Some Bits from Turgenev and Flaubert.

In their letters, there were some enjoyable tidbits, although many of the little jabs were "of their time" and dealt with the politicians, socialites, critics, and writers of the day, some of whom never rose to the prominence the two literary friends eventually did.


Quotes from Turgenev to Flaubert:

"We are a pair of moles burrowing away in the same direction."

"The living, human truth that you pursue indefatigably can only be captured on good days."

"Find another title. 'Sentimental Education' is wrong."

"I have not thanked you for the photograph..... Why don't you have good ones taken?"

"Yes, people have certainly been unfair to you, but this is the time to brace yourself and hurl a masterpiece at the reading public."

"Oh we have hard times to live through, those of us who are born spectators."

"You have remained a man through all this, because you have been able to work: now things will be easier."

"I'm becoming more and more snowed under by life's events."

"Fate is so abominably brutal to strike at the one man in the world who is least capable of making a living from his work."

"Old age is a dreadful thing -- begging Cicero's pardon."

"After the age of 40 there is only one word to sum up the basis of life: Renunciation."

"Illness, a cold, slow disgust, painful stirrings of useless memories are, my dear fellow, all that await us once we're past the age of fifty."

"The newspapers find me worn out and throw my own earlier works back in my face (like you with 'Madame Bovary.')"

"Anyway fate has decreed that everything will go wrong in this business."

"I shall send you shortly a novel in 3 vols by Count Leo Tolstoy, whom I consider to be the foremost contemporary writer. You know who in my opinion could challenge him in that position."



Quotes from Flaubert to Turgenev:

"My interminable novel is making me sick and weighing me down..."

"There is nothing more ridiculous than making out that one is misunderstood."

"My noble motherland is becoming more and more idiotic. The general stupidity is having and effect on individuals. Gradually each one slides with all the rest."

"Who is there in our wretched country who still 'cares about literature'? Perhaps one single man? Me!"

"Voltaire said life is a sick joke. I'm finding it too sick and not at all funny; I try to keep the upper hand as much as possible: I read for about nine or ten hours a day."

"Never have affairs of the mind counted for less."

"Oh! Action! As soon as I have anything to do with it, I'm in trouble. And then there is the maxim of Epictetus that one shouldn't forget: 'If you seek to please you will be undone.'"

"I could do with sleeping for a year. I'm harassed out of existence. That's the truth."

"What a book! What an abyss (a wasps' nest or a latrine) I have stuffed myself into! There's no going back now."

"Thank you for making me read Tolstoy's novel. It's first rate. What a painter and what a psychologist!"

"My poor play has had no luck. But then why did I listen to the advice of Other People? Why did I give in!"

"I am pursued by ill fortune."
Flaubert and Turgenev: A Friendship in Letters : The Complete Correspondence