Reading notes

• Auguste Rodin §17 Baudelaire

  French poet (1821-67), author of Les Fleurs du mal; Rodin felt in him a forerunner who sought the body rather than the face.

• The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge §91 Seigneur mon Dieu

  Baudelaire's prayer, from the close of 'À une heure du matin' (Paris Spleen); Malte has copied it as his own nightly prayer: 'Discontented with all and with myself... Lord my God, grant me the grace to make a few fine verses that may prove to myself that I am not the last of men, not inferior to those I despise.'