Gabriel BELOT (1882-1962). 6 L.A.S., 4 illustrated, 1920 and s.d., to Marguerite Steinlen and Germaine Perrin; 8 1/2 pages in-fol. or in-4. Lovely gallant correspondence illustrated with pen-and-ink drawings, some enhanced in color. The painter-poet addresses his "dear little ones", Marguerite Steinlen (the painter's niece) and his companion Germaine Perrin (who became the 3rd wife of composer and conductor D.E. Inghelbrecht). Saturday. He thanks them for their letter, although Marguerite gives him the "mossieu", and Germaine shows a certain distance "that calms the beating of my heart, so that I find myself shivering. Excuse my frankness, it comes from a being who only wants to love. [...] to close yourself off is to nip in the bud gestures of brotherhood". - Tuesday. Long letter illustrated with a child's head and colored flowers in the margins: "It's no small thing that we've met! A man beaten to a pulp by fate meeting two charming, good and noble beings! A man who cries out to you in his love: believe in happiness, it exists if we want it". He addresses the two young girls, of whom he paints a touching portrait: "Little Germaine, expressive, laughing and generous, forced at an early age to live alone, eerily lonely and austere, with laughter deep in her soul. Little Marguerite, upright, frank and noble, obliged to hide the nobility of her self so as not to be called a "pimbêche" or any other label as harmonious as it is ridiculous. He plans to visit them and read Flaubert's La Légende de St Julien l'Hospitalier "in a loud and distinct voice. Laugh, laugh, my darlings. That's why you're young, and why a poor man asks you for the alms of a smile and permission to look into your eyes, which are full of the dew of tears given by the rhythm of three souls who have found each other... Phew! It's so hard to distract little girls when you've grieved for them"... - December 12, 1920, he draws doves and trees beaten by the rain: "Nature is neither good nor bad, just like the men she is a part of"... - Ile St Louis, with drawing of a flower: "to think that my engraving gives you a little of the breath that haunts me, I am happy even though my hand translates weakly what I feel"... - Friday morning 7am. He returned early in the morning: "Calm and the sweetness of life descended from the sky... In Ile St Louis? The trees caressed each other as they listened to the rhythm of the water [...] Thank you again, my dear and delicate friends: I am so unaccustomed to tender gestures that when I come across these rare flowers, I find myself drunk as a Cossack! He concludes his letter with a lovely drawing of maternity. - December 20, 1920, in the form of a prose poem entitled Un ami: "I think of a friend. His soul also-early walks before me... His eyes stare into my eyes and his heart beats in my heart. [...] I think of a friend: The sky grows brighter. - His word? I hear it in the murmur of foliage and in the harmonious sound of the wind"...