Spiritist PoetryAlfred de MussetMr. Timothée Trimm published, in the Petit Journal, on October 23rd, 1865, stanzas that were given to him by one of his friends, as being dictated by Alfred de Musset to a lady medium of his acquaintance; as it seems, the madness of Spiritism even reach the friends of those gentlemen that dare not have those friends publicly sent to mental asylums, in particular when such friends are, as in this case, people of notorious intelligence, in position of leadership in the artistic world. There is no doubt that, out of consideration for that friend, he did not gloat much about the origin of those stanzas; he stopped at picturing them as coming from an imaginary environment. Among other things, he said:
“I invent nothing, I just attest them. They sent for the author of Rolla and the Chalice and the Lips from a castle in the outskirts of Paris. He was brought to a table and asked for original stanzas!!! A Spiritist secretary took the enchanted seat; he said that he wrote the message from an immortal… and this is what he showed to the participants.”
The stanzas were not obtained in a castle around Paris, nor at a table but through a regular writing, and also, they had not sent for Alfred de Musset. To the eyes of the author, calling the poet to write something at a table is a common thing in Spiritism. Here is how things truly developed:
Mrs. X… is an educated socialite, but certainly not a poet. She is gifted with a powerful mediumistic faculty of writing and clairvoyance, having given irrefutable proofs of identity of the Spirits communicating through her, in many occasions.
She was spending the beautiful season with her husband, an eager Spiritist, in a small cottage among the dunes of the Department Nord; one evening she was contemplating the blue dome and the distant dune, from the porch of the house, in a solemn silence only broken by the howling of the watch dog; these circumstances must be taken into consideration for they give the verses a contemporary meaning. She suddenly felt agitated, surrounded by a fluidic energy, and without a premeditated destiny, she was led to grab a pen, writing the verses in question, from an impulse and without hesitation, in a few minutes, with the signature of Alfred de Musset, someone that she was not absolutely thinking about. This took place on September 1st, 1865 and fully reproduced below.
There you are, poor soul,
Day and night, you watch
The sad dune; your only distract
The barking dog, at the moonlight.
When I see you alone and troubled,
Your wet eyes reaching out to the starry
Skies, I remember the sad days
Of cursing the arid property.
As much as you did, I suffered,
Feeling in this great desert
My heart on fire;
Like a pearl, the ocean attire,
All over the universe I searched
For a cry of the soul.
To appease my burning mind,
I traveled under the blue skies from Italy;
Florence and Venice saw me,
Among their bare-breasted daughters,
Dragging my life.
Sometimes the indolent fisherman
Saw me crying like a child
By the beach, stopping out of piety,
Leaving the catch halfway,
The sea carries them away.
Little one, come back to us;
As we rock on our knees
The crying child,
We will take you, by the way,
To the land full of love
Where I stay.
By these verses, written for you,
And despite myself,
I took the burden of this overture,
Affirming to the scientists,
Who laugh at ghosts,
My signature.
A.DE MUSSET
The Petit Journal made several alterations to these stanzas, changing their meanings in a ridiculous way.
In the second stanza, sixth verse, instead of “Au clair de lune”, it became “Au clair de la lune”, that spoils the whole thing, making it gross. The second stanza was removed, breaking the chain of thoughts. In the third stanza, second verse, instead of “ce grand désert”, that portrays that place, they put “le grand désert.” In the sixth stanza, fifth verse, instead of “Dans les terrer pleines d’amour”, that makes sense, it became “Dans les serres pleines d’amour”, that makes none.
These rectifications were requested to the Journal that refused to have them inserted. Nonetheless, the author of the article said: “I invent nothing; I attest.”
With respect to the novel by Mr. Theophile Gautier, entitled Spiritist, the same Spirit gave the following lines to the medium, on December 2nd, 1865:
Here I am back. Although I had sworn,
Madam, on my great gods, to never rhyme.
It's a sad job to print the works of an author
reduced to a state of mind.
I fled away from you, but a charming Spirit,
speaking of us, risks excite a smile.
I think he knows a lot more than he wants to say,
And that he has found his ghost somewhere.
A ghost! It does really sound strange;
I laughed about it when I was here below;
When I said I didn't believe it, though,
Like a savior, I would have welcomed my good angel.
How much I would’ve liked it, my paled face
Leaning on my hand, at night, by the window;
My crying soul probing the immensities,
Traveling the fields of infinity!
Friends, what to hope for, from a century without belief?
When you have squeezed your most beautiful fruit,
Man will always stumble over a tomb if,
To support him, there is no hope.
But these verses are not his, they will say.
What do I care, after all, the blame of the unrefined!
When I was alive, my mind they hardly occupied;
I would laugh at it, even more so today.
A. DE MUSSET
Here is the opinion of Mr. Junior, one of the editors of the “Monde Illustré”, who is not a Spiritist.
Monde Illustré, December 16th, 1865.
Mr. T. Gautier received a poem from a lady, signed by Alfred de Musset; its title cold be: The Spiritist lady that requested a poem to her collection. Let it be clear that, since it is related to Spiritism, that the lady pretends to have been an intermediary, an obedient medium that scribbled verses dictated by Alfred de Musset, deceased a few years ago. Nothing new there because, when it comes to infinity, all of those that believe in Spiritism give you plenty of communications more or less interesting. But the stanzas signed by Musset are such that whoever produced it is a poet of first order. It is the style of Musset, his charming language, his gentlemanly boldness, charm and gracious attitude. He is not excessive like in a parody, nor pretentious or forced; and we think that if a master, like T. Gautier, is mistaken, the imitation must be remarkably good. It is interesting that the honorable Mr. Charpentier, the editor of the complete works by Musset, when heard these charming verses that you will soon see, screamed: Thief! Thief!
You are correct by assuming that I do not believe in a single word of those like Allan Kardec or Delaage, but this disturbs and bothers me, for I must suppose these verses are original and that they do belong to the poet of Nights – and this is perfectly admissible because why else would the lady in question have kept them in her drawer? Or, alternatively, an authentic poet would have invented this mystification, and poets do not lose away their copies. What is then the possible solution? I hear a practical person telling me here: “My dear Sir, do you wish a solution? It is in your imagination that exaggerates the importance and excellence of these verses; they are delicate, that is it, and any smart medium that knows Musset a bit will do the trick.”
You are right, Mr. Practical person. This is the case in 99 out of 100 cases. But if you only knew how cold-blooded I am! I read these verses, that I cannot show you yet, I read and read again and affirm that Gautier himself, the great linguist, the great producer of the Poem of a Woman, cannot do a better Musset than this.”
OBSERVATION: There is a fact not considered by the author, and that eliminates the possibility that these verses might have been created by Musset when alive: it is the contemporary aspect and mention of current affairs. As for the medium, she is not a poet or a smart aleck, that is for sure, and her position in society rules out any suspicion of trickery.
