1. My Book is True
Reading edition
MY view-point is the painter’s, the poet’s; ah, I am a romanticist! But my book is true. The romanticist finds truth without seeking it; it is before him, around him, and he gathers it all with the joy of the child that plucks the flowers in the fields. Truth is not knowledge: it belongs to temperament; it is vision! The child and the romanticist love the beautiful, that is all: truth is there!