Now I had come to see and pay my compliments to a poet, and there did appear to me to be something strangely awkward and irresistibly ludicrous in having to address, to some extent, in a literary and complimentary vein, an individual actually engaged in so excessively prosaic and unelevated a species of performance.
"I retreated, uncertain what to do, and waited outside until the shop was clear.

Three words explained the nature of my visit, and Jasmin received me with a species of warm courtesy, which was very peculiar and very charming; dashing at once, with the most clattering volubility and fiery speed of tongue, into a sort of rhapsodical discourse upon poetry in general, and the patois of it, spoken in Languedoc, Provence, and Gascony in particular.
"Jasmin is a well-built and strongly limbed man of about fifty, with a large, massive head, and a broad pile of forehead, overhanging two piercingly bright black-eyes, and features which would be heavy, were they allowed a moment's repose from the continual play of the facial muscles, sending a never-ending series of varying expressions across the dark, swarthy visage.

Two sentences of his conversation were quite sufficient to stamp his individuality.
"The first thing which struck me was the utter absence of all the mock-modesty, and the pretended self-underrating, conventionally assumed by persons expecting to be complimented upon their sayings or doings.
Jasmin seemed thoroughly to despise all such flimsy hypocrisy.

'God only made four Frenchmen poets,' he burst out with, 'and their names are, Corneille, Lafontaine, Beranger, and Jasmin!' "Talking with the most impassioned vehemence, and the most redundant energy of gesture, he went on to declaim against the influences of civilisation upon language and manners as being fatal to all real poetry.

If the true inspiration yet existed upon earth, it burned in the hearts and brains of men far removed from cities, salons, and the clash and din of social influences.