Do you keep yourself informed as to the works of Renan? They would interest you, and so would the new book by Flourens, on the Siège de l’âme.
Can you guess what occupies me at present? The maladies of serpents (always for my Carthage book)! I am about to write to Tunis to-day on this subject. When one wishes to be absolutely accurate in such writing, it costs something! All this may seem rather puerile, or even foolish. But what is the use of living if one may not indulge in dreams?
Adieu! A thousand embraces. Write to me as often as you wish, and as freely as you can.
TO ERNEST FEYDEAU.
Croisset, Thursday.
I have not forgotten you at all, my dear old boy, but I am working like thirty niggers! I have finally finished my interminable fourth chapter from which I have stricken out that which I liked best. Then, I have made the plan of the fifth, written a quantity of notes, etc. The summer has not begun badly. I believe that the work will go smoothly now, but perhaps I delude myself. What a book! Heavens! It is difficult!
Yes, I find, contrary to D’Aurevilly, that there is now a question of hypocrisy and nothing else. I am alarmed, amazed, scandalised at the transcendent poltroonery that possesses the human race. Everyone fears “being compromised.” This is something new,—at least, to such a degree as appears. The desire for success, the necessity, even, of succeeding, because of the profit to be made, has so greatly demoralised literature that one becomes stupid through timidity. The idea of failure or of incurring censure makes the timid writer shake in his shoes. “That’s all very well for you to say, you, who collect your rents,” I think I hear you remark. A very clever response, the inference of which is that morality is to be relegated to a place among objects of luxury! The time is no more when writers were dragged to the Bastille. It might be rebuilt, but no one could be found to put in it.
All this will not be lost. The deeper I plunge into antiquity, the more I feel the necessity of reforming modern times, and I am ready to roast a number of worthy citizens!
Do not think any more about Daniel. It is finished. It will be read, be sure of that.
When you come to Croisset, before setting out for Luchon (about the beginning of July, I suppose), bring me the detailed plan of Catherine. I have several ideas on your style in general and on your future book in particular.