In 1829 M. Sainte-Beuve published a volume of poetry, _Poésies de Joseph Delorme_, followed, in 1830, by another, entitled _Consolations_, and some years later by a third, _Pensées d'Août_. Although different degrees of merit have been assigned to these productions, their general character is the same. They exhibit, not the fire and inspiration of the true poetical temperament, but the experiments of a mind gifted with delicacy of sentiment and susceptible of varied impressions, in quest of appropriate forms and a deeper comprehension of the sources from which language derives its power as a vehicle of art. The influence of Wordsworth is observable in a studied familiarity of diction, as well as in the tendency to versify every thought or emotion suggested by daily observation. These peculiarities, coupled with the frequency of bold ellipses, provoked discussion, and seemed to promise a fresh expansion of poetical forms, in a somewhat different direction from that of the Romanticists. But it was not in this department that M. Sainte-Beuve was destined to become the founder of a school. His poetical talent, though unquestionable, had been bestowed, not as a special attribute, but as an auxiliary of other faculties granted in a larger measure. He has himself not only recognized its limits, but shown an inclination to underrate its value. "I have often thought," he remarks in one of his later papers, "that a critic who would attain to largeness of view would be better without any artistic faculty of his own. Goethe alone, by the universality of his poetical genius, was able to apply it in the estimation of what others had produced; in every species of composition he was entitled to say, 'Had I chosen, I could have given a perfect specimen of this.' But one who possesses only a single circumscribed talent should, in becoming a critic, forget it, bury it, and confess to himself that Nature is more bountiful and more varied than she showed herself in creating him. Incomplete artists, let us strive for an intelligence wider than our own talent,--than the best we are capable of producing."
To the same period--perhaps to the same spirit of investigation and experiment--belongs the single prose work of fancy which has proceeded from his pen. It is a species of romance, bearing the title of _Volupté_, and designed to exhibit the struggle between the senses and the soul, or, more strictly speaking, the effect upon the intellectual nature of an early captivity to the pleasures of sense. The hero, Amaury, after a youth of indulgence, finds himself in the prime of his manhood, with his powers of perception and of thought vigorous and matured, but incapable of acting, of willing, or of loving. He inspires love, but cannot return it; he feels, he admires, but he shrinks from any step demanding resolution or self-devotion. Hence, instead of conferring happiness, he makes victims,--victims not of an active, but of a merely passive and negative egotism. A conjunction of circumstances brings him to a sudden and vivid realization of his condition and its results. Instead of escaping by suicide, as might be expected,--and as would probably have been the case if Werther had not forestalled him,--he breaks loose from his thraldom by a supreme effort, and finds in the faith and sacrifices of a religious life the means of restoration and of permanent freedom. He enters a seminary, is ordained priest, and performs the funeral rites of the woman whose affection for him had been the most ardent and exalted, and whom his purified heart could have best repaid.