Turgenev has copied out a quatrain from the larger work reading:

“S’occuper c’est savoir jouir
L’oisiveté pèse et tourmente;
L’âme est un feu, qu’il faut nourrir
Et qui s’éteint, s’il ne s’augmente”.

The quatrain is taken from a longer work, Stances Irregulières, which Voltaire sent to Louisa Ulrika of Sweden in January 1747. The verse reads: ‘S’occuper c’est savoir jouir / L’oisiveté pèse et tourmente; / L’âme est un feu, qu’il nourrir / Et qui s’éteint, s’il ne s’augmente’. Turgenev studied philosophy and history in Berlin and grew to love Germany and its developments since the Enlightenment. He befriended writers such as Gustave Flaubert, George Sand, Emile Zola, and Henry James, and was heavily influenced by the earlier writings of Voltaire.