Cats, so strong and gentle, the pride of the household.

Who among us has not, in moments of ambition, dreamt of the miracle of a form of poetic prose, musical but without rhythm and rhyme, both supple and staccato enough to adapt itself to the lyrical movements of our souls, the undulating movements of our reveries, and the convulsive movements of our consciences? This obsessive ideal springs above all from frequent contact with enormous cities, from the junction of their innumerable connections.

Everything for me becomes allegory

As the end of the century approaches, all our culture is like flies at the beginning of winter. Having lost their agility, dreamy and demented, they turn slowly about the window in the first icy mists of morning, . . . [then] they fall down the curtains.

I should like the fields tinged with red, the rivers yellow and the trees painted blue. Nature has no imagination.

Doubt, or the absence of faith and naivete, is a vice peculiar to this age, for no one is obedient nowadays; and naivete, which means the dominance of temperament in the manner, is a gift from God, possessed by very few.

From that moment onwards, our loathsome society rushed, like Narcissus, to contemplate its trivial image on a metallic plate. A form of lunacy, an extraordinary fanaticism took hold of these new sun-worshippers.