BAC Ferdinand (1859-1952).

Lot 3
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Estimation :
2000 - 2500 EUR
BAC Ferdinand (1859-1952).
75 L.A.S. (2 incomplete), 1904-1947, to André VIÉNOT; 258 pages, various sizes, numerous headings, several engraved vignettes, a few illustrated postcards (views of his gardens). Very beautiful correspondence to his godson, who will become a lawyer. We can only quote a few extracts. L'Ermitage, Juziers 30 August 1904. He proposes to write to him as under the Ancien Régime, a letter was a big deal there: "We said exquisite things to each other, we kept them preciously. We were right. Let's do like these old wigs, shall we, my dear André, my new friend? Yes, let's put all our trust in them, all our heart, the best of our sincerity"... He talks about the "rules of life", about what "saved" him (Epictetus, the Sermon on the Mount, his mother's sensitivity, German poetry), and the search for happiness... 29 July 1906. "What I always fight in life is pride in the knowledge of others, exclusive pride. I have noticed that few people, possessing the recording mechanism of memory and the stomach to easily digest outside ideas, were of superior intelligence. [...] Why: they stopped at the immediate things, close or actual. The truth is that you have to stop at them and then go beyond them and see higher up afterwards. For that you need time. It takes a life"... January 4, 1907. "I hate words and theories. [...] But if it is a question of working ceaselessly on one's moral perfection, on the faculty of "understanding and forgiving everything", of opposing adversity, catastrophes, lies, and injustice with the haughty resignation of a mentally superior man, then I am active and courageous"... Josselin October 17, 1907, letter illustrated with two pencil drawings. Grasse December 20, 1909. You must overcome your suffering: "you are the magnificent Being who is going full of strength, sap, health, culture towards a future that I hope is very rich in happiness, certain and superior"... He recalls his years of struggle and humiliation to gain his freedom, and does not regret having lived them... Le Cannet February 7, 1911. "I am an amended romantic who watches his beast with constant energy. [I take my atavistic romanticism by the hair and I use it in full possession of myself, to bring into my life all the charm of the joys it can give me and to remove all the danger of the follies it may have made me commit. He has become a little sentimental treasure"... Cannes 19 December 1914. He awaits "the end of the monster that has perverted the old Germany of Goethe"... Le Cannet 21 March 1915. He works on "a work of the Present which explains the Past and of the Past which explains the Present: the influence of Prussia and its great work of profanation of the old Germanic Ideal"... Versailles May 25, 1916, reflections on the War, its consequences, and the future... Nice January 5, 1918. It is necessary to acquire the direction of the divine gift of the life. "The day we have it, we no longer rot in the anterooms of "fear of lack", of "assured bread", of "position to be made". One runs like a deer to the living springs of life, one flies like an eagle in the ether of those magnificent joys, which are the creation of thought or form and one leaps like a lion in search of one's inner treasure. [...] It means to suffer nobly and to carry on oneself all the pains of childbirth and all the miseries of freedom"... August 15, 1919. "This progress of our intelligence through the almost inextricable chaos of the parasitic human contribution towards the clear understanding of causes and effects is a slow conquest of our spirit for which a whole life is not too much"... Nice Toussaint 1922. Lyrical page on "the meaning of the Mediterranean" and its happiness... Menton April 9, 1923. "I no longer know what it is to be old. I only know one thing: to remain young, to bathe in this force which is joyful, inspired creation"... It is also a question of his books: Vieille Allemagne, L'Aventure italienne, Le Pèlerin amoureux, Souvenirs, of his collaboration with reviews and his trips to Italy, of his friends Gabriel HANOTAUX, Robert de LA SIZERANNE, Maurice MAETERLINCK, Louis BERTRAND, etc.
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