Gourmont

Stendhal, Mallarmé, Georges Rodenbach, Rimbaud—that stepfather of symbolism —Emil Verhaeren—who is truly an elemental and disquieting force—Paul Adam, Maeterlinck, the late Remy de Gourmont—who contributed so much to contemporary thought in the making—Francis Jammes, Villiers de l'Isle Adam, Renard, Samain, Saint-Georges de Bouhelier, Jules Laforgue—and how many others, to be found in the pages of Vance Thompson's French Portraits, which valuable study dates back to the middle of the roaring nineties.

But the proposition first mooted by a distinguished critic, Remy de Gourmont, that Maeterlinck and Verhaeren be elected to the French Academy, was not a bizarre one.

Three critics of wide-reaching influence are dead since the war began: Emile Faguet, Jules Lemaître, and Remy de Gourmont.

Thus far, among the essayists, Remy de Gourmont, Camille Mauclair, Maeterlinck, Romain Rolland, J. H. Fabre, Jules Bois—now sojourning in America and a thinker of verve and originality—and Henry Houssaye, hold their own against the younger generation.

Of "Visionaries" Remy de Gourmont wrote, June 22, 1906: "I am convinced that you have written a very curious, very beautiful book, and one of that sort comes to us rarely."