“'Has it ever happened to you,’ Léon went on, ‘to come across some vague idea of your own in a book, some dim image that comes back to you from afar, and as the completest expression of your own slightest sentiment?’
“I have experienced it,’ she replied. ‘That is why,’ he said, ‘I especially love the poets. I think verse more tender than prose, and that it moves far more easily to tears.’ ‘Still in the long-run it is tiring,’ continued Emma. ‘Now I, on the contrary, adore stories that rush breathlessly along, that frighten one. I detest commonplace heroes and moderate sentiments, such as there are in nature.’ ‘Yes, indeed,’ observed the clerk, ‘works, not touching the heart, miss, it seems to me, the true end of art. It is so sweet, amid all the disenchantments of life, to be able to dwell in thought upon noble characters, pure affections and moments of happiness.’"
- Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)
