Madeliner notes

At the birthday party of Antoinette Felix-Faure, the 13-year-old Marcel Proust was asked to answer fifteen questions in the birthday book. Seven years after the first questionnaire, Proust was asked, at another social event, to fill out another.

I've borrowed his answers (and the above description) from http://hoelder1in.org/Proust/fill_questionnaire.html, where you can read the responses of (at last count) 750 other people to these questions. Here are Proust's — and mine. Feel free to add your own...

Questionnaire Proust filled out at age 13:

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Proust: To be separated from Mama
Me: Realizing that a "Dilbert" cartoon accurately describes your daily life.

Where would you like to live?
Proust: In the country of the Ideal, or, rather, of my ideal
Me: I've often said I'd like to live in a town like the one on "Northern Exposure," a tiny hamlet in the Alaskan wilderness filled with quirky, creative people who all know and rely upon each other. Since I hate snow, and am not particularly fond of other people, I'm not sure that's such a good idea, however. I'm actually quite happy where I am.

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
Me: Discovering something new and interesting that I know nothing about.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
Proust: To a life deprived of the works of genius
Me: I avoid conflict the way other people avoid bears.

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
Me: Captain America, Atticus Finch, Indiana Jones, Robin Hood and Snoopy.

Who are your favorite characters in history?
Proust: A mixture of Socrates, Pericles, Mahomet, Pliny the Younger and Augustin Thierry
Me: Marcus Aurelius, Napoleon Bonaparte, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt.

Who are your favorite heroines in real life?
Proust: A woman of genius leading an ordinary life
Me: Martha Gelhorn, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, the Trung Sisters and my grandmother.

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
Me: Eilonwy, Elizabeth Bennet, Theora Jones, Jo March and Donna Noble.

Your favorite painter?
Proust: Meissonier
Me: Edward Hopper

Your favorite musician?
Proust: Mozart
Your answer: Tom Petty

The quality you most admire in a man?
Proust: Intelligence, moral sense
Me: The ability to adapt himself to any situation.

The quality you most admire in a woman?
Proust: Gentleness, naturalness, intelligence
Me: Intelligence, self-reliance and determination.

Your favorite virtue?
Proust: All virtues that are not limited to a sect: the universal virtues
Me: The ability to consider another's point of view.

Your favorite occupation?
Proust: Reading, dreaming, and writing verse
Me: Reading, writing and mucking about in boats.

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.
Me: Myself at a younger age, with all the knowledge and experience I have gained since then. And superhuman speed.

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
Me: A cheerful and optimistic sense of impending doom.

What do you most value in your friends?
Proust: Tenderness - provided they possess a physical charm which makes their tenderness worth having
Me: A listening ear and a forgiving heart.

What is your principal defect?
Proust: Lack of understanding; weakness of will
Me: I am not as curious as I ought to be, given the wonders that surround me.

What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?
Proust: Never to have known my mother or my grandmother
Me: To know for certain the outcome of any action.

What would you like to be?
Proust: Myself - as those whom I admire would like me to be
Me: Useful and interesting. And occasionally, a velociraptor.

What is your favorite color?
Proust: Beauty lies not in colors but in their harmony
Me: Deep purple.

What is your favorite flower?
Proust: Hers - but apart from that, all
Me: Violets for appearance; orange blossoms for the scent.

What is your favorite bird?
Proust: The swallow
Me: I'm wondering whether Proust meant an English or African swallow.

Who are your favorite prose writers?
Proust: At the moment, Anatole France and Pierre Loti
Me: Douglas Adams, Nick Hornby, Kelly Link, Patrick O'Brian, and Mark Twain.

Who are your favorite poets?
Proust: Baudelaire and Alfred de Vigny
Me: John Donne, Robert Frost, Tony Hoagland and Wallace Stevens.

Who are your heroes in real life?
Proust: Monsieur Darlu, Monsieur Boutroux (professors)
Me: I meet them all the time, though my dad and my grandfather are the ones I think of first.

Who are your favorite heroines of history?
Proust: Cleopatra
Me: Abigail Adams, Liliuokalani, Sojourner Truth.

What are your favorite names?
Proust: I only have one at a time
Me: Nemesis Prime, Doctor Apocalypse and Slartibartfast. As none of them really works well with "Rogers," however, it's unlikely Nam would allow me to bestow any of these names upon our children. Maybe if we were to get another cat...

What is it you most dislike?
Proust: My own worst qualities
Me: Being interrupted.

What historical figures do you most despise?
Proust: I am not sufficiently educated to say
Me: The more I learn about a person, the more I understand and sympathize with them. Even Commodus had qualities that endear him to me. Stalin was a right bastard, however.

What event in military history do you most admire?
Proust: My own enlistment as a volunteer!
Me: The Warsaw Uprising.

What natural gift would you most like to possess?
Proust: Will power and irresistible charm
Me: Knowing when to speak up and when to keep my mouth shut.

How would you like to die?
Proust: A better man than I am, and much beloved
Me: Fighting to save my family from a zombie Richard Nixon.

What is your present state of mind?
Proust: Annoyance at having to think about myself in order to answer these questions
Me: Easily distracted.

What is your motto?
Proust: I prefer not to say, for fear it might bring me bad luck.
Me: While I often quote Bartholomew Roberts' motto — "A merry life and a short one" — I've found these words of Douglas Adams to be equally helpful: "Beware of the leopard."