There is in art a certain degree of perfection, as there is in Nature an ideal point of matureness. To go beyond, or to remain below that degree is faulty.
The ability of a writer consists mainly in giving good definitions and apt descriptions. The superiority of Moses, Homer, Plato, Virgil, and Horace resides in the beauty of their expressions and images. One has to express the truth to write in a natural, powerful, and refined manner.
It has taken centuries for men to return to the ideal of the ancients and to all that is simple and natural.
We feed on the classics and the able, modern authors. Then, when we become authors ourselves, we ill-use our masters, like those children who, strengthened by the milk they have suckled, beat their nurses.
Read your works to those who are able to criticise and appreciate them. A good and careful writer often finds that the expression he had so long looked for was most simple and natural, and one which ought to have occurred to him at once and without effort.
The pleasure there is in criticising takes from us the joy of being moved by that which is really beautiful.
Arsène, from the top of his mind, looks down upon humanity; and, owing to the distance from which he sees men, is almost frightened at their smallness. He is so filled with his own sublime thoughts that he hardly finds time to deliver a few precious oracles.
Théocrine knows things which are rather useless; his ideas are always strange, his memory always at work. He is a supercilious dreamer, and always seems to laugh at those whom he considers as his inferiors. I read my book to him; he listens. Afterwards, he speaks to me about his own book. What does he think of mine? I told you so before: he speaks to me of his own work!
What an amazing difference there is between a beautiful book and a perfect book!
When a book elevates your mind, and inspires you with noble thoughts, you require nothing else to judge it; it is a good and masterly work.