Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé

Marie-Eugène-Melchior, vicomte de Vogüé (25 February 1848 – 29 March 1910) was a French diplomat, Orientalist, travel writer, archaeologist, philanthropist and literary critic.

Quotes

• Classic art was like a king who has the right to govern, punish, reward, and choose his favorites from an aristocracy, obliging them to adopt conventional rules as to manners, morals, and modes of speech. The new art tries to imitate nature in its unconsciousness, its moral indifference.
  • Russian Novelists (1887), page 10 (translated by Jane Loring Edmands)
• All contemporary forms of art have secret bonds in common.
  • Russian Novelists (1887), page 141 (translated by Jane Loring Edmands)
• Let us not expect Russia to do what she is incapable of, to restrict herself within certain limits, to concentrate her attention upon one point, or bring her conception of life down to one doctrine. Her literary productions must reflect the moral chaos which she is passing through.
  • Russian Novelists (1887), page 214 (translated by Jane Loring Edmands)

Quotes about him

• Vogüé was a stoic, but beneath his moral austerity there glowed humanity none the less attractive because it was veiled by reserve.
  • Edmund Gosse. Portraits and sketches (New York, 1913), page 245^{external scan}