"I feel the deepest pleasure, dear friend, in a tete-a-tete with you. You can't imagine how much I have suffered from this squabble I have had with the masses, with the anonymous herd... Pretend for a moment that we are alone together in some remote place, far away from the hurly burly of life and that we are talking like old friends, who know each other's very soul, and understand each other just by a glance...
"For ten years we have been talking about art and literature...- and often dawn caught us still talking, searching the past, questioning the present, trying to discover truth, and to create for ourselves an infallible and comprehensive religion. We shuffled stacks of terrible ideas, we examined and rejected all ideologies, and after much arduous labour that outside one's personal life there exists only lies and one's stupidity."
-- from a letter to Cezanne from Emile Zola, ca. 1866
