Marcel Proust imagines his mother near his bed.
« "Mom would come to my bedside and I would tell her about an article I want to write on Sainte-Beuve."
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« "Mom would come to my bedside and I would tell her about an article I want to write on Sainte-Beuve."
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Marcel Proust (1871.1922)
Autographed letter signed to Georges de Lauris.
One page in-12°. Slnd [mid-December 1908]
Kolb, Volume VIII, page 320
« … "Mom would come to my bed..."
Proust asks his friend for advice on the article he wishes to dedicate to Sainte Beuve, while imagining a scene where his mother would come to listen to him near his bed.
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“Dear Georges, May I ask your advice? I’m going to write something about Sainte-Beuve . I have, in a way, two articles in mind (journal articles). One is a classically styled article, a less accomplished version of Taine’s essay. The other would begin with an account of a morning; Mother would come to my bedside, and I would tell her about an article I want to write on Sainte-Beuve [his essay Against Sainte-Beuve]. And I would elaborate on it. Which do you think is best? Yours affectionately, Marcel.”
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Against Sainte-Beuve, a collection of criticism was published posthumously in 1954.