"Although the texts on which it is based [Dr Henri Mondor's biography of Mallarme] - letters for the most part - seem destined, both as writing and by virtue of the life which they reflect, to obscure what makes Mallarme, Mallarme, namely an existence entirely given over to literature (and thus to nothingness), on the contrary they 'throw extraordinary light on the destiny of that Prince of the Mind'. But what sort of light, other than the ordinary light of the world, can biography shed on the writing of a man who sought to withdraw from the world? "
from Meetings with Mallarme, From Crisis to Critique Mallarme for Blanchot,
by Michael Holland p.81
