Meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly (November 2, 1808 – April 23,1889), novelist and short story writer. He is best known for the mysterious tale that examines hidden motivation bordering on evil, but never crossing into the supernatural.

"If writers only dared to dare, a Suetonius or a Tacitus of the Novel could exist, for the Novel is essentially the history of manners, turned into a story and a play, as is History itself often enough. And there is no other difference than this: that the one, the Novel, cloaks its manners under the disguise of invented characters, while the other, History, provides names and addresses. Only, the Novel probes much deeper than history. It has an ideal, and History has none; it is limited by reality. The Novel also holds the stage much longer."
- Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

"Extreme civilization robs crime of its frightful poetry, and prevents the writer from restoring it. That would be too dreadful, say those good souls who want everything to be prettified, even the horrible. In the name of philanthropy, imbecile criminologists reduce the punishment, and inept moralists the crime, and what is more they reduce the crime only in order to reduce the punishment. Yet the crimes of extreme civilization are undoubtedly more atrocious than those of extreme barbarism, by virtue of their refinement, of the corruption they imply and of their superior degree of intellectualism."
- Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

"Fools – in other words most people – imagine that it would be a wonderful achievement to be able to recover our youth; but those who know life are aware how little it would profit us."
- Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

"For what is hell but a heaven reversed? The two words, diabolical and divine, when applied to extremes of enjoyment, express the same thing, that is, sensations that reach the supernatural."
- Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly image source (1)