The French essential poetry seems to me to flow out into prose works, into their school of romances, and to be least poetical when dyked up into rhythm.Mdme.Valmore I never read, but she is esteemed highly, I think, for a certain _naivete_, and happy surprises in the thought and feeling, _des mots charmants_.

I wanted to get her books in Paris, and missed them somehow; there was so much to think of in Paris.

Alfred de Musset's poems I read, collected in a single volume; it is the only edition I ever met with.

The French value him extremely for his _music_; and there is much in him otherwise to appreciate, I think; very beautiful things indeed.

He is best to my mind when he is most lyrical, and when he says things in a breath.