From a Letter to Louise Colet (1852)
There are in me, literally speaking, two distinct persons: one who is infatuated with bombast, lyricism, eagle flights, sonorities of phrase and the high points of ideas; and another who digs and burrows into the truth as deeply as he can, who likes to treat a humble fact as respectfully as a big one, who would like to make you feel almostphysicallythe things he reproduces; this latter person likes to laugh, and enjoys the animal sides of man…
What seems beautiful to me, what I should like to write, is a book about nothing, a book dependent on nothing external, which would be held together by the stength of its style, just as the earth suspended in the void, depends on nothing external for its supports, a book which would have almost no subject, or at least in which the subject would be almost invisible, if such a thing is possible. The finest works are those that contain the least matter; the closer expression comes to thought, the closer language comes to coinciding and merging with it, the finer result. I believe that the future of Art lies in this direction.
-GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
