Guillaume APOLLINAIRE. L.A. (minute), [May 1918], to the art critic Louis Dimier; 4 pages in-8, heading Ministère des Colonies. Office of the Minister. Very interesting letter on its place in modern letters and arts. He thanks Dimier for his "excellent article. I read your articles with great pleasure and I think they are very profitable. I come from a generation that did not cause trouble in the arts and letters, but we were born in trouble, if we have not put everything in order, at least we have tried to do so. In any case, the generation to which I belong will later be given back the justice that it worked with brand new materials, those that we were provided with being unusable. What you have written about taste suggests to me that there are times when taste is formed or modified and that it is therefore not right to condemn in art and letters everything new in the name of taste. The first time a young man takes tobacco, cigar pipe or cigarette, he does not taste it. While afterwards his taste having formed he prefers a pipe to a cigarette or vice versa. Moreover, a smoker accustomed to the corporal, for example, does not taste English tobacco. Vienna a dearth of French tobacco, and the corporal smoker ends up smoking English tobacco and distinguishes the different species preferring one or the other. In the same way, as far as modern arts and letters are concerned, I read you with pleasure because you belong to a generation that only entered the daily struggle late in life. Your spirit, like that of your friends, matured by study and reflection, brings order wherever mine had brought new materials that are often worth using. The work you are doing seems so worthy of interest that for my part, I am following you attentively, during a retreat, which was necessary after efforts where no one had supported us, warned us of the dangers, or comforted us if