University Studies of the University of Nebraska
Date of this Version
8-1974
Citation
University of Nebraska Studies: New Series no. 47
Abstract
When Valery was about twenty, he showed few signs of a deep interest in the sciences. Weakness in mathematics had made him give up a boyish ambition to be a naval officer.l As for other sciences, here is an excerpt from a letter to his friend Andre Gide, expressing
Ce monde est ridicule comme une pendule; ces astres virent sottement, tres peu nombreux (trois mille cinq cents), pas beaux en somme, ni curieux .... La nature, laide comme si un mediocre l'avait faite .••• Le mystere n'ex:iste pas helas! •.. Lea savants empestent Ie parvenu. Les causes, les efIets n'ex:istent pas! Nous les creons, Messieurs! alors qU'est-ce que cela prouve?2
Of course even Anatole France, at fifty no less, could make a similar pronouncement:
Les etoiles ressemblent trop it notre soleil .••• l'analyse de leur lumiere nous a fait connaitre que les substances qui bl1ilent it leur surface sont celles-lit mem€s qui s'agitent sur Ie [soleil]. • • • Cette analogie suffirait seule it me degotl.ter de l'univers.3
Not to mention Hegel, who is said to have once "shrugged off the starry night as an ugly eczema."4 Valery would sigh to his friend: "La Science m'a ennuye, la foret mystique ne m'a conduit a rien . . . . OU trouverai-je une magie plus neuve?"5 In a more ironic mood he would write to another friend, Francis Viele-Griffin: "Contrairement a ma petite legende,- j'adore ce qu'on appelle Nature, a condition de ne la jamais nommer."6 It was a kind of snobbery that affected decadents of the period from the Axel of Villiers de l'Isle Adam to the Gilbert of Oscar Wilde's dialogue The Critic as Artist.
a scornful indifference toward astronomy:
Comments
Published by the University at Lincoln