In a valedictory preface to the sixth volume of his journals, published in 1892, Edmond de Goncourt divides truth into three distinct types. There is the absolute truth transcending every other kind of reality, there are those agreeable circumstances nobody objects to hearing mentioned, and finally there are certain disagreeable facts which hardly anyone can tolerate. ‘In this last volume I have tried, to the best of my ability,’ he writes, ‘to serve up to people the agreeable truth. The other sort, which will be absolute, must appear 20 years after my death.’

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