Although not written in metrical form, Raphael is really a poem--a
prose poem. Never upon canvas of painter were spread more delicate
tints, hues, colors, shadings, blendings and suggestions, than in these
pages. Not only do we find ourselves, in the descriptions of scenery,
near to Nature's heart, but, in the story itself, near to the heart of
man. Aix in Savoy was, in Lamartine's time, a fashionable resort for
valitudinarians and invalids. Among the patrons of the place was Madame
Charles, whose memory Lamartine has immortalized as "Julie" in Raphael
and as "Elvire" in the beautiful lines of the _Meditations_. In drawing
the character "Julie," idealism and sentimentalism have full play. The
whole story is romantic in the extreme. The influence of Byron is
clearly to be seen. The beautiful hills of Savoy, tinged with the
melancholy tints of autumn, were a fit setting for the meeting with the
fair invalid. Besides physical invalidism, the pair were soul-sick and
heart-sick. Such were their points of sympathy, an affinity was the
most natural thing in the world.
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