Plausibility of analogies

The bridge between mathematics and poetry, although very fragile, has had an appreciable role to play in speculation [38]-[971]. Diderot wrote [278]: «Analogy, in the most compound cases, is just a rule of three applied in the instrument of the sentiments.» This kind of view combined with a lively thirst for knowledge makes us think of the author of the poem’s occasional curiosity about mathematics. Champfleury’s humour does not spare him [614]: «One day Baudelaire appeared with a volume of Swedenborg under his arm; nothing in any literature could, according to him, match Swedenborg. […] One would meet the poet with a large tome of algebra; literature was no more, it was algebra that should be studied and the Pole Wronski made him forget Swedenborg.» However Wronski was also a theosophist, resembling in this way the mystic Swedish author who wrote so much in Latin.

In the first line of „Correspondences“ Baudelaire presents the complex image «Nature is a temple», showing us that thought, analogy, splendour and paradox are not mutually exclusive. Conversely, the fact that the poem utilizes such resources at the same time does not prevent them from being dissociated in other circumstances.

Beginning with (Nature-/forests-/temple-/pillars) we can move without difficulty to (Nature-/forests-/temple), (Nature-/temple), (Nature./temple). This celebrated metaphor «Nature is a temple» could very well owe something to movements which appeared almost a century before Baudelaire, opposed to what they considered to be too great an enthusiasm for science. We do not know exactly which works the author had before his eyes but in any case he was aware of the controversies of the previous century. He may have been fortunate enough to have had teachers who told him about Kant’s famous joke [473]-[600]: «I had thus to remove knowledge to make room for belief…» Hume thought his philosophy should be employed otherwise [465]: «If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, "Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?" No. "Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?" No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.» Sainte-Beuve notes [889]: «M. de Maistre has a particular and excellent sense enabling him to see through the wily enemies of Christianity (Hume, Gibbon), to unmask them in their tortuous reasoning and disguises.»

A judgement such as “the relationship of the pillars to the forests is that of the temple to Nature” is more ornate than abrupt, in spite of being extremely ponderous, since “ornate” means simply “not abrupt”. A model is provided by the transcription of the images of sleep, to see the truth through dreams, since up to now this has been difficult to achieve with any rigour. Cicero described how superstition tries to fill this void [202]: «…the interpreters, using as a basis a sort of relation and similarity with nature they call "sympathy", understand which things in dreams are related to such and such a thing…»

Let us consider «Nature is a temple where living pillars
Let forth at times confused words;
There man passes through forests of symbols…» In the relationship (Nature-/forests-/temple-/pillars) the order seems to match the evocation of a country enamoured of rigour [8]. Germaine de Staël remarks [558]-[938]: «Novalis has written much about nature in general, he calls himself, rightly, the disciple of Saïs, because it was in that town that the temple of Isis was founded and that the traditions that remain to us of the mysteries of the Egyptians lead us to believe that their priests had a deep understanding of the laws of the universe.»

A method of appreciation is being developed based on measurements applied to texts written in many respects for purposes other than mathematics. Dante addresses his audience thus [230]: «You of sound mind,
Probe the teaching concealed here
Under the veil woven by mysterious lines of verse.» Baudelaire complicates things by linking to the speculation an appetite that d'Aubigné painted thus [43]: «Of my corrupting desires my eyes have sought
The horror, my hands the blood, and my heart the vengeance…» However, the warlike note is avoided in "the Flowers of evil" through the amused celebration found there by [[1069]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1069]]«…kisses languid or joyous,
Hot as suns, fresh as water melons…»

Grammatical evidence means that the interior spacing for the springboard b(perfumes²~flesh) from the confrontation (perfumes²-/flesh) in the ninth line «There are perfumes as cool as the flesh of children…» can only have the value of 1.

It should be possible in the future to extend the present study to the interplay of sounds, without descending into the realms of mere speculation. The repeated “d-D” in «confondent,
Dans» (mingle,/In) in lines five and six, seems impossible to explain. Furthermore, in the first quatrain we already heard «paroles;
L'homme» (words;/Man). Taking the poem as a whole, the sounds of the rhymes recur, giving us reminders, correspondences: “iers…oles…oles…iers…ondent…té…té…ondent …ants…ies…ants…ies…cens…sens”. The repetition can also be seen with “an” and “en” in «chantent… sens» (sing…senses) in the last line, as if to express the notion evoked. A very similar case also attracts our attention: «Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent…» The series “o…on…o…oin…on…on” seems to represent an echo.

The overlaps are so awkward that Baudelaire seems to fragment them, the better to slip them in the poetic form [[1023]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1023]]: «Your look seems shrouded in vapour;
Your mysterious eye, -is it blue, grey or green?-
By turns tender, soft or cruel,
Reflects the indolence and the pallor of the sky.

You call to mind those white, warm, hazy days,
That make bewitched hearts dissolve in tears,
When agitated and twisted by an unknown pain,
Over-sensitive nerves mock the sleeping spirit.

Sometimes you resemble those fine horizons
Lit by the suns of the seasons of mists;
-How resplendent you are, watery landscape
Enflamed by the rays falling from a cloudy sky!

Oh dangerous woman, oh seductive climates!
Will I adore so much your snow and frost,
And will I draw from the clutches of implacable winter
Pleasures more keen than those of ice and iron?»

The order followed by poetic analogies is not always as clear as in the cases given here. On the subject of the lack of correspondence between the usual proud nature of a woman and the sudden lack of confidence in a particular situation, Baudelaire writes [[1025]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1025]]: «Suddenly, mid the liberal intimacy
Born of the pale light,
From you, that rich, resounding instrument
Vibrating only with radiant delight,

From you, as clear and joyous as a fanfare
In the sparkling light of morning,
A plaintive note, a strange note
Slipped away, falteringly…» The construction (you-/note-/falteringly) is not as easy to pick out as (old age-/evening-/ life) in “old age is the evening of life” [38].

The text may or may not facilitate access to the various confrontations. In the first tercet of „Correspondences“, (perfumes²-/oboes) is immediately understood since we mentally construct (perfumes-/sweet-/oboes-cackle) or “the relationship of certain perfumes to sweetness of smell is similar to the relationship between the sound of the oboe and the cackle of the poultry yard”. Let us note, moreover, that this point helps us to understand how the instrument evokes the countryside.

