Alphonse Daudet, by Léon Daudet
by Leon Daudet
Format: Paperback
ISBN13: 9780217163910
Paperback|9780217163910
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. AS FATHER AND AS HUSBAND?THE VENDOR OF HAPPINESS. My father was often wont to repeat: When my task is finished I should like to establish myself as a Vendor of Happiness; my profits would consist in my success. Then he would add: There are so many men who are somnambulists and pass through exist- ance without seeing where they are, stumbling against obstacles and bruising their brows against walls which it would be easy for them to circumvent I have put this phrase in the mouth of one of my characters: ' All things in life have a side or a meaning through which they can be grasped.' But that is no metaphor. Then he would toss his head with an indulgent half smile and a sigh: There is no such thing as commonplace in the world; it only exists in people's minds. Renan is a little sad because Gavroche is as learned as he is. But Gavroche is a parrot. In his brain words have no value at all. Suppose a young person talks about death. It is very rarely the case that one notices in him the existence of that black gulf which this terrible syllable at once opens in the soul of an old man.You know the emotion which all of a sudden comes upon us at sight of some noun or verb which we had been carelessly repeating up to the day on which the true and deep-seated meaning appeared to us. Revelations of that sort are the result of the teaching of years. I am not boasting, I was a precocious mind. At an early age I understood, in my very bones, the actual value of many of the words which youth employs with the utmost carelessness and ease. Disease and sorrow produce another sort of maturity. They lend truthfulness to language. In such cases people live on their capital instead of living on their interest; for it cannot be ignored that emotions and even a somewhat bur...
| ISBN-13 | 9780217163910 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0217163912 |
| Weight | 0.63 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.43 In |
| List Price | $20.31 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 188 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2009-08-01 |
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