The immediate future will show that the stream of French excellence in
this department, as in any other of human activity, is full, deep, and
steady. The work of Heredia will help to prove it. He was a Spaniard,
and a Colonial Spaniard. No other nation, perhaps, except the modern
French, so inherit the romantic appetite of the later Roman Empire as to
be able to mould and absorb every exterior element of excellence. It is
remarkable that at the same moment Paris contemplated the funeral of the
Italian de Brazza and the death of the Cuban Heredia. It is probable
that those of us who are still young will live to see either name at the
head of a new tradition. Heredia proved it possible not so much to
imitate as to recapture the secure tradition of an older time. Perhaps
the truest generalization that can be made with regard to the French
people is to say that they especially in Western Europe (whose quality
it is ever to transform itself but never to die) discover new springs of
vitality after every period of defeat and aridity which they are
compelled to cross. Heredia will prove in the near future a capital
example of this power. He will increase silently in reputation until we,
in old age, shall be surprised to find our sons and grandsons taking him
for granted and speaking of him as one speaks of the Majores, of the
permanent lights of poetry.
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