MY DEAR FLAUBERT, I thank you very much for your excellent letter. I was struck by your observation, and, having fallen very severely in the memory of my dreams, I perceived that, all the time, I was beset by the impossibility of rendering an account of certain actions or sudden thoughts of man, without the hypothesis of the intervention of an evil force outside himself. Here is a great confession for which the whole confederated nineteenth century shall not make me blush. Mark well that I do not renounce the pleasure of changing my opinion or of contradicting myself.
One of these days, if you permit it, in going to Honfleur I shall stop at Rouen; but, as I presume that you are like me and that you hate surprises, I shall warn you some time beforehand.
You tell me that I work well. Is it a cruel mockery? Many people, not counting myself, think that I do not do anything very great.
To work: that is to work without ceasing; that is to have no more feeling, no more dreaming; and it is to be pure volition always in action. I shall perhaps attain to it.
Always your very devoted friend.
I have always dreamed of reading (in its entirety) the "Tentation" and another strange book of which you have published no fragment (Novembre). And how goes Carthage?
Baudelaire to Flaubert
End of January, 1862.
MY DEAR FLAUBERT, I have committed an act of desperation, a madness, that I am changing into an act of wisdom by my persistence. If I had time enough (it would take very long) I would amuse you greatly by recounting my academical visits to you.