A Romance of Youth | Page 2

short and naturally slight; some, indeed, incline rather to
the essay than to the story, but each has that enthralling interest which
justifies its existence. Coppee possesses preeminently the gift of

presenting concrete fact rather than abstraction. A sketch, for instance,
is the first tale written by him, 'Une Idylle pendant le Seige' (1875). In a
novel we require strong characterization, great grasp of character, and
the novelist should show us the human heart and intellect in full play
and activity. In 1875 appeared also 'Olivier', followed by 'L'Exilee
(1876); Recits et Elegies (1878); Vingt Contes Nouveaux (1883); and
Toute une Jeunesse', mainly an autobiography, crowned by acclaim by
the Academy. 'Le Coupable' was published in 1897. Finally, in 1898,
appeared 'La Bonne Souffrance'. In the last-mentioned work it would
seem that the poet, just recovering from a severe malady, has returned
to the dogmas of the Catholic Church, wherefrom he, like so many of
his contemporaries, had become estranged when a youth. The poems of
1902, 'Dans la Priere et dans la Lutte', tend to confirm the correctness
of this view.
Thanks to the juvenile Sarah Bernhardt, Coppee became, as before
mentioned, like Byron, celebrated in one night. This happened through
the performance of 'Le Passant'.
As interludes to the plays there are "occasional" theatrical pieces,
written for the fiftieth anniversary of the performance of 'Hernani' or
the two-hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the "Comedie
Francaise." This is a wide field, indeed, which M. Coppee has
cultivated to various purposes.
Take Coppee's works in their sum and totality, and the world-decree is
that he is an artist, and an admirable one. He plays upon his instrument
with all power and grace. But he is no mere virtuoso. There is
something in him beyond the executant. Of Malibran, Alfred de Musset
says, most beautifully, that she had that "voice of the heart which alone
has power to reach the heart." Here, also, behind the skilful player on
language, the deft manipulator of rhyme and rhythm, the graceful and
earnest writer, one feels the beating of a human heart. One feels that he
is giving us personal impressions of life and its joys and sorrows; that
his imagination is powerful because it is genuinely his own; that the
flowers of his fancy spring spontaneously from the soil. Nor can I
regard it as aught but an added grace that the strings of his instrument

should vibrate so readily to what is beautiful and unselfish and delicate
in human feeling.
JOSE DE HEREDIA de l'Academie Francaise.

A ROMANCE OF YOUTH

BOOK 1.
CHAPTER I
ON THE BALCONY
As far back as Amedee Violette can remember, he sees himself in an
infant's cap upon a fifth-floor balcony covered with convolvulus; the
child was very small, and the balcony seemed very large to him.
Amedee had received for a birthday present a box of water-colors, with
which he was sprawled out upon an old rug, earnestly intent upon his
work of coloring the woodcuts in an odd volume of the 'Magasin
Pittoresque', and wetting his brush from time to time in his mouth. The
neighbors in the next apartment had a right to one-half of the balcony.
Some one in there was playing upon the piano Marcailhou's Indiana
Waltz, which was all the rage at that time. Any man, born about the
year 1845, who does not feel the tears of homesickness rise to his eyes
as he turns over the pages of an old number of the 'Magasin Pittoresque',
or who hears some one play upon an old piano Marcailhou's Indiana
Waltz, is not endowed with much sensibility.
When the child was tired of putting the "flesh color" upon the faces of
all the persons in the engravings, he got up and went to peep through
the railings of the balustrade. He saw extending before him, from right
to left, with a graceful curve, the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, one of
the quietest streets in the Luxembourg quarter, then only half built up.
The branches of the trees spread over the wooden fences, which
enclosed gardens so silent and tranquil that passers by could hear the

birds singing in their cages.
It was a September afternoon, with a broad expanse of pure sky across
which large clouds, like mountains of silver, moved in majestic
slowness.
Suddenly a soft voice called him:
"Amedee, your father will return from the office soon. We must wash
your hands before we sit down to the table, my darling."
His mother came out upon the balcony for him. His mother; his dear
mother, whom he knew for so short a time! It needs an effort for him to
call her to mind now, his memories are so indistinct. She was so
modest and pretty, so pale, and with such charming