England, not the north—­there is something Celtic in the north,—­southern England, with its quiet, steadfast faces;—­a smock frock is to me one of the most delightful things in the world; it is so absolutely English.  The villages clustered round the greens, the spires of the churches pointing between the elm trees....  This is congenial to me; and this is Protestantism.  England is Protestantism, Protestantism is England.  Protestantism is strong, clean, and westernly, Catholicism is eunuch-like, dirty, and Oriental....  Yes, Oriental; there is something even Chinese about it.  What made England great was Protestantism, and when she ceases to be Protestant she will fall....  Look at the nations that have clung to Catholicism, starving moonlighters and starving brigands.  The Protestant flag floats on every ocean breeze, the Catholic banner hangs limp in the incense silence of the Vatican.  Let us be Protestant, and revere Cromwell.

* * * * *

Garcon, un bock! I write to please myself, just as I order my dinner; if my books sell I cannot help it—­it is an accident.

But you live by writing.

Yes, but life is only an accident—­art is eternal.

* * * * *

What I reproach Zola with is that he has no style; there is nothing you won’t find in Zola from Chateaubriand to the reporting in the Figaro.

He seeks immortality in an exact description of a linendraper’s shop; if the shop conferred immortality it should be upon the linendraper who created the shop, and not on the novelist who described it.

And his last novel “l’Oeuvre,” how terribly spun out, and for a franc a line in the “Gil Blas.”  Not a single new or even exact observation.  And that terrible phrase repeated over and over again—­“La Conquete de Paris.”  What does it mean?  I never knew any one who thought of conquering Paris;—­no one ever spoke of conquering Paris except, perhaps, two or three provincials.

* * * * *

You must have rules in poetry, if it is only for the pleasure of breaking them, just as you must have women dressed, if it is only for the pleasure of imagining them as Venuses.

* * * * *

Fancy, a banquet was given to Julien by his pupils!  He made a speech in favour of Lefevre, and hoped that every one there would vote for Lefevre.  Julien was very eloquent.  He spoke of Le grand art, le nu, and Lefevre’s unswerving fidelity to le nu ... elegance, refinement, an echo of ancient Greece:  and then,—­what do you think? when he had exhausted all the reasons why the medal of honour should be accorded to Lefevre, he said, “I ask you to remember, gentlemen, that he has a wife and eight children.”  Is it not monstrous?

* * * * *

But it is you who are monstrous, you who expect to fashion the whole world in conformity with your aestheticisms ... a vain dream, and if realised it would result in an impossible world.  A wife and children are the basis of existence, and it is folly to cry out because an appeal to such interests as these meet with response ... it will be so till the end of time.