The modification of an analogical judgement calls for the re-examination of each “site-espalier” unit, as in the passage from (childhood-/morning-/old age-/evening) to (pink-/morning-/purple-/evening). The same applies in the case of unexpected facts, which Baudelaire considered difficult to take in. However many prejudices he may have harboured, he drew from the culture of the day the possibility of changing his assessments when under the impact of new facts. Confronting two attitudes, maybe also within himself, on the one hand that of neo- classical erudition, profound but fixed in its views, and on the other that of the flexible mind which bends when it meets new ideas, the poet declares, on visiting a World Fair [711]: «…what would a modern Winckelmann do or say…when faced with a Chinese product, strange, bizarre, convoluted in form, intense in colour, and at times so delicate as to almost fade away? Yet it is a sample of universal beauty. However, for it to be understood, the critic, the spectator must perform a transformation within himself…These forms of buildings which upset his conventional academic eye…these plants that trouble his mind full of the memories of his place of birth…these scents that are no longer those of his mother’s boudoir, these mysterious flowers whose deep colours force their way in to dominate the vision while their form teases the eye, these fruits whose taste deceives and displaces the senses and reveals to the palate ideas belonging to the sense of smell, all this world of new harmonies will slowly enter him, patiently penetrate him, like the steam from an aromatic steamer; all this unknown vitality will be added to his own vitality…The unrealistic doctrinaire of beauty would no doubt go out of his mind; imprisoned in the blinding fortress of its system, he would blaspheme against life and nature, and his Greek, Italian or Parisian fanaticism would persuade him to bar this insolent people from taking pleasure, from dreaming or from thinking by ways other than his own: barbaric science…which has forgotten the colour of the sky, the form of the plants, the movements and smell of the animals and whose clenched fingers, paralysed by the pen, can no longer run nimbly over the immense keyboard of "correspondences"!»

For „Correspondences“, the ideas “corruption” and “coolness” are suited to the espalier “perfumes²” but we should not try to see two rungs in them. No pair of relationships all-part can have a pin since in this way there is only a I-II opposition that is repeated. Concrete links like "church-village"-"cathedral-city" prove hardly more able to give correctly the pin called for at times, except when the religious building is in the middle of the agglomeration, thus giving an order circumference-I; intermediary position-II; centre-III. 98

A term “colours sounds” cannot be allowed here as there are two separate ideas present. Thus no springboard b(Nature~colours…sounds) exists because it would not be a gloss. It therefore follows that (words-/temple-/colours…sounds-/Nature), lacking a springboard, is an overlap that cannot have an arch of 1.

The expression (pillars-/temple-/Nature) provides suitable clues to lead us towards (pillars-/temple-/forests-/Nature), while (temple./Nature) is not so clear. Furthermore, other figures may at times appear to be metaphors. When Baudelaire speaks of «…the expansion of infinite things…» it can be remarked that the meaning is “…the infinite expansion of things…”

Such a device is often criticised for its unwieldiness: “…there are fruits like children’s complexions…” would be more poetic if changed to “…there are fruits with children’s complexions…” However the expression has the merit of clearly stating that it is fiction, a considerable advantage if the poet is to avoid having people taking as well-grounded knowledge what is really a charming superstition.

Similarly, as the overlap (echoes-/mingle-/colours-/answer) is recognisable in the second quatrain, it will have a greater plausibility than the figures with fewer terms taken from the work, in particular (echoes-/colours-/answer) or (echoes-/colours). We seek at times an echo of ourselves in others, playing down our individual faults, in our need for certitudes [[1072]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1072]]: «…I want to plunge my trembling fingers for an age
Into the thickness of your heavy mane…

To swallow up my calmed sobbing
Nothing can equal the abyss of your bed;
Powerful oblivion lives on your lips,
And the river Lethe flows in your kisses.»

When an overlap unites very distant terms, it has a low plausibility as it is then only by some remote chance that the creator has put the meanings together on purpose. The use of the fronts to measure the distance and spacing has already been shown to be of such importance that the use of the crenellation appears to be based on the three previous parts of this study. Let us consider (Nature-/temple-/perfumes²-/infinite) which is the equivalent of the judgement that we consider reasonable “the relationship “Nature-temple” is that of perfumes and infinite things”. This is not completely absurd but still rather dubious. The terms «Nature» and «infinies» in the real poem are 61 fronts apart and so the interior spacing 2+(1(61/10))=8.1 for the springboard b(Nature~infinite) expresses the weakness of the link. As (1/8.1) is less than ⅛, double 1/16, it takes very little to make the plausibility calculated by this measurement negligible for this daring analogy.

In contrast to this, with «There are perfumes as cool as the flesh of children…» (perfumes²-/flesh) is found to have a crenellation ä=1, taking up z=1 again which the springboard b(perfumes²~flesh) merits. In the desire for freshness acquired in spite of corruption, it is easy to dream of fate providing some extraordinarily protection, and Ovid also mocked this illusion, but more tenderly than Baudelaire [563]: «…revolted by the vices with which nature had filled the hearts of women, Pygmalion lived without any companion, a bachelor; no wife had ever shared his bed. However, being amazingly skilful, he succeeded in sculpting the body of a women out of ivory as white as snow…The day had come when all Cyprus celebrated in splendour the feast of Venus…incense was burning all around…On returning home, the artist approaches the statue of the young girl; bending over the bed he gives her a kiss; he thinks the body feels warm. He brings his mouth towards her once more, while his hands feel her breast; at this touch the ivory softens; it loses its hardness, it bends under his fingers; it yields…»

In contrast (Nature-/living-/temple-/pillars) is in tune with the tempo of the text but it cannot give ë=1 as the first line favours rather (Nature-/temple-/living-/pillars). For a similar reason, the graft (man-/forests-/symbols) is ë=2 since (forests./symbols) with its reach of 1 would have been more effective in the description. Germaine de Staël wrote [932]: «Nature displays its munificence often without any purpose, often with a luxury that supporters of utility would call extravagant. It seems to be pleased to make more splendid the flowers, the trees of the forest, than the plants which serve to feed man.»

