Joyeux anniversaire, M. Proust

Marcel Proust was born on July 10, 1871.

We talk too much about serious things. Serious conversation is intended for people who have no intellectual life. People like the three of us, on the contrary, who have an intellectual life need frivolity when they escape from themselves and from hard inner labor. We should, as you say, talk about all the little things and leave philosophy to solitude.

Marcel Proust, in a letter to Sydney Schiff, May 1922. From Letters of Marcel Proust, translated by Mina Curtiss (New York: Helen Marx Books / Books & Co., 2006).

As “Stephen Hudson,” Sydney Schiff (1871–1946) translated Le Temps retrouvé into English.

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)