René Martin-Guelliot to Jean Paulhan, 1912, 7

Reims, Friday

My dear friend,

My card from yesterday was gone when your letter came back to me from Hermonville. I hasten to tell you that I understand your reasons very well, both for this month and for the following months. But I think that in the absence of effective collaboration on your part, we should think of ways of assuring the Spectator during this time of your "spiritual" collaboration. The way of looking at things that you have introduced is an element that I would be keen not to see completely absent, even for a relatively short period of time. Without thinking much about it, I can now see 2 of these means, which we will specify. First letters: you will certainly write to me and in these letters you will talk to me about possible subjects, observations collected, etc. as you did again recently; what we just have to look for is how to take advantage of these letters in the numbers. It is quite certain that, without flattery, I would prefer to insert them as they are in place of a number of well-finished outsider articles. But on the other hand you might not like to publish snippets under your name. We should then think of the Correspondence section, or of F.C. ..., or of something else. You would not have "the glory", if there is glory, but first of all you would not have any trouble, since I suppose ordinary letters written with the flow of the pen, and the Spectator, for his part, would have the benefit of keeping yours in his bundle of directions, which I consider, once again, much more than the sending of honorable articles from authors who barely understand your point of view.
The 2nd way would be the sending by you of "reported articles" or "documents", less for the material filling of the number than for the same reason: so that your personal point of view is also represented in this indirect, but certainly real, way.
I believe that the great task of the Spectator, for the moment, antecedent to any extension, search for collaborations, etc. is to assert itself very clearly not through manifestos, but through what it does, and this with a double objective. 1° to make the limits very clearly felt, on the right towards philosophy, on the left towards the news item, reverie, polemic and other similar things 2° within these limits, to give by the very spectacle of the diversities between us the sense of a very wide variety.
I submit all this to your thoughts.

Yours sincerely, R.M.G.

If in Algiers you think that it might be useful for you to be talked about in certain circles, my wife will write to one of her best friends, currently in a fairly modest situation, but having, we believe, a fairly large number of connections.
Latest news. This friend has just left A. for Bougie, but that doesn't stop her.