In this way the meaning (unity-/night) would be deceptive since “vast as much as the night and the light” gives the correct idea. Saint-Évremond admitted he had changed his mind about “vast”, which could stem from terror in the face of the excessive triumph of an authoritarian French statesman [885]«I used to maintain that a vast mind should be taken as good or bad according to what was added to it: that a vast mind, marvellous and penetrating, was the mark of admirable ability while on the contrary a vast and inordinate mind was one which lost itself in vague thoughts or in beautiful but futile ideas, in over-large designs, out of proportion to the means that produce success. My opinion appeared quite moderate to me. Now, I am inclined to deny that vast can ever be a word of praise and that nothing is capable of rectifying this quality. Greatness is a virtue in the mind, vast always a vice. An appropriate and well-ordered extent makes for perfection, unrestrained enormity constitutes vastness…vast gardens could not have either the appeal that comes from art or the charms given by Nature; vast forests frighten us…»

The plectrum is, however, at times difficult to identify. «There are perfumes…And others, corrupt…Like amber, musk, benzoin and incense…» cannot be translated by any plectrum, in spite of the presence of «like». This word means “notably” and, far from comparing corrupt fragrances and incense, the poet affirms that incense is one of these perfumes and this favours (corrupt./incense) over (corrupt-/incense). Corruption and triumph have been known to seduce the best of people [[1019]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1019]]: «In those marvellous days of old, when Theology
Flourished with the utmost sap and energy,
It is told that one day a great doctor,
-Having forced open some indifferent hearts,
And stirred them in their darkest depths,
Crossed into holy ecstasy
Travelling along strange paths unknown to him,
Where perhaps only pure Souls had once come…And cried, transported with satanic pride:
"Jesus…, if I had chosen to attack you
Where your armour is weakest, your shame would equal your glory…"

At once his reason departed.
The splendour of this once blazing sun was shrouded in crepe;
All chaos rolled in this once-lively intelligence,
A temple in former times, ordered and opulent,
Under whose dome so much pomp had shone forth.
The silence and the night settled inside,
Like in a tomb whose key has been lost.»

On the other hand «Nature is a temple where living pillars
Let forth at times confused words;
There man passes through forests of symbols…» leads us to (temple./forests) with a turret of 1. Rather than methodical toil in some temple of science, the lines evoke undergrowth or a clearing. Germaine de Staël refers to the mystery in this way [935]: «"It is necessary", said Fichte, "to understand that which is incomprehensible as such". This strange expression contains a profound meaning: it is necessary to feel and recognize that which must remain inaccessible to analysis and to which only the flights of thought may approach.» Novalis, of whom Baudelaire could obtain indirect knowledge through „Of Germany“, wrote [558]-[938]: «Already among the first peoples, in the infancy of humanity, there existed some serious souls for whom Nature was the face of a divinity, while lighter hearts only concerned themselves with it, in their feasts. The air was an intoxicating potion, the stars were torches for their nocturnal dancing; the plants and the animals were but precious food and Nature appeared to them not as a calm and mysterious temple but as a joyous kitchen and cellar.»

The overlap (:Nature-/temple-/living-/pillars) cannot be suspected of a demonstrative perspective, inebriation seeming even to give rise to daydreaming in an author who has often sung the praise of wine, at times using popular themes [[991]] in Index II (Poems)">[[991]]: «I know, on the blazing hillside, how much,
Suffering, sweat and burning sun are needed
To engender life in me and give me soul;
But I shall not be ungrateful or wicked,

For I feel a great joy when I fall
Into the throat of a man worn out with work,
And his warm chest is a sweet tomb
Where I take more delight than in my cold burial chambers.» The analogy (man-/chest-/tomb) is in no way a physiological demonstration. In August 1848 Baudelaire wrote to Proudhon, a peaceable anarchist [634]: «The one writing these lines to you has absolute confidence in you, as have many of his friends, who would walk blindfold behind you for the guarantees of knowledge that you have given them.» Four years after the revolution he declares himself to be «depoliticised» but no profound change has taken place in his mind [618]-[635]. In the course of 1852, he published these lines [146]-[[1106]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1106]]: «Certainly, for my part I will go out satisfied
From this world in which action is not the sister of dreams;
Would I might wield the sword and die by the sword!» In 1857 he addresses the Devil [[1073]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1073]]: «You who, to console frail man in his suffering,
Taught us to mix saltpetre and sulphur,
Oh Satan, take pity on my enduring misery!» In February 1848 he declares [615]«I have just fired my rifle!» only to add «For the Republic? I should think not!» All in all therefore he has barely modified his ideas about educated power. Plato, imitating a funeral oration, gave the bases used there [740]: «That our predecessors were nourished under good government is important to prove: it is to that government they owe their virtue, like the men of today in whose ranks belong the dead here present. For the regime was the same as that of our time, government by the elite as we are ruled today and which, since that far-off era, remained firm most of the time. Some call it democracy, some by another name that pleases them; but in reality it is the government by the elite with the approval of the masses. Kings we have still: sometimes they have this title by birth, sometimes by election…» Baudelaire’s maternal grandfather, Charles Defayis, is thought to have fought with the French troops enlisted by the British against the French Revolution, so that accordingly the writer’s mother was born across the Channel, in Saint Pancras to be precise [591]. When her husband, the soldier, died, his widow obtained a few pounds a month from the authorities he had served, or their agents. She brought up, soon with the help of a local servant, the one who would be the mother of the poet [591]-[592].

The tartan (living-/pillars-/familiar-/eyes) which is very imperfect in other respects, can have a moat 1 since the qualities described in it, «living», «familiar», do refer to the beings named: «pillars», «eyes». According to Claude Pichois, this form of emotional warmth, felt as if coming from the universe, interested Baudelaire very much, even playing its role in the speculation about correspondences, in artistic circles where the social world was judged discordant [612]. A few decades earlier, Adam Smith had considered such disorder to be largely illusory [919]: «The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible.»

Starting from (man-/temple-/Nature) let us consider (man-/temple-/God-/Nature). Since Baudelaire declares the natural world to be a temple, in the relationship “man-temple” there is no question of a building constructed by human initiative and therefore the moat for the graft (man-/temple-/Nature) deserves its value of ü=2, as it leads us away from the effective meaning.

