Jean-Jacques Pradier. Odalisque. 1841.
Marble.
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. Lyon, France.
Cobra meu tempo,
meu alimento —
MEU AMOR — até!
Cobra ela é
The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonourably, foolishly, viciously. The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly. Flaubert always sides with minorities, with ‘the Bedouin, the Heretic, the philosopher, the hermit, the Poet’. In 1867 forty-three gypsies pitched camp in the Cours La Reine and aroused much hatred among the Rouennais. Flaubert delighted in their presence and gave them money. No doubt you wish to pat him on the head for this. If he’d known he was gaining the approval of the future, he’d probably have kept the money to himself.
Flaubert’s Parrot
Another comical cartoon of the era: On the right we have a gentleman refusing to let go of the 18th Century style, so we assume he’s an older fellow and very stuck in his ways, while on the left we can see the fashions of people like Beau Brummel becoming more popular, with the dandy coat and high, starched collar. The bonnets are growing and becoming more like the poke bonnets synonymous with the mid 1800’s, and skirts are still so long women have to hold them up
1846
Don’t think that I belong to that vulgar race of men who feel disgust after pleasure, and for whom love exists only as lust. No: in me, what rises doesn’t subside so quickly. Moss grows on the castles of my heart as soon as they are built; but it takes some time for them to fall into ruin, if they ever completely do.
Don’t think that I belong to that vulgar race of men who feel disgust after pleasure, and for whom love exists only as lust. No: in me, what rises doesn’t subside so quickly. Moss grows on the castles of my heart as soon as they are built; but it takes some time for them to fall into ruin, if they ever completely do.
Flaubert’s Parrot
Chronology III
“We think,” said two of the dancers, breaking off from the rest, and bowing profoundly before him, “that you are the most beautiful man we have ever seen.”
So they wreathed his head with paper flowers. Then somebody brought out a white and gilt chair and made him sit on it. As they passed, people hung glass grapes on his shoulders, until he looked like the figure-head of a wrecked ship. Then Florinda got upon his knee and hid her face in his waistcoat. With one hand he held her; with the other, his pipe.
Jacob’s Room
6
It is brewed by the earth itself. It comes from the houses on the coast. We start transparent, and then the cloud thickens. All history backs our pane of glass. To escape is vain.
Jacob’s Room
4
Ex omnibus bonis, quae homini tribuit natura, nullum melius esse tempestiva morte: idque in ea optimum, quod illam sibi quisque praestare poterit.
Historia Naturalis
