At other times, at the edge of a wood, especially at dusk, the trees themselves would assume strange shapes: sometimes they were arms rising heavenwards, , or else the trunk would twist and turn like a body being bent by the wind. At night, when I woke up and the moon and the stars were out, I would see in the sky things that filled me simultaneously with dread and longing. I remember that once, one Christmas Eve, I saw a great naked women, standing erect, with rolling eyes; she must have been a hundred feet high, but along she drifted, growing ever longer and ever thinner, and finally fell apart, each limb remaining separate, with the head floating away first as the rest of her body continued to waver . Gustave Flaubert
About This Quote

The writer describes his obsession with looking for the beautiful woman in the woods. He was mesmerized by her beauty and bent on finding her. However, he did not realize that she was only an illusion of his mind. The lady that the writer saw was actually a reflection of the moon in the lake. Thus, he could not see her properly and was often frightened by her appearances

Source: November

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  2. Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.
  3. Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.
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