I am something less than halfway through Theophile Gautier’s Selected Lyrics and just finished a poem entitled The Loft. It somewhat celebrates and somewhat more punctures the romance of la vie boheme of the poet, artist, or musician.

One stanza struck me because of how exactly it mirrored part of the corrupting journey of Lucien from Balzac’s Lost Illusions:

Long since, the poet, seeing how
Tired he grows of rhyme’s fleeting call,
Has turned gazette reporter now
And more from loft to entresol.