Status Updates From Decadence and Symbolism: A ...

Would you like to come with me to the land without mirrors; the noisy springs there are invisible, the valley resounds throughout with an indolent concert, and the shady corners are so profound that one might sleep for years without perceiving a hint of the sky between the trees . . .

There is nothing beautiful in human life but the memory of some dream that fills us with joy and even that is the memory of the beginning of a dream.

I'm some 100 pages in or so. There's been a few highlights, the greatest thus far is Gautier's "Babylonian Dreams". I've found everything I've read from Gautier in various anthologies to be excellent, so after I've cleared through a chunk of my current to-read pile I'll track down some of this collections.

"There is nothing beautiful in human life but the memory of some dream that fills us with joy and even that is the memory of the beginning of the dream." -Gustave Kahn

I can already tell that this book will be quite the escapist delight for me. I have already swooned several times from the scant few pieces I have read, and the introduction was both wonderfully informative and evocative. As I read, I cannot help but feel the cliched sentiment that I was just born in the wrong era...