Andre Gide ,”Journals, 1889-1949 .1918 Journal
All great works of art are rather difficult to access. The reader who thinks them easy has failed to penetrate the heart of the work. That mysterious heart that has no need of obscurity to defend itself against overbold approach; clarity does this well enough.
Very great clarity , as it often happens for the most beautiful works of French art, by Rameau, Moliere, or Poussin, is to defend a work, the most specious girdle; you come to doubt whether there is any secret there ; it seems you touch the depths at once.
But ten years later you return to it and enter still more deeply.
It is for this reason that the French language at first seems childishly easy to learn ,
Then more and more difficult as you begin to hear it better.
Andre Gide.
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