Friday, May 13, 2011

A Single Man

Like Samuel Butler, also reared in a loveless province, what Stendhal fears is self-deception. This compels them to be double men. To the historical critic their lives will suggest how Romantic irony and two-sidedness ends as the modern temper. — Jacques Barzun, Stendhal on Love, The Energies of Art, Vintage Edition, 1961, p. 117.

I was not reared in a loveless province, I do not begin with Romantic irony, and I do not end with the modern temper.

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