Regarding “of flesh, perfumes” either (E./H) or (flesh./perfumes), the moat goes up to 2 as the flesh has perfumes of its own, and it is not useful to invent two other notions F, R to understand the rail. The poet, on the other hand, gives a complicated explanation (perfumes²-/smell-/flesh-/sight) referring tacitly to the previous line: «…Perfumes, colours… answer each other.» The delicate scent makes us think of triumph, as in the account in which, in order to show their consideration towards the child represented by a star, the Magi [143]: «…presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.» Normally the two products require the splendour of luxurious mansions or the pomp of recognized temples. As myrrh also flows like tears on the bark of a tree, Baudelaire could rely on an audience which had learned Ovid at school to establish this link in meaning [561]-[564]. The young girl promised to become an aromatic plant is already carried away with emotion [564]: «From all sides the elite of the nobility seek you out; all the young men of the East fight for the honour of sharing your bed; choose one as a husband, Myrrha, as long as among the many one man is excepted. Myrrha knows this full well and fights against her despicable passion, saying to herself: "Where is my passion taking me? What is the aim of my endeavours? O gods, O filial devotion, O sacred parental rights, to you I pray, prevent this incest, oppose this crime, if crime it is, that I am contemplating. But filial devotion, it is said, does not condemn such love and all other animals mate indiscriminately; there is no shame for a heifer to feel the weight of her father on her back; the stallion makes his filly his spouse; the billy-goat impregnates the nanny-goats he has sired and from the very seed from which he was conceived the bird himself conceives. Happy the creatures who are thus privileged! Man’s scruples have created wicked laws and jealous rulings forbid that which nature allows. Yet it is said there are peoples where the mother joins with the son, the daughter with her father, and where filial affection is coupled with amorous desire. Am I so unlucky not to have been born there! I am the victim of fate which gave me this place as my homeland."»

On the other hand, for the rail “in the autumn the tree goes into mourning, badly distressed” the phrase (autumn-/tree-/mourning-/distressed) stands up as a ductile relationship. Baudelaire uses analogies referring to the plant world but avoids preciosity by the biting tone of his verse [[1075]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1075]]: «Old monasteries on their great walls
Spread paintings of holy Truth,
Which, warming those pious entrails
Tempered the chill of their cold austerity.

In those times when Christ’s seeds would thrive,
Many a famous monk, now little known,
Taking the graveyard as his studio,
Glorified Death in all simplicity.»

The author achieves the graft (rains-/eyes-/idleness) summarizing (ground-/rains-/eyes-/ idleness) or “as it rains on the ground, on the eyes falls idleness”, in these lines [[985]] in Index II (Poems)">[[985]]: «In that perfumed land, by the sun caressed,
Under a canopy of crimson-tinged trees
And of palms from which idleness falls on the eyes like rain,
I knew a Creole lady of unrecognised charms.» The order in space, from top to bottom, is clearer than that of (symbols-/observe-/eyes), but it remains on only two levels, thus justifying the postern of 1 for the ductile tartan (’rains-/eyes-/idleness). One word, the last, names the Africans: «Her skin is pale and warm, this brown enchantress
Her noble neck is proudly held;
Slender and tall, she walks like a huntress,
Her smile is tranquil and her eyes assured.

If, Madame, you should go to the true land of glory,
On the banks of the Seine or the green Loire,
Your beauty, worthy of adorning those ancient manors,

There in the shelter of those shady retreats, you would start
A thousand sonnets germinating in the hearts of poets
That your large eyes would render more submissive than your black slaves.» His voyage in the Indian Ocean was very short-lived for the future writer, but once home again he loved a coloured girl. He detested his stepfather, a high-ranking officer, at a time when Algeria was at the centre of the colonial debate. Baudelaire notes concerning the painter who had presented the previous year „the Capture of the retinue of Abd el-Kader“ [701]: «M. Horace Vernet is a soldier who paints. -I hate this art improvised at the roll of a drum, these canvases daubed at a gallop, this painting fabricated with pistol shots, just as I hate the army, armed force, and everything that forces arms on peaceful places.» When Bugeaud was appointed Governor General, just before he embarked for Algiers, Hugo declared to him [461]: «…I believe that our new conquest is a good and great thing. It is civilization marching on barbarism. It is an enlightened people going to find a people in darkness. We are the Greeks of the world; it is up to us to illuminate the world. Our mission is accomplished, I can only sing hosanna.» De Tocqueville proposes a strategy [955]-[956]-[957]: «The power of Abd el-Kader can only be destroyed by rendering the position of the tribes who support him so intolerable that they abandon him.»

Conversely «Nature is a temple» is a figure as ornate as it is ductile. Finally (4-/2-/2) describing “4=2+2” constitutes an abrupt but not a brittle parallel. We note in passing that the rampart of this link (4-/2-/2) cannot be other than 2 since equality always gives this result. Similarly, its moat is 2 owing to the precisely used numbers. The brittle confrontation (,living-/pillars) is extremely imperfect as regards «Nature is a temple where living pillars…» since it lacks both the plectrum and the double tripartite order so that (’living./pillars) has greater plausibility. Let us consider these lines vers [[1055]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1055]]: «…The wet suns
Of these misty skies
Have as mysterious charms
For my spirit
As your treacherous eyes,
Shining through their tears.» The poet describes a moist look which is difficult to interpret, neither bitter nor joyous. When the globe of the eye is conceived in its damp setting like the sun in a mist, the parallel only uses two levels for each side. If the phrase «treacherous eyes» is related in some way to “incense-corrupt”, none of the texts allow us to imagine a new level between «corrupt» or «treacherous» and “innocent”, so we must think (’eyes./treacherous) and (’incense./corrupt), justifying ÿ=1 in both cases.

Since the crenellation greater than 1 comes from barely linked terms, as with the original traces «confused» and «symbols», it is enough for the grammatical bond to be stronger for the crenellation to be 1.

The intensely fused images of freshness remind us of the words of the bible [125]: «The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid…» Virgil found similar words [965]: «…the flocks will no longer fear the great lions…» Baudelaire, at times sarcastic about these dreams of facile harmony, asks the Nazarene if he was not mistaken in dismissing the sword [146]-[151]-[[1105]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1105]]: «Did not remorse
Pierce your side more than the spear?» This constitutes the graft (remorse-/side-/spear) which is made clearer through (spirit-/remorse -/side-/spear).

The night and the earth are perceived as standing together by virtue of their blackness, but when we consider this further, we can see a link connecting humanity with the humus in the soil [381]. Being deprived of the sun gives us the opportunity of meditating on this baseness [[1122]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1122]]: «When the low, heavy sky weighs like a lid
On the spirit groaning with boredom,
And when embracing the whole circle of the horizon
It pours on us a black day sadder than the nights;

When the earth is changed into a dank dungeon,
Where Hope, like a desperate bat,
Batters the walls with her feeble wings,
Striking her head on the rotting ceilings;

When the rain, spreading wide its boundless trail
Imitates the bars of a vast prison,
And a silent population of loathsome spiders
Spins its nets deep in our brains,

All at once bells explode in fury
And throw up to the sky a ghastly howling,
As if they were wandering and homeless spirits
Letting loose their stubborn wailing.

