to Louise Colet
Have you really not noticed, then, that here of all places, in this private,
personal solitude that surrounds me, I have turned to you? All the memories of
my youth speak to me as I walk, just as the sea shells crunch under my feet on the
beach. The crash of every wave awakens far-distant reverberations within me.

I hear the rumble of bygone days, and in my mind the whole endless series of old
passions surges forward like the billows. I remember my spasms, my sorrows, gusts
of desire that whistled like wind in the rigging, and vast vague longings that
swirled in the dark like a flock of wild gulls in a storm cloud.

On whom should I lean, if not on you? My weary mind turns for refreshment to
the thought of you as a dusty traveler might sink onto a soft and grassy bank.

- Gustave Flaubert, French writer