Flauberts Letters
Gustave Flaubert. (1821–1880). Collecting a Few Quotes, as I read. This is a wonderful collection.
The Billiard Table plus the Collège
TO ERNEST CHEVALIER, earliest school friend.
Aug 14 1835
“…I see with indignation that theatre censorship is going to be reintroduced and the freedom of the press abolished; yes, this law will be passed, for the representatives of the people are nothing but a filthy lot of sold-out wretches, they see only their own interests, their natural bent is toward baseness, their honor is a stupid pride, their soul a lump of mud;…”
June 24 1837
“…and where to find that heart when in most cases it is given over to the two enormous preoccupations that fill a man's life: making his fortune and living for himself, in other words compressing his heart to make it fit in somewhere between his shop and his digestion.”
September 13, 1838
“Really I deeply value only two men, Rabelais and Byron, the only two who have written in a spirit of malice toward the human race and with the intention of laughing in its face…”
February 24, 1839
“I am willing to bet that I will never be printed or acted. Not that I'm afraid of failure: I would simply be too disgusted with the chicaneries of publishing or the theatre. However, if I ever do take an active part in the world it will be as a thinker and de-moralizer. I will simply tell the truth: but that truth will be horrible, cruel, naked.”
The Law 1840-43
To Sister Caroline July 25, 1842
“I'm constantly grumbling, growling, grousing; when I'm alone I mutter even against myself.”
December 10, 1842
‘…but for aristocrats like me, who are accustomed to enthroning their imaginations in seats that are more ornate, richer, and above all more softly luxurious, it's damned disagreeable and humiliating. “There is nothing so grossly and largely offending, nor so ordinarily wronging, as the lawes.”’
Breakdown, Travel, Mourning 1844-46
Alfred Le Poittevin April 15, 1845
“…and yet my pitiless curiosity drives me to probe everything, to dig down to the last layers of mud . . . “
Flaubert's letters are wonderfully interesting, if not always very edifying.
I want a copy. I am slightly obsessed with NYRB books. I haven't read Flaubert’s letters. Adding that to my list, at the top, next to Kafka’s letters (to be bought and read).