The Poetry and the Prose.
LAMARTINE once wrote an invitation in verse to Victor Hugo to visit him at his house. The poetical epistle contained a minute account of the mansion in which Lamartine was the master. Victor Hugo consented; undertook the long journey, and reached the dwelling of his brother poet. He looked about, but in vain, for the “embattled summits,” the “bushy ivy,” and the “stones tinted by the hand of time,” of which he had read. What he saw was an ordinary house roofed with flat tiles, unmantled of ivy, and painted a dirty yellow. At first he thought the coachman had blundered. But Lamartine appeared to welcome him, so that there could be no mistake. On asking where was the house which had been so beautifully described in the invitation, Lamartine replied: “You see it before you; I have but rendered it habitable. The bushy ivy made the walls damp and gave me rheumatism, so I had it removed. I had the battlements pulled down, and the house modernized; its gray stones made me feel melancholy. Ruins are nice things to write about, but not to inhabit.”