Note 100 — Chapter I · —INTRODUCTION. (continued 2)

Lepelletier, in what may be regarded as the official biography of Verlaine (Paul Verlaine, 1907) seeks to minimize or explain away the homosexual aspect of the poet's life. So also Berrichon, Rimbaud's brother-in-law, Mercure de France, 16 July, 1911 and 1 Feb., 1912. P. Escoube, in a judicious essay (included in Préférences, 1913), presents a more reasonable view of this aspect of Verlaine's temperament. Even apart altogether from the evidence as to the poet's tendency to passionate friendship, there can be no appeal from the poems themselves, which clearly possess an absolute and unquestionable sincerity.