-And ancient hearses, with no drums or music,
Slowly file past in my soul; Hope,
Conquered, weeps and the tyrant Anguish
Plants his black flag on my bowed skull.» In this poem Baudelaire seems very close to the sentiments prevailing in the ¨Fantastic Symphony¨.

From the thousands of links between the images in „Correspondences“, after a century and a half of study, a main meaning emerges, emanating from the original intention. Baudelaire likes to suggest that the symbol watches us in the midst of our humble activities, and sometimes he seeks for the same ideas within political conflicts. A deck of playing cards is marked by the discrete imprint of legend, Pallas Athena being the usual Queen of Spades, while La Hire, a relative of Joan of Arc, donates his character to the Jack of Hearts [168]- [169]-[503]-[[1120]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1120]]: «The great bell wails, and the smoking log
Wheezing in falsetto tones accompanies the husky clock,
While in a deck reeking of stale perfumes,

Fatal legacy of some dropsied crone,
The handsome Jack of Hearts and the Queen of Spades
Exchange sinister tales of their lost loves.»

If the different facets of the world seem to observe the believer, conversely man sees reality in thousands of ways, as Saint Augustin notes [49]: «Seeing is in fact the specific task of the eyes but we use this word even in the case of the other senses when we apply them to understanding. We do not say "Listen to how that sparkles", nor "Feel how that shines", nor "Taste how that gleams", nor "Touch how that blazes". It is the word ‘’see‘’ which is appropriate for these impressions. And we even say not only "See what light!" (which only the eyes can do) but also "See what sound, see what smell, see what taste, see what hardness!" This is why all experience acquired by the intermediary of the senses is called, as I said, the concupiscence of the eyes: it is that this function of vision, reserved essentially to the eyes, is exercised also by the other senses by analogy, when they explore any object to understand it.»

The images of the poem seem to be ordered like in a story. Once the opulence of the fresh fragrance is felt, the dazzling interior world of sin must reveal itself. Conversely Saint Augustin goes back from the troubles of his youth towards God [46]: «I loved you late, oh Beauty so old and so new, I loved you late! But what! You were inside me and I myself was outside myself! And it is outside that I sought you, I hurled myself, in my ugliness, at the grace of your creatures. You were with me and I was not with you, kept far from you by these things that would not be if they were not in you. You called me and your cry forced my deafness; you shone and your brilliance chased away my blindness; you exhaled your perfume, I breathed it and now I sigh for you; I tasted you and I am hungry for you, thirsty for you; you touched me and I burn with ardour for the peace you give.» However it proves so difficult not to commit the same old sins and errors that the author of antiquity cannot refrain from asking the painful question [47]: «Is human life on earth never more than uninterrupted "temptation"?»

A child thinks of a plot of land; he is taught that if it is planted with trees, it is a wood; if there is grass in it, it is a meadow; if crops are grown in it, it is called a field. This process is repeated for every little thing. In very rare cases the contribution of a writer to this immense code can be evaluated. For „Correspondences“, it is more profitable to draw round the work a circle of available works that may have been read, since these will have prepared the text as much as the audience. Saint Augustin admits the strong opposition of the flesh [48]: «You have forbidden any illegitimate carnal union, and, as for marriage, although you permit it, you have shown that there is a state superior to it. And thanks to your gift, I chose this state even before becoming the dispenser of your sacrament. But in my memory, of which I have spoken at such length, the images of these pleasures live on: my past habits established them there. They appear to me, weakly when I am wakeful; but when it is during my sleep, they induce in me not just pleasure, but the consent to pleasure, and the illusion of the act itself. They, although unreal, have such an effect on my soul, on my flesh, that they, these false visions in my sleep, obtain that which the real ones do not obtain from me when I am awake. So am I then other than myself, Lord my God?»

This deep unity may equally hide God or Satan [[1028]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1028]]: «Ceaselessly at my side the Devil moves about;
He swims around me, intangible like a breeze;
I swallow him and I feel it burning my lungs,
And fills them with an eternal and guilty desire.

At times, knowing my great love of Art, he assumes
The most seductive of women’s forms,
And under most specious and hypocritical pretexts,
Accustom my lips to vile love-potions.

He leads me thus, far from the sight of God,
Panting and broken with fatigue, into the midst
Of the plains of Ennui, profound and deserted,

And throws before my confused eyes
Soiled garments, open wounds,
And the bloody engine of Destruction.»

For their part the combinations (temple./words), (temple./symbols), (words./symbols) do not give any disparate mixture. Saint Augustin described memory with these words [45]: «Great, oh my God, is the power of memory; oh yes! Very great! It is an immense, an infinite sanctuary. Who has ever penetrated to its depths? It is however but the power of my mind, linked to my nature: but I cannot conceive entirely what I am.»

The malicious expansion of the faculties by the demon would make the artist capable of embracing a great variety of themes [[1116]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1116]]: «I have more memories than if I had lived a thousand years.

A huge chest of drawers full of balance sheets,
Of verse, love letters, lawsuits, romances,
With heavy locks of hair rolled up in receipts,
Hides fewer secrets than my forlorn skull…I am an old boudoir full of wilted roses,
Where lies a jumble of out-dated fashions,
Where plaintive pastels and pale Bouchers
Breathe in the perfume of an opened flask.»

However, art loses out here as the crossing over from one zone of the mind to another, irrespective of the boundaries dear to reason, brings it so much [[1086]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1086]]: «Music sometimes takes me like the sea…Under a ceiling of mist or in pure ether,
I set sail…The fair wind, the storm and its convulsions

… Rock me, and at times, the dead calm, -the great mirror
Of my despair!»

