Paul VALÉRY (1871-1945). L.A.S. "P.V.", [August 1903, to Docteur Joseph-Charles Mardrus]; 4pages in-8. Beautiful letter to the translator of The Thousand and One Nights. Valéry is expecting a child (his son Claude, due on August 14): "Some being now very imminent - perhaps visible in a few hours. But the wait is hard, the pregnancy was painful. Care and worry kept me out of the culture of friends like you, friend, whose ear I don't want to bother. Ali baba, Gerbe (réelle) de perles remain for me as moments of enchantment preserved from dirty thoughts and anguish. Le blanc bouquin read to me a good dream of laughter, flower and luxury, with that extra something that all dreams lack - beautiful language. To translate, - and in your way - is to write, having rejected all that is very silly, poisons literature and distances it from a noble sport. The theme or plot - the food of concierges - must be left to them [...] Invention itself is but an imperfect translation - at most, a tombola prize randomly marvelling someone. But isn't extracting a continuous condition from a very foreign text the ideal for those who have the resources of discourse at their disposal and stick to exercising them in their purest form? Translating is more civilized than writing - this is neither paradox nor error. [...] Good evening, happy distiller of Arabian roses, rare voluptuous writer Mardrus, to whom perfection is comfortable. I cannot read you without rejoicing at not being a poet"...