GIDE, André.

Lot 1398
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Estimation :
6000 - 8000 EUR
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Result : 16 250EUR
GIDE, André.
October 1888. Autograph notebook of 45 pp. in-32 [81 x 58] : dark blue morocco, gilt decoration composed of wavy and curved fillets as well as scrolls on the boards, overflowing on the back, smooth spine, lining edges to edges and guards of salmon box decorated with scrolls and wavy and curved gilt fillets, gilt edges, folder with smooth decorated spine and flap bands of dark blue morocco, case (Paul Bonet 1946). Precious autograph manuscript of the high school student André Gide. At the age of 18, he was studying philosophy at the Lycée Henri IV: at the beginning of October 1888, he made his first trip to England in the company of Élie Allégret. The cover of the notebook bears a Latin quotation from Quintilian: "Omnia dum nascuntur nostra placent", and in the center the date "October 1888" followed by his signature. The content is mostly unpublished and consists of thoughts, quotations and some verses. It begins with notes in pencil that are probably older, as there is mention of the Keller institution where Gide had been placed from November 1885 to July 1888 in order to catch up on his schooling. Some thoughts follow: And I felt the sources of my life slowly corrupting // Oh! my soul and my heart, alas, what have you done with it - // Damn voluptuousness which charms me (?) and disgusts me // This so disturbing charm that you pour into me // It is a gnawing poison, charming and subtle // Which marks on the forehead the sign of Cain... One finds thereafter a biblical proverb that the author addresses to Madeleine: There are in the heart of the man many projects // But it is the design of the Eternal which is accomplished. On the following page, Gide notes an idea of poetry: It would be necessary to make a poetry, in verse this time, where I would show the soul flying towards the supreme happiness, the happiness of the elected ones like a swallow which flies towards the sunny campaigns [...]. It would be necessary to begin - Swallow, fallen at the beginning of your race Dis poor wounded bird, you who flew so high you left full of hope..................... Wants to take off towards some distant skies To finish And died With the vision of a great sky glimpsed Another notation is written in pencil three pages further: It would be necessary to limit and define my personality such as I would like it later, to walk towards a chosen and wanted ideal and not to let this personality make itself alone according to circumstances. We must succeed in making ourselves as we want to be. Let us choose the influences. Let everything be an education for me. This note was published in the Journal 1887-1925 (Gallimard, 1996, p. 35); it is dated October 14, 1888. It will be reprinted in Les Cahiers d'André Walter, with some variants. It is followed by verses, reflections and some quotations, notably from Baudelaire and Sully Prudhomme. Among the verses is a poem composed in honor of Victor Hugo for Pierre Louÿs. On folio numbered 22, Gide writes: It will be necessary to make a machine on Hugo for Louis. Hello to you, Hugo! Hi! you whom I admire Poet with the elder songs, with the verses which one cannot read without loving them And whose harmonious fingers made vibrate all the lyre... The last two pages include proverbs of Baudelaire, Rollinat and Saint Augustin, as well as this note: It is necessary now to make the billan (sic) of its us (?); to add its talents and to make them worth. One must be careful not to make a mistake about their use and to distort their course. But it is necessary to make them worth. Beautiful lined binding by Paul Bonet, dated 1946. Carnets de Paul Bonet, 1924-1971, nº 747.
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