Trees, like living pillars, can enclose a space, resembling a temple, in the same way as a church has something of a sudden clearing. Painters have often represented important scenes in the middle of forests or rocks [[1090]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1090]]: «…Leonardo da Vinci, a profound and sombre mirror,
Where charming angels, with sweet smiles
Laden with mystery, appear in the shadow
Of glaciers and pines which enclose their land…» 109

As the poet of „Correspondences“ lived at a time when the understanding of the phenomenon was imprecise, he could have reflected on Balzac’s ideas [58]: «The animal is a principle which takes its external form, or to be more exact, the differences in its form, from the habitat in which it is called upon to develop. The Zoological Species are the result of these differences. The proclamation and the defence of this system, in harmony also with the ideas we have of divine power, will be to the eternal honour of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, who vanquished Cuvier on this point of high science and whose triumph was acclaimed in the last article written by the great Goethe. Intuitively convinced by this system well before the debates it provoked, I saw that, in this respect, Society resembled Nature. Does not Society make of man, according to the environment in which he acts, as many different types of man as there are kinds in the animal kingdom? The differences between a soldier, a labourer, an administrator, a lawyer, a man of leisure, a scholar, a statesman, a trader, a sailor, a poet, a pauper and a priest are, although difficult to grasp, as considerable as those that distinguish the wolf, the lion, the donkey, the crow, the shark, the seal, the ewe, etc. Thus there existed and will always exist, Social Species just as there are Zoological Species.»

In the new text an implication is attempted, while for the old one only similar cultural experiences, felt by the creator and his audience, back up the meanings [[1040]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1040]]: «Here is the heady memory fluttering
In the unsettled air; the eyes close; vertigo
Seizes the vanquished soul and thrusts her with both hands…»

Like Baudelaire later, Pliny saw correspondences in a very open perspective and mentioned [779]: «…the discordances and concordances of the elements, that the Greeks called antipathy and sympathy…»

The image of the natural temple on the contrary suggests views going beyond those of rigorous thought. Achilles informs us of some extensions of a similar theme, in this invocation [448]: «Your Majesty Zeus, god of Dodona and the Pelasgians, distant god! You who reign over Dodona, the inclement, in the land inhabited by the Selles, your interpreters with ever unwashed feet, who sleep on the ground! You have already heard my prayer, you have paid homage to me…»

Starting from «familiar», we can see in the animal presence that which observes through the symbolic world of the forests, and some lines will be found to back this up since the author wrote many on this theme [[1017]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1017]]: «He is the familiar spirit of the house;
He judges, he presides, he inspires
All things in his empire;
Perhaps he is fairy, or god?

When my eyes, towards this cat I love,
Drawn as if by a magnet,
Turn docilely away,
And I look into myself,

I see with astonishment
The fire of his pale pupils,
Clear beacons, living opals,
Contemplating me steadily.»

However, even in this case the audience would have accepted that an idea conceived by men can show things which, in their hidden dimensions, could [[1080]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1080]]«One evening full of rose and mystic blue…» surprise by their presence.

In the sound and rhythm of the first tercet, we may feel we hear bells as much as oboes, and hence come to the notion of a corrupt spirit [[1024]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1024]]: «Blessed is the bell with the vigorous throat
Which, in spite of its age, is alert and in fine condition,
And faithfully throws out its religious cry…

My spirit though is cracked…»

The darkness may remind us of long hours of toil or anguish, but also of festivities illuminated by human artifice, and principally of the canopy of heaven which Homer seems to glorify [444]: «Why do you wander, alone, thus from vessel to vessel, by the camp, in the heart of the holy night?» In 1835-36 Baudelaire was kept very much in contact with the Greek epic since his teacher was reproached by the authorities on the 27 th August «of having shown his pupils, throughout the whole year, nothing but Homer, for Greek commentaries» [595].

Less able to link top and bottom as a go- between, the echo, first and foremost a thing of the mountains or forests, has nevertheless influenced architecture, as noted by Pliny [777]: «Still in Cyzicus, very close to the gate which is called the Thrace Gate, seven towers reflect and multiply the words that strike them. The Greeks gave the name of echo to this marvel. It is the nature of the place which produces this phenomenon, most often in deep valleys; here it is sheer chance; in Olympia it is human ingenuity which, in a remarkable way, produced it in the portico that has received the name of Heptaphone because it sends the same sound back seven times.»

Correspondences do not only have a saintly role to play [[1088]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1088]]: «Guided by your fragrance to those charming climes,
I see a harbour filled with masts and sails
Still weary from the seas’ waves,

While the perfume of the green tamarinds,
Circling in the air and swelling my nostrils,
Mingles in my spirit with the mariners’ song.»

As an attempt nowadays to reconstruct Baudelaire’s way of thinking rapidly becomes a hindrance, one may be inclined at times to use the ambiguity of the sonnet to simplify the ideas of the creator by identifying him with a character in Balzac described thus [86]: «This man, who took mockery to such a degree as to make others believe in the laws and principles he was deriding, went to sleep at night with "perhaps" on his lips!»

The text does not expressly mention trees, so it can be considered legitimate to deny their presence. It is only the memory of the creator’s traditional culture, associating the forest spontaneously with all that is human, that goes against this judgment. Hesiod paints two combatants in this way [436]: «Thus, when from the high summit of a great mountain rocks tumble down on top of each other, in their hundreds tall and leafy oaks are caused to topple, in their hundreds wide-rooted poplars and pines are broken, and they themselves roll rapidly down until they reach the plain; thus they threw themselves at each other, yelling out loud…»

Lending the elements human characteristics did not shock Pliny at all [776]: «There are austere colours, and others that are brilliant.»

The parallels “echoes-colours” and “mingle-answer” impose themselves in the end, once the obstacle found concerning «…In a dark and profound unity,
Vast as the night and as the light…» has been correctly surmounted. These two lines allow the suggestion, for the conversation between objects, of such a wide field that the feeling of gratuitous fantasy is avoided. Philostratus described a painting in these words [576]: «There stands Truth in a white robe; there also are the doors to dreams. For, to consult the oracle, it is necessary to sleep. Dream itself is represented with a face on which abandon is painted; he wears a white robe over a black one; night and day belong to him.»

The impression of fields which have nothing to do with each other, conceived around 1857, can be reconstructed concerning “colours-answer” while trying not to imagine unintentionally that all the audience are such passionate art lovers. According to Heine, aesthetic qualities owe to one and the same principle a sense of fraternity which is present when the external environment acts on inner sensitivities [430]: «Sounds and words, colours and forms, above all that which is visible, are yet but the symbols of an idea, symbols born in the soul of the artist when he is disturbed by the holy spirit of the world…I consider it is of overriding importance that this symbol, leaving aside its hidden significance, should itself charm the senses…Is the artist always entirely free in the choice and the disposition of his mysterious flowers?» The words «echoes», «mingle», «colours», «answer» have a rounded aspect, although their determination is so complicated that the inspiration for the way they are grouped is unknown. The image of the circle is developed in the case of all that is feminine, but also suggests the great eye of the sun which illuminates, loves, governs and surveys mortal men, like a god. Its golden colour at noon, that of copper or of blood at dawn and sunset, reflect earthly goods as for its part does the corrupting silver of that light so familiar to the night owl. Each of the luminaries complements its neighbour to scan the changes of life, the basis of the instruments used to signal the passing of time such as gongs or the pendulums of clocks.

