Mallarmé

Mallarmé was standing at the other end of the room leaning against the chimney piece.

A freshman who heard Mallarmé lecture at Oxford said when he came away: 'I understood every word, but not a single sentence.'

Mallarmé is obscure, not so much because he writes differently as because he thinks differently from other people.

Mallarmé is the poet of a few, a limited poet, perfect within his limits as the Chinese artist of his own symbol.

He is "precious," and in ideas as constipated as Mallarmé, whose Afternoon of a Faun he so adequately set.