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=[http://www.corr-proust.org/letter/02843 Marcel Proust à Daniel Halévy <nowiki>[le lundi 7 septembre 1914]</nowiki>]=
=[http://www.corr-proust.org/letter/02843 Marcel Proust to Daniel Halévy <nowiki>[Monday 7 September 1914]</nowiki>]=
<small>(Click on the link above to see this letter and its notes in the ''Corr-Proust'' digital edition, including all relevant hyperlinks.)</small>
<small>(Click on the link above to see this letter and its notes in the ''Corr-Proust'' digital edition, including all relevant hyperlinks.)</small>


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Dear friend
Cher ami
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I’m writing these few lines to tell you that I couldn’t read Les Trois Croix without crying <ref name="n2" />. In these times when there is so much of the sublime in deeds, and so little in words said or written, when every other person proclaims that the War has transformed minds, but the proclamation is done in such a style that it is evident the war hasn’t transformed anything at all, when the same silly nonsense, same platitudes return, either even worse than before or only appearing so in contrast to those great things they pretend to express, in these times when one cannot read a newspaper without feeling revulsion, and when there hasn’t been yet a decent line written on war, I think that les Trois Croix is the first piece of literature on war (don’t be offended by the word ‘literature’; how I mean it and how you understand it, I hope, it is a noble word indeed) worthy of its name that has been given to me to read. I have so much to tell you at a moment such as this when a complete disarmament of minds has never been as fatal.
Ces quelques mots pour te dire que c'est en pleurant que j'ai lu les Trois Croix<ref name="n2" />. En ce temps où il y a tant de sublime dans les faits, et si peu dans les paroles et les écrits, où chacun annonce que la Guerre a transformé les esprits, mais l'annonce en un style qui montre trop qu'elle n'a rien transformé du tout, où les mêmes sottises, les mêmes banalités reviennent, soit pires encore, soit semblant telles par leur confrontation aux grandes choses qu'elles s'imaginent exprimer, en ce temps où on ne peut pas lire un journal sans dégoût, et où peut-être pas une ligne décente n'a encore été écrite sur la guerre, je crois que les Trois Croix sont le premier morceau de littérature guerrière (ne te froisse pas du mot littérature qui au sens où je le prends et où tu l'entends j'espère est fort noble) qu'il m'ait été donné de lire. Que de choses j'aurais à te dire à un moment où jamais le désarmement complet des intelligences n'a été si funeste.
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Revision as of 00:32, 11 February 2022

Other languages:

Marcel Proust to Daniel Halévy [Monday 7 September 1914]

(Click on the link above to see this letter and its notes in the Corr-Proust digital edition, including all relevant hyperlinks.)

[1]

Dear friend

I’m writing these few lines to tell you that I couldn’t read Les Trois Croix without crying [2]. In these times when there is so much of the sublime in deeds, and so little in words said or written, when every other person proclaims that the War has transformed minds, but the proclamation is done in such a style that it is evident the war hasn’t transformed anything at all, when the same silly nonsense, same platitudes return, either even worse than before or only appearing so in contrast to those great things they pretend to express, in these times when one cannot read a newspaper without feeling revulsion, and when there hasn’t been yet a decent line written on war, I think that les Trois Croix is the first piece of literature on war (don’t be offended by the word ‘literature’; how I mean it and how you understand it, I hope, it is a noble word indeed) worthy of its name that has been given to me to read. I have so much to tell you at a moment such as this when a complete disarmament of minds has never been as fatal.

Ton bien ému et admiratif

Marcel Proust

Notes

  1. Note 1
  2. Note 2
  3. Translation notes:
  4. Contributors: