passent devant les yeux . .”(14).

His associations with music were not necessarily pleasant, however (15), and other sounds were definitely disagreeable to him. Taine tells of his obsession with the phrase: "La Polka sera dansée par M. . . ."(16), and Gautier also recounts similar occurrences, where certain sets of words or musical notes haunted him almost to the point of hallucination, and far beyond the limits of enjoyment (17). The railroad was abominable to him on account of the noise inseparable from it (18). Thus the sensation of sound, while keenly noted by the author, did not, as a matter of fact, add greatly to his pleasures, even though it was sometimes possible for him to abstract himself, through music, in agreeable revery. As compared to sight, moreover, the pleasantest sound was of small importance to Gautier. He felt that

visual harmonies might well be substituted for it, and wrote, of "la blonde Malibran ":

"Sa voix est claire, agréable et roucoulante; mais nous avouons entendre fort peu de choses à la musique. Ce qui chante le mieux pour nous dans madame Thillon, ce sont ses yeux, ses mains, sa taille, ses cheveux blonds; nous voyons courir sur tout cela des notes ailées et frémissantes qui sont de la meilleure harmonie "(19).

During his childhood, the author had been preoccupied with the visual and had delighted in various colours and forms. He speaks of an early interest in curved and straight lines (20), and, again, relates his desire to see the ocean:

"Voir la mer a été pour moi un désir presque maladif. Dès l'âge de cinq ou six ans, j'étais un des spectateurs les plus assidus du spectacle mécanique de M. Pierre, où l'on représentait des combats, des tempêtes, des naufrages et autres scènes analogues. Je connaissais le nom et la forme de tous les vaisseaux; j'aurais pu faire le catalogue qui se trouve dans l'ode de Victor Hugo sur la bataille de Navarin . . ."(21).

This interest in things seen is reflected throughout Gautier's literary production, and its close link to a sensory pleasure is evident from many of his descriptions. As a theorist, he recognized the necessity for this element in the true enjoyment of art (22), and as a dilettante he appreciated especially the painting which offered such pleasure to his eyes:

"Une toile nous a particulièrement frappé. Jamais plus éblouissant bouquet de couleurs ne s'est épanoui pour le plaisir des yeux. C'est une ardeur fraiche, une fraîcheur ardente, une harmonie enchanteresse, une musique de tons, une symphonie de palette qui procurent des sensations qui ne cause pas ordinairement la peinture. L'impression en est presque voluptueuse. Pourtant aucune gracieuse nudité féminine n'y déploie ses blancheurs et n'y fait à travers sa beauté un victorieux appel aux sens, c'est le charme même du ton qui agit "(23).

So, too, Regnault's whites brought him an especial pleasure:

.. Pour les délicats, ce blanc trouvé par Henri Regnault est une volupté inconnue, une jouissance toute neuve. Un tel enthousiasme à l'endroit d'une valeur de blanc paraîtra sans doute puéril à ceux qui n'aiment dans la peinture que le but moral et les intentions littéraires. Mais nous autres dépravés, qui préférons Paul Véronèse à Hogarth, quoique le grand Vénitien n'ait jamais corrigé personne, nous en jouissons délicieusement. Aucun autre art que la peinture ne pourrait nous donner cette qualité de sensation " (24).

Gautier's pleasure in white was not limited to the tones of paintings, however, and he had at one time an obsession for white

animals cats, Norwegian rats, "jusqu'à notre poulailler était peuplé de poules exclusivement blanches" (25). Time after time he expressed his pleasure in colour as such (26), and the dissonances which he most disliked were those of colour:

"Les drapiers étalent des draps anglais aux couleurs criardes dont les lisières sont chamarrées de grosses lettres d'or et d'armoires en paillon de cuivre, pour flatter le goût oriental. On y reconnaît la perfection bête de la mécanique et la fausseté de ton naturelle de la Grande Bretagne. J'avoue que de pareilles dissonances me font grincer les dents.

"Quand je pense que je rencontrerai sans doute ces horribles étoffes découpées en vestes, en gilets et en caftans, dans une mosquée, dans une rue, dans un paysage, dont elles détruisent tout l'effet par leurs couleurs insociables, une secrète fureur bouillonne en moi ..." (27).

The only regret of the traveller is that he cannot see everything, that there comes a time when his eyes will take in nothing more and when he must wait and meditate upon the scenes which have given him such pleasure before he can respond with further pleasure to new stimuli (28). There is no doubt that, in so far as Gautier's sensations were concerned, he was a man "pour qui le monde visible existe " (29).

Théophile Gautier, then, was keenly awake to certain sensory impressions; he was sensitive, also, to various emotional situations, and, in spite of the tradition of his impassibility, it is evident from the accounts of his life that indifference to emotional stimuli was not natural to him, but rather the result of a habit which he had been at pains to acquire. Yriarte points out this basis of emotional sensitiveness beneath a voluntary tranquillity, and other critics have noted the same double quality, in the author's production as in his life:

"Il y a donc deux existences dans son existence, deux œuvres dans son œuvre l'un subtil, perspicace, modéré, dans lequel il joint les qualités du critique à celles de l'homme imaginatif; l'autre excessif, énorme, sans frein par le côté création, touffu, plein d'ardeurs, de rêveries, de spontanéité, prodigieux par la variété, durable par la diversité et la précision des connaissances, qui s'y cachent sous la grâce et la perfection du style comme sous des fleurs. .

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Ces deux œuvres ont été conçues dans un milieu patriarcal, un isolement relatif, une tranquillité et un calme intérieurs qui ne se démentent point malgré les nuages qui les peuvent obscurcir, car cette placidité n'est point à la surface, elle a sa source dans la conscience. "Théophile Gautier est un sage.

Sous son indifférence apparente se

While it may be granted that the poet had this general keen sensibility, it is yet possible to distinguish, among his primary emotions, a certain quantitative difference which is of no little importance for the understanding of the construction of Gautier's major sentiments.

From the evidence of biography and autobiography, memoirs and correspondence, it would seem that in Théophile Gautier the tender and protective emotions and the sexual feeling were strong (31). It is these primary emotions which are at the basis of friendship and love, and in Gautier they are made apparent in various ways. There is to be noted, in the first instance, his long devotion to Carlotta Grisi; this sentiment was manifested both in the life and in the literary production of the author, and it gives an indication of the strength of the primary emotions on which it was built up. The great body of correspondence with regard to Théophile Gautier's private affairs is not available to the public, but the content of certain letters to Carlotta Grisi, to which Bergerat referred in his essay on the author, became general knowledge at the time of the sale of his effects, and have been described in terms which leave no doubt as to the emotional nature of the man revealed by this correspondence:

"Pages touchantes, très simples, sans déclamations ni littérature, exquises de tact et de cœur. Ce n'est pas seulement l'amour qui s'y exprime, mais aussi la tendresse, le besoin d'aimer, toutes les émotions d'une âme délicate et bonne. On a souvent reproché à Gautier son insensibilité: en réalité, nul cœur ne fut plus affectueux ni plus dévoué. Cette sensibilité, qui d'ordinaire se voile et ne parait pour ainsi dire que par allusions, se donne libre cours dans cette correspondance . ."(32).

Gautier's devotion to his family has been written of frequently, and no one of his biographers was more convinced of it than his daughter Judith. The letters which his father addressed to him during his travels could have been written only to a loving son; his disquietude for the safety of his sisters in 1870 is notable. To his family he was always ready to sacrifice his own interests. Such is also the case with his friendships. Gautier had throughout his life a most humble admiration for Victor Hugo; the death of Gérard de Nerval, his comrade from the days of the Lycée, brought him great sorrow; during many years he rejoiced

in the companionship of Arsène Houssaye, Louis de Cormenin, and others. The author was blamed, indeed, for his excessive tenderness to young writers and artists to whom he gave favourable criticism in his feuilletons; he enjoyed greatly the affection, as well as the admiration, given to him by such disciples as Banville and Baudelaire. His attachment to animals, even to places, was noteworthy (33). On the whole, this conjunction of various specific sentiments of love, in regard to a number of objects, indicates a strong emotional basis of tenderness, of sexual and protective feelings.

Closely linked to these partially altruistic emotions and feelings stand those which have a more intimate connection with Gautier himself feelings of helplessness and of isolation, positive and negative self-feeling. Here again the author shows the stratum of keen sensibility underlying his reputed impassiveness. Gautier enjoyed comfort and quiet in his home, but he disliked isolation intensely; the days of 1870, when he wandered about in a besieged Paris which his friends had abandoned, were dreadful to him; in 1835 he had spent all his time with Gérard and the other companions of the rue du Doyenné. The Histoire du romantisme, where he recounts the death of his fellow-artists, where he speaks as a solitary survivor from the days of Hernani, is full of his sorrow at the loss of his friends and of his own profound loneliness. The dîners Magny, where he could speak of his life as a Jeune-France to a younger generation which, nevertheless, was connected in thought and tradition with that former time, brought him a real consolation. In the same manner, he enjoyed a certain feeling of dependence on others. Gérard de Nerval in one way, the Princess Mathilde in another, gave him aid which he welcomed. He was easily and deeply distressed when any appeal of his was unanswered. A different set of activities, moreover, manifests another quite strong emotional tendency in the author— that toward feelings of superiority, of elation. During his early years he had a great pride of person; he considered himself beautiful, and he did everything possible to enhance the impression he might make. The famous "gilet rouge" has its bearing here on