Stéphane MALLARMÉ. 3 L.A.S. "Stéphane Mallarmé", 1889-1897, to Albert MOCKEL; 2pages in-12 each, on green, yellow and brown card. To Belgian symbolist poet Albert Mockel (1866-1945), author of Stéphane Mallarmé, un héros (1899). Paris, February 9, 1889. In response to the first part of Mockel's article on Mallarmé in the Liège magazine Caprice Revue (no. 60, January 1889). [See no. 56] "My dear Monsieur Mockel The note to follow placed at the bottom of your so penetrating study has made me wait a little, to answer you, no, to thank you: writing alongside my work, I've given it up, time! but, if we met for just an hour, how much there would be to talk about. You've put your finger singularly on the point that all or the little I've delivered is a transitional thing. The rest, what needs to be done, what I'm stubborn about, even if it means losing my soul, is centuries away... You have, in Wallonia, very nicely dressed, a human and chimerical end of sun, so new". He adds his regards to Mr. Siville (Maurice Siville, director of Caprice Revue). Valvins, Fontainebleau; September 28, 1891. In response to the mailing of Chantefable un peu naïve (Liège, Presses de la Wallonie, 1891). "I'm late, Mockel; but Chantefable un peu naïve has frequented my thoughts, all this time; and I wanted to define the work to myself, through my enchantment, and this impression that it culminates in the whole contemporary endeavor, as one of the aims attained. Yes, you've reached that very miraculous point (such a lovely word, in the Note, of "ideal orchestra" and "that you have to read with your eyes", I transpose it from the page of music to your verses, it bursts with evidence for me!) that your text, by dint of its original subtlety and harmonious fusion, lends itself as if to a disappearance of itself, even though we never cease to undergo its delight; and vanishes, always present, into a kind of silence that is true spirituality. Perhaps, there is, and certainly, superiority over the use of real means, copper, wood, etc. since it is mentally the rarefaction of them; but free, native, genial and without grotesque premeditation. I absolutely congratulate you, my dear friend"... Paris March 28, 1897. Mockel noted at the top in pencil: "à propos de l'album que nous avions offert lui pour le fêter" [on March 23, the 23 "Mardistes", on Mockel's initiative, had presented Mallarmé with an album, in which each had written a poetic contribution]. "Mockel, dear leave very much in the corner the epigraph you so graciously take from me: your poem springs forth of its own accord, with what magnificent purity and falling and soaring again along a single spiritual line, intact after several readings. I'm happy to possess it, there, in your handwriting or closer to your gaze, which composes its crystal, playfully and preciously. So, I press your hand, as I like to do at meetings or, you feel, in a thoughtful and particular way; affectionate too, in this case, especially, as I feel you for a great part and guess, without having been able to say it in front of so many friends the other day present, Mockel, the initiator of the priceless step of friendship that decided the delivery of the noble album into the hands of your Stéphane Mallarmé". Provenance: collection of Dr. Benoît Dujardin (purchased from Ronald Davis bookshop in December 1956); publ. Stéphane Mallarmé, Lettres et autographes présentés par B. Dujardin. Preface by Henri Mondor (Empreintes, no. 10-11; Bruxelles, L'Écran du monde, 1952, pp. 106-107). Correspondance (Austin), t.III, p. 287; t.IV, p.310; t.IX, p.112. - Correspondence (Marchal), nos. 1063, 1592 and 2899.