If by chance a poet attempts a demonstration, he must consider how the audience will see it, and this will be examined for our calculations. Baudelaire avoided claiming to do this, in spite of his curiosity, conscious as he was that he could only partly apprehend ordinary usage in order to advance in a verifiable way on a notional level. Supremely talented, he accepted the tedious tasks of reason only in order to learn his chosen art, and even here he found the teaching methods of his time somewhat wearisome [[1124]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1124]]: «All beardless then, on the old oak benches,
More polished and glossy than the links in a chain,
Day by day burnished by the skin of men,
-We sadly dragged out our days of boredom, crouched
And stooping beneath the lonely square of sky,
Where the child, for ten years, drinks the sour milk of his studies.»

In a conversation, voices overlap each other, briefly or less so, like the echoes here. This idea suggests that the objects we perceive lack any clear frontier. The last comma of the fifth line, in the 1857 edition, accentuates this commentary of the end of the quatrain by its beginning, but it also removes something from the impression of flowing coming from «confondent
Dans» (mingle-In), at the point of articulation of the fifth and sixth lines. The poet had plenty to think about concerning this maze of notions and sounds. Plotinus remarked [787]: «…everyone wants to be intelligent and boasts of being so; the proof is in the sensations which aspire to the status of knowledge…» Unfortunately we lose on the one hand what we gain on the other. Germaine de Staël writes from her exile [932]: «…beauty reminds us of a divine and immortal life, the memory and the regret of which live together in our hearts.» The slightest beauty-supplying sentiment leads us to find a cause for it. The trouble increases by the model which, at the apparent summit of the chain of sensitive beings, reigns over the inspiration for correspondences, forms, colours, perfumes and sounds [[997]] in Index II (Poems)">[[997]]: «Like the deserts’ dreary sands and skies,
Insensitive both to human suffering,
Like the long networks of the oceans’ swell,
She unfolds with indifference…And in this strange and symbolic nature
Where the inviolate angle mingles with the ancient sphinx,

Where all is but gold, steel, light and diamonds,
Shines forever, like a useless star,
The cold majesty of the sterile woman.»

No layering is implied by echoes and colours. Once the amateur has given up any desire to manipulate the text at will, he must recognize the absence of the wished for disposition. Rather than inventing such an illusory distribution, it is better to throw historical light on the work. Thus a taste for repetition, similar to that found in hymns, the traditional element reminding us of the echo, is found in Baudelaire’s poetry [414]-[587].

The echo is a good symbol for the analogy since it is also a repetition and the author complicates this idea in the last lines in which, in the face of the correspondences, a concern arises, similar to that expressed by Edgar Allan Poe to describe, according to Baudelaire, [681]: «…hallucination, first making way for doubt but soon as firm and rational as a book…the man so out of tune that he expresses his pain in laughter.» Abundance provides no solution [[1089]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1089]]: «Rubens, river of oblivion, garden of sloth,
Pillow of sweet young flesh where non-one can make love,
But where life flows and sways without ceasing,
As the air in the sky and the sea in the sea…»

As products made of minute volatile particles giving rise to empty-headedness, the perverted perfumes have nevertheless the merit of stimulating the sensations to appreciate beauty. These emollient fluids induce lascivious games after triumphs, which a need for compensation turns into outburst of rage. Tacitus condemns this lack of control [950]: «It was ever the anger of the gods, ever the fury of men, ever the need to commit crimes, that spurred them to discord.»

The relationship “infinite-expansion” dynamizes the end of the sonnet as if Baudelaire wanted to recall, at a time when the holy view of the world was threatened with collapse, the ambitious views initially attested to in the quatrains. To avoid feelings of aversion to any daring thoughts in the face of the intricacy of good and evil, Plotinus recommended further meditation [787]: «The contempt for being and life is a testimony against oneself and one’s own feelings, and in our disgust at the mix of life and death, it is the mixture itself which is odious, not real life.»

The infinity of the heavens could slip, embroiled in confusing reasons, into the corrupt fragrances. Jacques de Voraigne celebrated in this way the miraculous smell of the corpse of Saint Mark [969]: «…some Venetian merchants who had come to Alexandria, by dint of prayers and promises, had managed to persuade the two priests who were guarding his body to let them take it away to Venice, but when the body was taken out of the tomb, such a fragrance spread over Alexandria that the people wondered from where such a sweet perfume came.» Already in Baudelaire’s time many an experiment had been carried out by people curious about the sense of smell and Louis Ménard, in whose house the author took hashish, linked the interest in science and theology [257]-[588]-[589]-[860]. A few years previously, Germaine de Staël described the turmoil of disturbed thought in this way [935]: «Intellectual idealism makes of freewill, which is the soul, the centre of everything: the principle of physical idealism is life. Man comes, both through chemistry and through reasoning, to the highest degree of analysis, but life escapes him through chemistry as do feelings through reasoning.» Fragrances obtained in the laboratory will open up this debate again, but the images that dominate everyday existence remain far from these heights, as shown in the words Murger has expressed by young people [257]-[261]-[412]-[413]-[545]: «…women are flowers, they need watering. Let’s water them! Waiter! Waiter!»

The author of „Correspondences“ does not run the risk of this type of reversal since he establishes himself in the world of poetry from the outset. However it seems harmony can be the object of more detailed research. Plato tried to explore it by meditating on Heraclitus’ understanding of harmony in music [726]: «Unity, he said…"by opposing itself, composes itself…"» Baudelaire imagines the repercussions of beautiful sound [[1050]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1050]]: «The violin trembles like a heart in affliction…Your memory shines in me like a monstrance!»

