Alphonse de LAMARTINE (1790-1869). L.A.S., Paris May 10, 1861, to Princess Marie-Laetitia de Solms; 2 1/2 pages in-8. Beautiful letter on the Princess's Fleurs d'Italie, poésies et légendes (1859): "I wanted to read you before praising you, and when one has read you one no longer knows how to praise you. It is obviously necessary to use your beautiful language of verse to express the impressions one feels when reading several of your poems. This is what I hope to be able to do as soon as the excess of prosaic occupations restores some clarity to the imagination in which you portray yourself as so good and so beautiful. Some friends, younger and happier than me, enjoy your friendship and your genius. I envy them, but age and the anguish of a stormy evening leave me no hope of even contemplating your dazzling poetic and personal radiance. All the most beautiful perspectives are for me behind this time, or outside this life. I've lived too much in broad daylight. One must die in the shadows and in retirement. But from the depths of shadow and retirement I will always have an admiration, a respect and a vow for the poet of the Lac d'Aix, exiled in Paris. For the world is the exile of beautiful souls"...