TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE 
  
  
No bolder task can possibly be undertaken 
than the translation of prose so musical, so 
subtle, so profound as that of Charles Baude-
laire. For this task I have but the one qualifica-
tion of a love so overmastering, so absorbing, 
that in spite of myself it claims for me a broth-
erhood with him. 
Charles Baudelaire is incomparably the most 
divine, the most spiritually-minded, of all 
French thinkers. His hunger for the Infinite was 
so acute and so persistent that nothing earthly 
could content him even for a moment. He even 
made the mistake—if it be, after all, a mis-
take!—of feeding on poison because he recog-
nized the banality of food; of experimenting 
with death because he had tried life, and found 
it fail him. 
The thought of Baudelaire has thus been 
universally recognized as highly unsuitable for 
the suburbs, as incompatible with any view of 
life which advocates spiritual complacency, 
mental and physical contentment. His writings 
are indeed the deadliest poison for the idle, the 
optimistic, the overfed: they must fill every 
really human spirit with that intense and insuf-
ferable yearning which drives it forth into the