The expansion of the perfumes spreading abroad their fragrance is compared with harmonies which grip the throat or jewels making us open our eyes wide. Here is the beauty-producing intelligence so prized by Baudelaire, but also the ostentatious triumph erupting into riot. Pliny, solicitous of the good of the State, proscribes all luxury [774]: «The most disastrous crime for humanity was committed by the first person to put gold on his fingers…»

In the sonnet the poet wants to show how good hides evil, by directing the attention from the sweet perfumes towards the others. Baudelaire sees Edgar Allan Poe concerned to understand the same truth [683]: «There is in man, he says, a mysterious force which modern philosophy refuses to take into account; and however, without this unnamed force, without this primeval inclination, a host of human actions would remain unexplained, unexplainable. These actions only appeal to us "because" they are bad, dangerous; they have the attraction of the abyss. This irresistible, primitive force is Natural Perversity, which makes man ever both homicidal and suicidal, assassin and executioner…» The discerning reader takes a look at America [684]: «…it is not without a certain satisfaction that I see a some vestiges of ancient wisdom returning to us from a country from where we were not expecting them.»

The plausibility of 0.1 is hardly surprising since a poetic text allows for many a discreet analogical significance. Baudelaire could compare the «infinite things» to the works of the devil, but, while we imagine at times the creator waiting for the explanation of divine and satanic mysteries in a state of permanent anxiety, he was able to maintain considerable moderation in this respect when he was not using it for artistic effect. His jibes were directed at certain enthusiasts of Edgar Allan Poe [178]-[683]: «The Swedenborgians congratulate him for his "Mesmeric revelation" in a similar way to those naïve Illuminati who used to seek for revelations of mysteries in Cazotte, the author of "the Devil in love"; they thank him for the great truths he has just proclaimed, -for they have discovered (O verifiers of that which cannot be verified!) that all he stated is absolutely true;- although first, admit these good people, they had suspected that it might be sheer fiction.»

The green is established in opposition to the red of the carnage so often evoked by Homer [450]: «The sword becomes warm with blood, and in the eyes of the man enter as masters red death and imperious destiny.»

The tone of the first tercet will only be found surprising by those who see Baudelaire as someone who hated the country, in spite of the many lines in his poetry that bear witness to his eclectic tastes, in particular when describing Amsterdam or Venice [[1059]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1059]]: «The setting suns
Array the fields,
The canals, the whole town,
In hyacinth and gold;
The world falls asleep
In a warm light.

There all is order and beauty,
Luxury, sensual pleasure and calm.»

At first we think that «…perfumes…green as meadows…» is not at all on the same level of intellectual daring as «...perfumes…Sweet as oboes…» We only perceive later this has become inevitable once the terms have been constituted, when the text has been taken in in its entirety: “the olfactory stimulus corresponds to a sparkle for the eyes”.

More generally, it would be futile to expect a system created from myths and literary works, as they evoke rather than deal with their objects. Baudelaire, considered the friend exclusively of the town, paints his soul as nostalgic for the opposite world [[1026]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1026]]: «…It is a land more naked than the polar wastes;
No beasts, no greenery, no woods, no streams!»

At first (perfumes²-/acidity-/meadows-/sparkle) gives a foundation, which can be followed by other examples compatible with the author’s genius. Since perfume is linked to various processes for conserving the body hidden in the world after life, we are led immediately, for everything concerning our terrestrial existence, to the idea of prestige of which Ovid spoke in these lines [566]: «…there is one bird only which renews and recreates itself; the Assyrians call it the phoenix; it does not live on grain or herbs, but on small drops of incense and the juices of amomum. Hardly have the five centuries assigned to its existence passed that, perched on the branches or the swaying crest of a palm tree, it builds a nest with its talons and pure, clean beak. There it gathers cassia bark and ears of fragrant spikenard, pieces of cinnamon and tawny myrrh; there it lies down and ends its life among the perfumes. There, from the body of the father bird they say…a new phoenix is born…»

As Homer stresses when describing Hera and Zeus, love and greenery often accompany each other [446]: «…under them, the heavenly land gave birth to a tender lawn, fresh lotus, saffron and hyacinth, a tight, soft carpet whose thickness protects them from the ground.»

Uncertainty that is impossible to avoid was a concern of Baudelaire’s, this poet so often represented as no fan of meadows and pastures although many times he celebrates the natural world [[1011]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1011]]: «The tribe of prophets with their burning eyes
Yesterday took to the road, carrying their babies
On their backs, or letting them satisfy their proud appetites
From the treasure of their breast ever hanging nearby.

The men go on foot with their gleaming weapons
Beside the carts in which their people huddle,
Searching the sky with sorrow-laden eyes
In gloomy yearning for absent chimera.

From the depths of his sandy refuge, the cricket,
Watching them pass, redoubles his song;
Cybele, who loves them, augments her greenery,

Turns rocks into streams and makes the desert flower…»

To honour a coppice by imagining divine action in it provides a strong motivation for the humble piety approved of by Cicero [201]: «The "Sacred Woods" in the countryside rest on the same principle; and we must avoid rejecting this religion bequeathed by our ancestors to master and servant alike, placed in view of all in estates and farms, the religion of the Lares.»

To give life to pillars or symbols reminds us of a tradition, known of by Pliny, according to which, stone grows again [778]: «And among other marvels in Italy alone, Papirius Fabianus, a very well- informed naturalist, teaches us that the marble grows in the quarries and the quarrymen themselves state that the excavations into the mountains fill up by themselves.»

Chateaubriand, returning from exile, considered the symbolism of the forest in detail, describing how a mission cemetery was linked to the wood of the country [187]-[188]- [593]: «The trunks of these trees, red veined with green, rising without branches to their crests, resembled tall columns, and formed the peristyle of this temple of death; a religious noise pervaded there, like the muffled thunder of the organ beneath the vaults of a church; but when one penetrated into the depths of the sanctuary, one could only hear the hymns of the birds in eternal celebration to the memory of the departed.»

The passions generated in nature in the wild interested Baudelaire [641]: «…I have often thought that evil and disgusting beasts are perhaps nothing more than the vivification, the embodiment, the birth in physical life of man’s "bad thoughts". -Thus all "nature" participates in original sin.»

In the places where man has built, we frequently hesitate to recognize many "tree-pillars" [504]. Chateaubriand does not waver, using the occasion provided by the imaginary adventures of a visitor for whom Spain is important [190]: «It occurred to him to go into the temple of the God of Blanca’s faith and to ask the advice of the Master of nature. He goes out, he arrives at the door of an old mosque converted into a church by the faithful congregation. His heart touched with sadness and religious feeling, he goes into the temple which was formerly that of his God and his homeland. They had just finished prayers: there was no-one in the church. A holy darkness reigned through a multitude of columns that resembled the tree trunks of a regularly planted forest.»