They were beautiful (the bourgeois) during the strike of the tailors. One would have said that SOCIETY was going to pieces.
Axiom: Hatred of the bourgeois is the beginning of virtue. But I include in the word bourgeois, the bourgeois in blouses as well the bourgeois in coats.
It is we and we alone, that is to say the literary men, who are the people, or to say it better: the tradition of humanity.
Yes, I am susceptible to disinterested angers and I love you all the more for loving me for that. Stupidity and injustice make me roar,— and I HOWL in my corner against a lot of things "that do not concern me."
How sad it is not to live together, dear master, I admired you before I knew you. From the day I saw your lovely and kind face, I loved you. There you are.—And I embrace you warmly.
Your old
Gustave Flaubert
I shall have the package of pamphlets about faience sent to the rue des Feuillantines. A good handshake to Maurice. A kiss on the four cheeks of Mademoiselle Aurore.
LVIII. TO GEORGE SAND
I stayed thirty-six hours in Paris at the beginning of this week, in order to be present at the Tuileries ball. Without any exaggeration, it was splendid. Paris on the whole turns to the colossal. It is becoming foolish and unrestrained. Perhaps we are returning to the ancient Orient. It seems to me that idols will come out of the earth. We are menaced with a Babylon.