He now began to be tired of sowing wild oats, and became less irregular in his mode of life.  A lively, pretty little comedy called Une Nuit Venitienne, which he wrote at the request of the director of the Odeon, for some inexplicable cause fell flat, which, besides turning him aside from writing for the stage during a number of years, discouraged him altogether for some time.  Before he entirely recovered from the check he lost his father, who died suddenly of cholera in 1832.  The shock left him sobered and calm, anxious to fulfil his duties toward his mother and young sister, whose means, it was feared, would be greatly diminished by the loss of M. de Musset’s salary.  Alfred resolved to publish another volume of poetry, and, if this did not succeed to a degree to warrant his considering literature a means of support, to get a commission in the army.  He set himself industriously to work, and inspiration soon rewarded the effort:  in six months his second volume appeared, comprising “Le Saule,” “Voeux Steriles,” “La Coupe et les Levres,” “A quoi revent les jeunes filles,” “Namouna,” and several shorter pieces.  Among those enumerated there are splendid passages, second in beauty and force to but a few of his later poems, the sublime “Nuits,” “Souvenir,” and the incomparable opening of “Rolla.”  Again he convoked the friends who three years before had greeted the Contes d’Espagne with acclamation, but, to the unutterable surprise and disappointment of both brothers, there was not a word of sympathy or applause:  Merimee alone expressed his approbation, and assured the young poet that he had made immense progress.  Perhaps the others took in bad part their former disciple’s recantation of romanticism, which he makes in the dedication of “La Coupe et les Levres” after the following formula: 

    For my part, I hate those snivellers in boats,
      Those lovers of waterfalls, moonshine and lakes,
    That breed without name, which with journals and notes,
      Tears and verses, floods every step that it takes: 
    Nature no doubt but gives back what you lend her;
    After all, it may be that they do comprehend her,
    But them I do certainly not comprehend.

The chill of this introduction was not carried off by the public reception of the Spectacle dans un Fauteuil (as the new collection was entitled), which remained almost unnoticed for some weeks, until Sainte-Beuve in the Revue des Deux Mondes of January 15, 1833, published a review of this and the earlier poems, indicating their beauty and originality, the promise of the one and progress of the other, with his infallible discernment and discrimination.  A few critics followed his lead, others differed, and discussions began again which could not but spread the young man’s fame.  The Revue des Deux Mondes was now open to him, and henceforth, with a few exceptions, whatever he wrote appeared in that periodical.  He made his entry with the