What form should one take to express occasionally one’s opinion on the things of this world, without the risk of passing later for an imbecile?  It is a tough problem.  It seems to me that the best thing is simply to depict the things which exasperate one.  To dissect is to take vengeance.  Well! it is not he with whom I am angry, nor with the others but with ours.

If they had paid more attention to the education of the superior classes, delaying till later the agricultural meetings; in short, if the head had been put above the stomach, should we have been likely to be where we are now?

I have just read, this week, Buchez’ Preface to his Histoire parlementaire.  Many inanities which burden us today come from that among other things.

And now, it is not good of you to say that I do not think of “my old Troubadour”; of whom then, do I think? perhaps of my wretched book? but that is more difficult and less agreeable.

How long do you stay at Cannes?

After Cannes shan’t you return to Paris?  I shall be their towards the end of January.

In order to finish my book in the spring of 1869, I must not give myself a week of holiday; that is why I do not go to Nohant.  It is always the story of the Amazons.  In order to draw the bow better they crushed their breast.  It is a fine method after all.

Adieu, dear master, write to me, won’t you?

I embrace you tenderly.

LXXIV.  TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset Nohant, 31 December, 1867

I don’t agree with you at all that it is necessary to destroy the breast to draw a bow.  I have quite a contrary belief which I follow, and I think that it is good for many others, probably for the majority.  I have just developed my idea on that subject in a novel which has been sent to the Revue and will appear after About’s.  I think that the artist ought to live according to his nature as much as possible.  To him who loves struggle, warfare; to him who loves women, love; to an old fellow like me who loves nature, travel and flowers, rocks, fine landscapes, children also, the family, all that stirs the emotions, that combats moral anemia.

I think that art always needs a palette overflowing with soft or striking colors according to the subject of the picture; the artist is an instrument on which everything ought to play before he plays on others; but all that is perhaps not applicable to a mind like yours which has acquired much and now has only to digest.  I shall insist on one point only, that the physical being is necessary to the moral being and that I fear for you some day a deterioration of health which will force you to suspend your work and let it grow cold.

Well, you are coming to Paris the beginning of January and we shall see each other; for I shall not go until after the New Year.  My children have made me promise to spend that day with them, and I could not resist, in spite of the great necessity of moving.  They are so sweet!  Maurice has an inexhaustible gaiety and invention.  He has made for his marionette theatre, marvelous scenery, properties, and machinery and the plays which they give in that ravishing box are incredibly fantastic.