“ We never can turn a negro white and we never can hinder the mediocre from being mediocre. ”
Gustave Flaubert, Bouvard et Pécuchet (1881). copy citation
| Author | Gustave Flaubert |
|---|---|
| Source | Bouvard et Pécuchet |
| Topic | |
| Date | 1881 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46909/46909-h/46909-h.htm |
Context
“Can you expect, in the midst of the whirlwind in which he lives, with his fascinating personality, his officer’s badge, his receptions at the house of M. de Persigny, etc., that he could preserve enough perspicacity to feel a new, original, or novel thing? Besides, in this arrangement, there may be something agreed upon. We never can turn a negro white and we never can hinder the mediocre from being mediocre. I assure you that if he were to say to me “I have had curvature of the spine or softening of the brain,” it would make me laugh. Do you know what I found out to-day from his photographs? The only one he did not publish was the one representing our hotel at Cairo and the garden before our windows where I stood in Nubian costume;”
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