years later on October 30, 1871, in a house on the quay facing the
wide harbour. ¹

Here Paul spent the first thirteen years of his life. His nursery on
the third floor faced the quay, which was narrower then than it is now,
so that the masts of the great sailing ships from the New World were
quite near the window. His early childhood passed happily in this
world of busy life and sunshine. There was always something to watch
from the southern windows looking on to the port, and at an early
age he began to draw the ships and rigging, intrigued by the decora-
tive ballet of constantly moving masts. This activity perhaps awakened
that desire for accuracy and precision in intricate patterns which he
kept all his life.

It is always from our early surroundings that we receive those first
impressions which form the background of our future thought. A
child sees without seeing what he is looking at, and the decisive hour
when thought is formed has its origin in spontaneous and primitive
impressions whose strength and sweetness are incalculable. The all-
powerful sun, the ever changing sea, the port with its Phoenician-
prowed tartanes, and its smells of coal, tar, wine and fish soup, formed
the background and the prelude to Paul Valéry's intellectual life.
During his first years the small fair child, whose eyes held such wonder,
gazed and dreamed, unconsciously forming that intimate relationship
with the world around him which is the poet's birthright.

Paul was seven years old when for the first time he climbed the
steep road leading to school, holding his father's hand. He felt
anxious but also curious as to the consequences of this great adventure,
'ready to laugh and not far from tears.' 'I can still remember the first
impressions of my school life,' he said fifty years later, 'the particular
smell of new exercise books and the polished American cloth of the
school satchels, the mystery of the books all new, stiff and almost
impenetrable at first in their armour of cardboard and glue; but which
were soon to become the albums in which life is recorded in the form
of stains, strange figures, notes, marks of reference and sometimes
imprecations.' ² Together with organised lessons, the incidents of class
and playground became all important in this school world with its
own laws in which there was 'a curious diversity of hierarchies, each

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