CLAUDEL (Paul). Reunion of 4 LAS. - reply to a survey on poetry. Eaux-Chaudes, 10 August 1905. 3 p. in-8. To the question "what is the role of the poet in the city", Claudel replies: "Thinker, he has the task of thinking, and writer, of writing for the public (...), to signify in place of. One always writes to someone; the writer is the one who writes to no one". - to Jean Cocteau. Copenhagen, 14 July 1920, on headed paper "Légation de la République française en Danemark", with env. Beautiful letter to Cocteau on the occasion of the sending of his collection "Poésies" (May 1920), and he wants to tell him "how much your book has pleased me and how timely it was to bring me, in the midst of all the Danish brown, a little of our salt from the three seas (...) you derive from your juxtaposition of ideograms a host of charming and witty effects that pique and stimulate interest". - to Baroness May d'Aiguy, on headed paper "Embassy of France in Japan", 14 January 1927. 4 pages in-8. A friend and translator of Gertrude Stein, Diane dite May d'Aiguy was the daughter-in-law of Baroness Pierlot (Claudel's friend and neighbour). A friendly, literary letter. Held up by the imperial funeral, he has not yet left Japan, and although "everyone has stopped their correspondence", he has just received his letter, which tells him with horror of Elisabeth's death... He has just been posted to the United States and plans to stay in Washington for a while before returning to France to avoid the American summer; to acclimatise, he reads "Ford's books (the king of the car) [...] it's very depressing. [...] I'm in the process of finishing a long study on Richard Wagner. [...] I can't write anything now without a certain tendency towards buffoonery, it's Act 4 of The Satin Shoe. I'm surprised myself, I was so serious when I was young! - to Baroness May d'Aiguy, signed "P. Cl.", on headed paper "Chateau de Brangues, Morestel, Isère", 31 July 1930. 1 page and a quarter in-8. He despairs of not converting her and of not "dislodging her from the position in which you have been entrenched for as long as I have known you and which can be formulated in these terms: Evil exists - therefore God does not exist".