"The longer you are married, the better you will like it & then I hope you will show proper gratitude to your adviser - not but that you will also heretically deny his influence in the matter. Man is ungrateful. If you doubt it read La Rochefoucauld & the other authors of reputation - I forget their names."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
'Absorbed as always in books, Willie read seriously in both French and German literature. His favourites in French were the "Maximes" of La Rochefoucauld, "La Princesse de Cleves" (which inspired his play "Caesar's Wife"), the tragedies of Racine, the novels of Voltaire, Stendhal's "Le Rouge et le Noir" and "La Chartreuse de Parme", Balzac's "Pere Goriot", Flaubert's "Madame Bovary", the works of Anatole France, the exotic tales of Pierre Loti and the well-crafted stories of Maupassant'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Somerset Maugham Print: Book