i said to heath that it was his turn to say something depressing, so he quoted me from the letters of flaubert:


“J' avais commencé Un Coeur Simple à son intention exclusive, uniquement pour lui plaire. Elle est morte comme j' étais au milieu de mon oeuvre. Il en est ainsi de tous nos rêves.”


it seemed to me i had read something else in quite the same vein before, but i could not recall it at dinner. this morning, however, it came to me that it was in the preface of johnson's dictionary, which i read with john o'brien at virginia.


"...I may surely be contented without the praise of perfection, which, if I could obtain, in this gloom of solitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please, have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds..."

it is enough to make you cry.