![]() ![]() ![]() Malgré la famille, - et au milieu des camarades, surtout, - sentiment de destinée éternellement solitaire’s we can well imagine how Baudelaire responded to De Quincey’s conclusion to The Affliction of Childhood: ‘Oh, burden of solitude, that cleaves t to man through every stage of his being! in his birth, which has been, - in his life, which is, in his death, which shall be, - mighty and essential solitude!’2 Read more When we read this remark from the Journaux intimes: ‘Sentiment de solitude, dès mon enfance. Both lost their fathers young, both felt, though with different emphases and for different reasons, cast out by their mothers, both were wretched at school. There is a strong correspondence between their childhood experiences. one point, ‘que l’homme qui parle ainsi est un homme grave, aussi recommandable par la spiritualité de ses moeurs que par la hauteur de ses écrits.’ One reason for this sympathy may bi the great temperamental similarities between himself and De Quincey. ![]() He likes the aristocracy of De Quincey’s tone. In a note on De Quincey’s death, he lashes out at the ‘envious and goutty spirit’ of ‘moralising’ critics who have meanly denounced De Quincey’s unimportant failings. In fact, Baudelaire’s tone is warm and generous. It was necessary to exaggerate Baudelaire’s disapproval of De Quincey in order to point to the reasons underlying it. ![]()
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