CIV. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Tuesday, 2 February, 1869
My dear master,
You see in your troubadour a worn-out man. I have spent a week in
Paris, looking up wearisome information (from seven to nine hours in
fiacres every day, which is a fine way to make money out of
literature). Oh, well!
I have just reread my outline. All that I have still to write
horrifies me, or rather disgusts me, so that I want to vomit. It is
always so, when I get to work. It is then that I am bored, bored,
bored! But this time exceeds all others. That is why I dread so much
interruptions in the daily grind. I could not do otherwise, however.
I dragged about at funerals at Pere-Lachaise, in the valley of
Montmorency, through shops of religious objects, etc.
In short, I have enough material for four or five months now. What a
big "Hooray" I shall utter, when it is finished, and when I am not
in the midst of remaking the bourgeois! It is high time that I
enjoyed life.
I saw Sainte-Beuve and the Princess Mathilde, and I know thoroughly
the story of their break, which seems to me irrevocable. Sainte-
Beuve was outraged against Dalloz and has gone to le Temps. The
princess begged him not to do anything about it. He did not listen
to her. That is all. My opinion on it, if you wish to know it, is
this. The first wrong was done by the princess, who was hasty; but
the second and the worst was by pere Beuve, who did not behave as a
courteous man. If one has a friend, a rather good fellow, and that
friend has given one thirty thousand francs a year income, one owes
him some consideration. It seems to me that in Sainte-Beuve's place
I should have said, "That displeases you, let us talk no more about
it." He lacked manners and poise. What disgusted me a little,
between ourselves, was the way he praised the emperor to me! yes, he
praised Badinguet, to me!--And we were alone!
The princess had taken the thing too seriously from the beginning.
I wrote to her, saying that Sainte-Beuve was right; he, I am sure,
found me rather cold. It was then, in order to justify himself to
me, that he made these protestations of isidorian love, which
humiliated me a little; for it was as if he took me for a complete
imbecile.
I think that he is preparing for a funeral like Beranger's, and that
Hugo's popularity makes him jealous. Why write for the papers, when
one can make books, and when one is not perishing of hunger? He's no
sage, Sainte-Beuve. Not like you!
Your strength charms me and amazes me. I mean the strength of your
entire being, not only that of your brain.
You speak of criticism in your last letter to me, telling me that it
will soon disappear. I think, on the contrary, that it is, at most,
only at its dawning. They are on a different tack from before, but
nothing more. At the time of La Harpe, they were grammarians; at the
time of Sainte-Beuve and of Taine, they are historians. When will
they be artists, only artists, but really artists? Where do you know
a criticism? Who is there who is anxious about the work in itself,
in an intense way? They analyze very keenly the setting in which it
was written, and the causes that produced it; but the UNCONSCIOUS
poetic expression? Where it comes from? its composition, its style?
the point of view of the author? Never.
That criticism would require great imagination and great sympathy.
I mean a faculty of enthusiasm that is always ready, and then
TASTE, a rare quality, even among the best, so much so that one
does not talk about it any longer.
What irritates me every day, is to see a master-piece and a
disgrace put on the same level. They exalt the little, and they
lower the great, nothing is more imbecile nor more immoral.
At Pere-Lachaise I was seized with a profound and sorrowful disgust
for humanity. You can not imagine the fetichism of the tombs. The
real Parisian is more of an idolater than a negro is! It made me
long to lie down in one of the graves.
And the PROGRESSIVES think that there is nothing better than to
rehabilitate Robespierre! Note Hamel's book! If the Republic
returned they would bless the liberty poles out of policy and
believing that measure strong.
When shall I see you? I plan to be in Paris from Easter to the end
of May, This spring I shall go to see you at Nohant, I swear it.
CV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 11 February, 1869
While you are running around to get material for your novel, I am
inventing all sorts of pretexts not to write mine. I let myself be
distracted by guilty fancies, something I am reading fascinates me
and I set myself to scribbling on paper that will be left in my
desk and bring me no return. That has amused me, or rather that has
compelled me, for it would be in vain for me to struggle against
these caprices; they interrupt me and force me...you see that I have
not the strength of mind that you think.
As for our masculine friend, he is ungrateful, while our feminine
friend is too exacting. You were right; they are both wrong and it
is not their fault, it is the social machinery which insists on it.
The kind of recognition, that is to say, submission that she exacts,
depends on a tradition that the present time still profits by (there
lies the evil); but does not accept any longer as a duty. The
notions of the obliged are changed, those of the obliger ought to
change also. It must be said that one does not buy moral liberty by
any kindness,--and as for him, he should have foreseen that he would
be considered enchained. The simplest thing would have been not to
care about having thirty thousand francs a year. It is so easy to do
without it. Let him extricate himself. They won't entangle us in it:
we aren't so foolish!
You say very good things about criticism. But in order to do as you
say, there must be artists, and the artist is too much occupied with
his own work, to forget himself in estimating that of others.
Heavens, what fine weather! Don't you enjoy it, at least from your
window? I'll wager that the tulip tree is in bud. Here, the peaches
and the apricots are in flower. It is said that they will be ruined;
that does not stop them from being pretty and not tormenting
themselves about it.
We have had our family carnival: my niece, my grandchildren, etc.
We all put on fancy dress; it is not difficult here, one only has to
go to the wardrobe and one comes down again as Cassandra, Scapin,
Mezzetin, Figaro, Basile, etc., all that is very pretty. The pearl
was Lolo as a little Louis XIII in crimson satin, trimmed with white
satin fringed and laced with silver. I spent three days in making
this costume, which was very chic; it was so pretty and so funny on
that little girl of three years, that we were all amazed in looking
at her.
Then we played charades, had supper, and frolicked till daylight.
You see that banished to a desert, we keep up a good deal of
vitality. And that I delay all I can, the trip to Paris and the
chapter of business. If you were there, I would not need to be
urged. But you are going there the end of March if and I can not
afford to wait till then. To conclude, you swear to come this
summer and we count on it absolutely. Sooner than not have you come
I shall go to drag you here by the hair. I embrace you most warmly
on this good hope.