The party game at the time of Proust's youth
Questionnaire Proust filled out at age 13: What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Proust: To be separated from Mama
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Where would you like to live? Proust: In the country of the Ideal, or, rather, of my ideal
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What is your idea of earthly happiness? Proust: To live in contact with those I love, with the beauties of nature, with a quantity of books and music, and to have, within easy distance, a French theater
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To what faults do you feel most indulgent? Proust: To a life deprived of the works of genius
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Who are your favorite heroes of fiction? Proust: Those of romance and poetry, those who are the expression of an ideal rather than an imitation of the real
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Who are your favorite characters in history? Proust: A mixture of Socrates, Pericles, Mahomet, Pliny the Younger and Augustin Thierry
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Who are your favorite heroines in real life? Proust: A woman of genius leading an ordinary life
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Who are your favorite heroines of fiction? Proust: Those who are more than women without ceasing to be womanly; everything that is tender, poetic, pure and in every way beautiful
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Your favorite painter? Proust: Meissonier
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Your favorite musician? Proust: Mozart
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The quality you most admire in a man? Proust: Intelligence, moral sense
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The quality you most admire in a woman? Proust: Gentleness, naturalness, intelligence
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Your favorite virtue? Proust: All virtues that are not limited to a sect: the universal virtues
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Your favorite occupation? Proust: Reading, dreaming, and writing verse
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Who would you have liked to be? Proust: Since the question does not arise, I prefer not to answer it. All the same, I should very much have liked to be Pliny the Younger.
Your answer: Questionnaire Proust filled out at age 20: Questions which are identical or nearly identical to questions from the previous questionnaire were omitted. Your most marked characteristic? Proust: A craving to be loved, or, to be more precise, to be caressed and spoiled rather than to be admired
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What do you most value in your friends? Proust: Tenderness - provided they possess a physical charm which makes their tenderness worth having
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What is your principle defect? Proust: Lack of understanding; weakness of will
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What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes? Proust: Never to have known my mother or my grandmother
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What would you like to be? Proust: Myself - as those whom I admire would like me to be
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What is your favorite color? Proust: Beauty lies not in colors but in their harmony
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What is your favorite flower? Proust: Hers - but apart from that, all
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What is your favorite bird? Proust: The swallow
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Who are your favorite prose writers? Proust: At the moment, Anatole France and Pierre Loti
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Who are your favorite poets? Proust: Baudelaire and Alfred de Vigny
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Who are your heroes in real life? Proust: Monsieur Darlu, Monsieur Boutroux (professors)
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Who are your favorite heroines of history? Proust: Cleopatra
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What are your favorite names? Proust: I only have one at a time
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What is it you most dislike? Proust: My own worst qualities
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What historical figures do you most despise? Proust: I am not sufficiently educated to say
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What event in military history do you most admire? Proust: My own enlistment as a volunteer!
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What natural gift would you most like to possess? Proust: Will power and irresistible charm
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How would you like to die? Proust: A better man than I am, and much beloved
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What is your present state of mind? Proust: Annoyance at having to think about myself in order to answer these questions
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What is your motto? Proust: I prefer not to say, for fear it might bring me bad luck.
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This Proust's Questionnaire, slightly altered, is often found in popular periodicals such as Vanity Fair and the Guardian weekend magazine.
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