Pierre LOUŸS. 6 L.A.S. "Pierre" or "P", and 2 L.A. of which - Lot 144

Pierre LOUŸS. 6 L.A.S. "Pierre" or "P", and 2 L.A. of which the end is missing, 1907-1908, to his brother Georges Louis; 22 pages in-8 (the last repaired with adhesive). Partially unpublished correspondence on his friendship with Claude Farrère. 1907. Saturday morning [June 29]. Pierre Louÿs (then at Tamaris) tries to arrange a marriage between his friend Charles Bargone (Claude Farrère) and a friend of his sister-in-law Paz. "A refusal on her part would therefore be more fatal to him (to B.) than her acceptance would certainly be useful to him. So there's no need to hesitate. He must not be named right away"; a meeting is essential between the young girl and her friend who "has always been loved by ladies and has had (I say nothing of the present) some very pretty ones especially among the women of the world... and their daughters. He didn't name me anyone; but in Toulon, we know everything, and I've seen black or blue eyes that will certainly be formidable comparisons. So I can well understand that he wants to make a marriage of inclination and that the question of mutual sympathy is at the forefront"... - Saturday evening [July 13]. "I'm going to have to come back in a week, and this time I'd really rather leave for La Plata or Tahiti, because I have a strong feeling that I'll never make a go of my life in Paris, and that literature is now a closed means of existence for me. [...] I have to tell myself this: since my neurasthenia in 1902, I haven't finished a single book. This is the sixth year of a complete halt in my literary production. I don't count as books the two drawer bottoms entitled Sanguines or Archipelago. For the last six years, I've been living off reprints, remoutures, luxury publications and other expedients, including four advances on four books to be done, none of which has been written. I can't go on like this. He asks Georges to help him "obtain a consulate somewhere, or the direction of a library or museum"... - Thursday [August 29] (the end is missing), recounting his collaboration in 1905 with Claude Farrère (Charles Bargone), whom he helped to write, publish and distribute Pour vaincre sur mer, about the military navy: "I have rarely seen a polemical book have a more discreet and stronger influence. I had done no advertising on the book, so influential people were able to adopt its ideas and sign them as personal!"... - Friday evening [October 11]. "I'm absolutely exhausted. Every night I sleep for eight hours like a lump; then it takes Louise three quarters of an hour of effort to wake me up; and all the rest of the day I'm in the state of someone who's had two sleepless nights!" Psyche doesn't advance: "it's a period of neurasthenia like the one that followed Pausole's effort and lasted for years. Only this one will be more serious"... - Saturday evening (the end is missing). Louÿs and his wife have come to spend a few days at a friend's house: "Our hostess could not be nicer and does everything she can to please us; and she only succeeds in making herself unbearable. [When I don't smoke, I feel bad, I have to go out. - It's just the opposite, it's smoking that makes you sick." You'd think I'd waited until I was thirty-seven to convert to that line of reasoning!"... 1908. - January 12]. On Georges' approach to Gaston Doumergue for Pierre's appointment to the Legion of Honor: "He considered me an enemy of his. You didn't make an enemy at all, on the contrary. - That he is delighted not to grant me what I ask for is quite natural; but I am certain that after your visit he has less mistrust of us than if he had learned in another circumstance and from another mouth than yours, that I was your brother"... - Tuesday evening [April], on his decision to sue his publisher Eugène Fasquelle: "During the first fifteen years of my literary life, from 1892 to 1907, I had ups and downs; but for the last two years, the descent has been exaggerated, and it comes solely from this quarrel"... - Monday [September 21]. On Franco-German tensions: "Sont-ils désagréables ces gens-là!"... Enclosed: - an autograph note on his material future (1p. in-8); - a L.A.S. (incomplete from beginning) from Louÿs to his sister-in-law Paz, [June 1907], about Bargone's marriage project (4p., with a draft reply from Georges Louis); - 2 l.a.s. from Paz Louis to Pierre, June-July 1907, about Bargone.