When
Flaubert wrote MADAME BOVARY, I believe he thought chiefly of
a somewhat morbid realism; and behold! the book turned in his
hands into a masterpiece of appalling morality. But the
truth is, when books are conceived under a great stress, with
a soul of ninefold power, nine times heated and electrified
by effort, the conditions of our being are seized with such
an ample grasp, that, even should the main design be trivial
or base, some truth and beauty cannot fail to be expressed.
Out of the strong comes forth sweetness; but an ill thing
poorly done is an ill thing top and bottom. And so this can
be no encouragement to knock-kneed, feeble-wristed scribes,
who must take their business conscientiously or be ashamed to
practise it.
Man is imperfect; yet, in his literature, he must express
himself and his own views and preferences; for to do anything
else is to do a far more perilous thing than to risk being
immoral: it is to be sure of being untrue. To ape a
sentiment, even a good one, is to travesty a sentiment; that
will not be helpful. To conceal a sentiment, if you are sure
you hold it, is to take a liberty with truth. There is
probably no point of view possible to a sane man but contains
some truth and, in the true connection, might be profitable
to the race. I am not afraid of the truth, if any one could
tell it me, but I am afraid of parts of it impertinently
uttered. There is a time to dance and a time to mourn; to be
harsh as well as to be sentimental; to be ascetic as well as
to glorify the appetites; and if a man were to combine all
these extremes into his work, each in its place and
proportion, that work would be the world's masterpiece of
morality as well as of art.
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