Date and place of writing from Flaubert's "Correspondence" (Paris : Gallimard, 1973).
Forms part of a collection of 15 letters from Gustave Flaubert to Louise Colet (see MA 14427.1-15).
Flaubert is sending her a package containing her Contes. He didn't touch her "Richesse oblige" (eventually published in 1862) because he thinks it should be completely rewritten or abandoned. He wants to find a way to cheer up Leconte [de Lisle] and thinks more sex is the answer. Flaubert questions why Colet inserts herself into what he thinks and says. He then goes on to write about the necessity for an artist to divide his existence into two parts: "live like a bourgeois and think like a demigod." The satisfaction of the body and that of the mind have nothing in common, but if they should somehow come together, one should hold on to them and not let go. The idea of "happiness" is the almost exclusive cause of human misfortune. We should dispense our passions in small doses and keep most of our inner selves for later on. How much is lost each day in overflowing sentiment? Flaubert goes on: If you seek Happiness and Beauty at the same time, you won't find either. Beauty comes only from sacrifice. Art delights in holocausts. Wild passions don't mix well with the enormous patience that the artistic life demands. Art is vast enough to occupy all of one's existence. Removing any part of it is almost a crime, stealing from an idea, a shirking of one's duty. He goes on to say that he loves Colet as he has never loved another and never will. She is beyond comparison with any other woman. An all-encompassing love. Her very reality almost disappears in this love. However, the idea that she is his mistress rarely occurs to him. Flaubert again speaks of memories and of the lost passions of his youth and the bad thoughts they evoke. He needs Colet, who soothes him from these thoughts. Flaubert goes on: If you seek Happiness and Beauty at the same time, you won't find either. Beauty comes only from sacrifice. Art delights in holocausts. Wild passions don't mix well with the enormous patience that the artistic life demands. Art is vast enough to occupy all of one's existence. Removing any part of it is almost a crime, stealing from an idea, a shirking of one's duty. Flaubert launches into a long tirade about Jacques Cordier and his pretentiousness and bad taste. In Trouville, Flaubert feels surrounded by stupidity and needs desperately to return home and work on Madame Bovary. He closes by telling her to keep working hard on her Servante [La Servante et La Bourgeoise, part of Le poeme de la femme].