CCCIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Paris
Nohant, 8th March, 1876
You scorn Sedaine, you great profane soul! That is where the
doctrine of form destroys your eye! Sedaine is not a writer, that is
true, although he falls but little short of it, but he is a man,
with a heart and soul, with the sense of moral truth, the direct
insight into human feelings. I don't mind his out-of-date reasonings
and dry phraseology! The right thought is always there, and it
penetrates you deeply!
My dear old Sedaine! He is one of my well-beloved papas, and I
consider le Philosophe sans le savior far superior to Victorine; it
is such a distressing drama and so well carried out! But you only
look for the well-turned phrase, that is one thing--only one thing,
it is not all of art, it is not even half of it, it is a quarter at
most, and if three-quarters are beautiful, one overlooks the part
that is not.
I hope that you will not go to seek for your country-side before the
good weather; here, we have been pretty well spared; but for the
past three days there has been a deluge, and it makes me ill. I
should not have been able to go to Paris. Your niece is better, God
be praised! I love you and I embrace you with all my soul.