Do not mistake me. I am not yet weak enough to yield to fearful imaginings, which are almost as absurd as illusions of hope, and are certainly harder to bear. If I must deceive myself, I should prefer to stay on the side of confidence, for I shall lose no more there and shall suffer less.

In 1951 Marguerite Yourcenar publiMarguerite Yourcenard in France the novel Mémoires d'Hadrien which Marguerite Yourcenar had been writing with pauses for a decade. This novel has become a modern classic a standard against which fictional recreations of antiquity are measured. "One of the respected writers in French language Marguerite Yourcenar publiMarguerite Yourcenard many novels essays and poems as well as three volumes of memoirs.

Marguerite Yourcenar (8 June 1903 – 17 December 1987) was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist.