SAMAIN (Albert). Set of 4 signed autograph letters. - Lot 161

SAMAIN (Albert). Set of 4 signed autograph letters. To the director of Mercure de France, Alfred Vallette. "Sunday". [1891]. " ... You're a big lazy bastard not to push a little point any more when passing up to the office. I am sending you included, as you ask, the amount of my due. I understand too well that with the Mercury expansion, the costs must be heavier. I saw what you told me about Gourmont's delay. But I haven't read your letter about "Le Vierge" [Alfred Vallette's novel, published by Stock in 1891]. That's a nice one. I'll send you my copy soon..." - To the same. 1897. " ... Includes a little piece I'm adding to my other little antique poems to be published under the heading "AUX FLANCS DU VASE". On the other hand, I'm postponing the publication of "SOIR DE PRINTEMPS" [which would be included in the posthumous collection LE CHARIOT D'OR] that I sent you at the same time, to give just one homogeneous thing..." He also mentions composer Ernest Chausson and writer André-Ferdinand Hérold. - To Raymond Bonheur. "Sunday" [November 19, 1899, envelope preserved with postmark dated the following day]. " ... I have seen no one, and am for the quarter of an hour in a state of intellectual idleness from which I am unable to extricate myself. The evenings slip through my fingers, without me being able to hold on to one of them to fix myself on something, and that puts me, as you know, in a state of vagueness... I HAVE JUST READ ACT II OF "ROI CANDAULE" [BY ANDRE GIDE, published in 1899]. I confess that it's a bit disconcerting, both in terms of psychological subtlety and form. Do you really enjoy it? With Philoctète [by the same Gide, published in 1898 in Revue Blanche, then by Mercure de France in 1899], I felt I was on solid ground, except for the irony of Ulysse or Gide, which always confuses me; here, the humanity of the characters escapes me. WHAT A STRANGE MIND!..." A friend of Albert Samain, for whom he set several texts to music, composer Raymond Bonheur (1861-1939) was the nephew of painter Rosa Bonheur, and was also close to Eugène Carrière, Ernest Chausson, Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré, André Gide and Francis Jammes. - To his "dear friend". S.d. Letter reporting on the writing of his story "XANTHIS", inspired by a poem in his collection Aux Flancs du vase (1898), which would be published in 1902 in the posthumous collection of his Contes. With a request for suggestions for an epigraph. ATTACHED: GOURMONT (Remy de). Autograph card signed TO ALBERT SAMAIN. October 3, 1893. "Remy de Gourmont to Albert Samain to tell him of the infinite pleasure found in reading JARDIN DE L'INFANTE. In a word, it is an admirable volume of verse: Quillard has said the rest and I countersign his article...". - QUILLARD (Pierre). Autograph letter signed [TO ALBERT SAMAIN]. September 12, 1893. Fine admiring statement: "a literary sympathy which would like to avoid becoming importunate", I wrote in the article that our friend [Alfred] Vallette kindly allowed me to write on AU JARDIN DE L'INFANTE [in the Mercure de France of October 1893]. I would be afraid of offending you by telling you how much I love your verses: would you simply allow me to thank you for the joy I took in reading them & to regard myself as your very fervent..." - RACHILDE (Marguerite Eymery, known as). Autograph manuscript (3 pp. in-4 and 1 p. in-8 oblong). Column ("Les romans") for the Mercure de France, devoted to the CONTES D'ALBERT SAMAIN.