Writing to Louis de Cormenin in June of 1844, the twenty-two-year-old Flaubert sketches an ideal society of 'good lads, all men of letters, living together and gathering two or three times a week to eat a good meal washed down with a good wine, while savouring some succulent poet' ['bons garçons, tous gens d'art, vivant ensemble et se réunissant deux ou trois fois par semaine pour manger un bon morceau arrosé d'un bon vin, tout en dégustant quelque succulent poète' (Cor. i 209)]. Friendship, the pleasures of the table, the delights of conversation, above all talk devoted to literature: these are all central to Flaubert's personality, all the more important for someone who chose to lead an existence that was primarily solitary. These are also the motifs that run through his correspondence like brightly coloured threads, even when the general fabric grows dark with the pessimism of his later years.