Henri POURRAT (1887-1959). Autograph manuscript signed; 1 page and a quarter large in-8 (typographical marks). Response to a survey on symbolism. For him, "Symbolism has come to an end. It seems that the word symbol meant: sign of recognition in the custom of hospitality. [...] Symbolism has always been present, everywhere. Better still, without symbolism, there is no poetry. Symbolism was a return to pure poetry, but "here's the trouble: symbolism is legend: soon it's opposed to life. It also quickly resembles Gustave Moreau's gods, who, for gods, "have too many watch chains". Watch chains are going out of fashion, so what? There's such force in the simple word 'life', or in this one 'natural', when they're pronounced in a certain way, that all the glamour of legend dissipates like smoke", he cites Henri de Régnier's poem La Forêt. "Is symbolism dead because its poets are no longer symbolists? Like the strawberry tree that picks itself, it will be able to push its shoots into the ground, reappear, disappear, reappear more than once"...