“The artist, in my way of thinking, is a
monstrosity, something outside nature. All the woes with which Providence
showers him come from the stubbornness with which he dies that axiom. His
refusal to admit it brings suffering not only to him, but to those with whom he
is in contact. Ask women who have loved poets, or men who have loved actresses.
So (and this is my conclusion) I am resigned to living as I have lived; alone, with
a throng of great men rather than a social circle, with my bear-rug (bearing a
bear myself), etc. I care nothing for the world, for the future, for what
people will say, for any kind of established position, or even for literary
fame, which in my early days I used to stay awake so many nights dreaming
about. That is what I am like; that is my character.”—French novelist Gustave
Flaubert (1821-1880), in a letter to his mother, from Constantinople, December
15, 1850, quoted in Flaubert and Madame Bovary: A Double Portrait, by Francis
Steegmuller (1939)
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