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Flaubert, in whom correctness of detail was a passion, was condemned, even by Sainte-Beuve, for choosing from all history a civilisation of which so little is known. The author replied, and a lengthy controversy ensued, but it was not a subject that could be settled definitely in one way or another.
They might, no doubt, be the steps in a dramatic tale, but they are nothing of the kind as Flaubert handles them. He makes it perfectly clear that his view is not centred upon the actual outcome of Emma's predicament, whether it will issue this way or that; what she does or fails to do is of very small moment.
The substitution of the beauty of character for the beauty of proportion was bound to move the artists to regard illustration in a new light; and as pictorial Impressionism was born of the same movement of ideas which created the naturalist novel and the impressionist literature of Flaubert, Zola and the Goncourts, and moreover as these men were united by close relations and a common defence, Edouard Manet's modern ideas soon took up the commentary of the books dealing with modern life and the description of actual spectacles.
What strikes me the most in the book is that it is very intelligent and exact. One is completely in the period. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this twofold reading. It has relaxed me. Everything then is not dead. There is still something beautiful and good in the world. CCXLIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Nohant, 29 November, 1872 You spoil me!
The famous "impersonality" of Flaubert and his kind lies only in the greater tact with which they express their feelings dramatizing them, embodying them in living form, instead of stating them directly. It is not to this matter, Flaubert's opinion of Emma Bovary and her history which indeed is unmistakable that I refer in speaking of our relation to the writer of the book.
It is too long since I have written. I am bored with style! And tell me more about you, dear master! Give me at once news of Maurice, and tell me if you think that the lady you know would suit us. And thereupon I embrace you with both arms. Your old troubadour always agitated, always as wrathful as Saint Polycarp. CCXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT 17 March, 1872
The son of a physician, and brought up in the rigors of scientific method, Flaubert believed this method to be efficacious in art as in science. For instance, in the writing of a romance, he seemed to be as scientific as in the development of a history of customs, in which the essential is absolute exactness and local color.
It is the story of an education, and the deplorable life of which such an education is often the preface. This is what M. Flaubert desired to paint, and not the adulteries of a woman of the provinces. You will see this at once on reading the incriminated book. Now, the prosecuting attorney perceives in all this, and through it all, a lascivious colour.
He examined the library, borrowed a volume of Flaubert, and finally, after he had asked me all sorts of questions where I came from; how I happened to be here; and even to "explain Mr. Wilson," I responded by asking him what he did in civil life. He was leaning against the high mantel, saying a wood fire was delicious. He smiled down on me and replied: "Nothing." "Enfin!" I said to myself.
Insomnia is the devil; in the daytime one makes a lot of effort not to sadden others. At night one falls back on oneself. LXV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset Nohant, 10 September, 1867 Dear old fellow, I am worried at not having news of you since that illness of which you spoke. Are you well again?
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