Delacroix, (1850)

14 February
I am beginning to feel a violent dislike for people like Schubert, the dreamers like Chateaubriand (this began a long while ago), Lamartine, etc. Why will nothing of theirs endure? Because it is utterly untrue. Does a lover gaze at the moon when he is holding his mistress in his arms? It may be an excellent plan when one begins to grow tired of her! Lovers do not weep together, they make no hymns to infinity, and very few descriptions.  The hours of true enchantment pass so swiftly, and they are not spent like that. The sentiments in the Méditations are false, as they are also in Raphael, by the same author. These vague yearnings, this chronic melancholy, describe no real human being; it is the school of sickly sentiment and a very poor advertisement for it. Yet women pretend to be infatuated with all this nonsense. It must surely be out of modesty, for they know perfectly well what to believe about the real issue in love. They praise the writers of odes and invocations, but attract and deliberately seek out healthy men who are responsive to their charms.

Mme P[otocka] called today, with her sister Princess de B[eaveau]. She at once noticed the nudes, the Femme impertinente and the Femme qui se peigne. 'What is it that you artists, all you men, find so attractive in this?' she said. 'What makes it more interesting to you than any other object in its nude or crude state; an apple, for instance?'