Chapter II: My First Dress Coat11

How did I come by it, that first dress coat? What primitive tailor, what confiding tradesman was it, trustful as Don Juan's famous Monsieur Dimanche, who upon the faith of my fantastic promises, decided one fine morning on bringing it to me, brand new, and artistically pinned up in a square of shiny green calico? It would be difficult for me to tell. Of the honest tailor, I can indeed recall nothing--so many tailors have since then crossed my path--save perhaps a vision, as in a luminous mist, of a thoughtful brow and a large mustache. The coat indeed is there, before my eyes. Its image after twenty years still remains indelibly graven on my memory, as on imperishable brass. What a collar, my young friends! What lapels! And, above all, what skirts, shaped as the slimmest tail of the swallow! My brother, a man of experience, had said: "One must have a dress coat if one wishes to make one's way in the world." And the dear fellow counted much upon this piece of frippery for the advancement of my fame and fortune....

[Footnote 11: From "Thirty Years of Paris." Translated by Laura Ensor.]

One day some one proposed to get me an invitation to Augustine Brohan's soirées. Who? some one. Some one, egad! You know him already: that eternal some one, who is like every one else, that amiable institution of Providence, who, of no personal value in himself and a mere acquaintance in the house he frequents, yet goes everywhere, introduces you everywhere, is the friend of a day, of an hour, of whose name even you are ignorant, that essentially Parisian type.

You may imagine with what enthusiasm I accepted the proposal. To be invited to Augustine's house! Augustine, the famous actress, Augustine, the laughing representative of Molière's comic muse, softened somewhat by the more modern poetic smile of Musset's genius--for while she acted the waiting maids at the Théâtre Français, Musset had written his comedy "Louison" at her house; Augustine Brohan, in short, in whom all Paris delighted, vaunting her wit, quoting her repartees; and who might already be said to have adorned herself with that swallow's plume, unsullied yet by ink, but already well sharpened, with which she was hereafter to sign those charming "Lettres de Suzanne!"

"Lucky dog!" said my brother, helping me on with the coat; "your fortune is made."

Nine o'clock was striking as I sallied forth.

At that time Augustine Brohan was living in the Rue Lord Byron, at the top of the Champs Élysées, in one of those pretty coquettish little houses which seem to ignorant provincials the realization of the poetical dreams which they weave for themselves from the pages of the novelist. A railing, a tiny garden, four steps covered by an awning, an entrance hall filled with flowers, and then, opening immediately from it, the drawing-room, a brilliantly lighted room in green, which I can see now vividly before me.

How I managed to get up those steps, how I made my entry, and how I presented myself, I can not now remember. A footman announced my name, but this name, which he mumbled, produced no effect on the brilliant assembly. I can only recollect hearing a woman's voice say: "So much the better, here is another dancer." It appears they were short of dancers; but what an entry for a poet!

Startled and humiliated, I tried to lose myself among the crowd. How can I describe my dismay, when, a moment later, another mistake arose? My long hair, my dark and somber looks excited general curiosity. I heard them whispering near me: "Who is it? Do look," and they laughed. At last some one said:

"It is the Wallachian Prince!"

"The Wallachian Prince? Oh yes, very likely."

I suppose that a Wallachian prince had been expected that evening. My rank being thus settled for me, I was left in peace. But for all that, you can not imagine how heavily my usurped crown weighed upon me all that evening. First a dancing man! then a Wallachian prince! Could not these good people see my lyre?

Fortunately for me, a startling piece of news flying from mouth to mouth, spread rapidly through the ballroom, casting into oblivion both the dancer and the Wallachian prince. Marriage was at that time much the fashion among the feminine portion of the Comédie company, and it was generally at Augustine Brohan's Wednesday receptions, where all the choicest talents of journalism, together with bankers and high government officials gathered round the lovely members or associates of the Français, that the foundations were laid of most of these romantic unions....

At last comparative calm was restored and the quadrilles began. I danced. I was obliged to do so. I danced moreover somewhat badly for a Wallachian prince. The quadrille once ended, I became stationary; foolishly held back by my short sight--too shy to sport an eyeglass, too much of a poet to wear spectacles, and dreading lest, at the slightest movement, I should bruise my knee against the corner of some piece of furniture, or plunge my nose into the trimming of a bodice. Soon hunger and thirst interfered in the matter; but for a kingdom I should never have dared to approach the buffet with all the rest of the world. I anxiously watched for the moment when it should be deserted; and while waiting, I joined the groups of political talkers, assuming a serious air, and feigning to scorn the charms of the smaller salon, whence came to me, with the pleasant sound of laughter and the tinkling of teaspoons against the porcelain, a delicate aroma of scented tea, of Spanish wines and cakes. At last they came back to dance, and I gathered up my courage. I entered, I was alone.

What a dazzling sight was that buffet. A crystal pyramid under the blaze of the candles, brilliant with glasses and decanters, white and glittering as snow in the sunshine. I took up a glass as fragile as a flower, careful not to hold it too tightly lest I should break the stem. What should I pour into it? Come now, courage, I say to myself, since no one can see me. I stretched out my hand, and took at haphazard a decanter. It must be kirsch, I thought, from its diamond clearness. Well, I'll try a glass of kirsch; I like its perfume, its bitter and wild perfume that reminds me of the forest. And so, like an epicure, I slowly poured out, drop by drop, the beautiful clear liquid. I raised the glass to my lips. Oh, horror, it was only water. What a grimace I made. Suddenly a duet of laughter resounded from a black coat and a pink dress that I had not perceived flirting in the corner, and who were amused at my mistake.

I endeavored to replace my glass, but I was nervous, my hand shook, and my sleeve caught I know not what. One glass, two glasses, three glasses fell. I turned round, my wretched coat tails swept a wild circle, and the white pyramid crashed to the ground, with all the sparkling, splintering, flashing uproar of an iceberg breaking to pieces.

At the noise of the catastrophe the mistress of the house rushed up. Luckily, she is as short-sighted as the Wallachian prince, and he is able to escape from the buffet without being recognized. All the same, my evening is spoiled. The massacre of small glasses and decanters weighs on my mind like a crime. My one idea is to get away. But the Dubois mama, dazzled by my principality, catches hold of me and will not allow me to leave till I have danced with her daughter, or indeed with both her daughters. I excuse myself as best as I can; when a tall old man with a shrewd smile, stopt my egress. It is Doctor Ricord, with whom I had exchanged a few words previously and who, like the others, takes me for the Wallachian. "But, Prince, as you are inhabiting the Hotel du Senat, and as we are near neighbors, pray wait for me, I can offer you a seat in my carriage." How willingly would I accept, but I have no overcoat. What would Ricord think of a Wallachian prince without furs, and shivering in his dress coat? Let me escape quickly, and hurry home on foot, through the snow and fog, sooner than allow my poverty to be seen. Always half-blind and more confused than ever, I reach the door and slip out, not, however, without getting somehow entangled in the tapestries. "Won't monsieur take his coat?" a footman calls after me.

There I was, at two o'clock in the morning, far from my home, alone in the streets, hungry and frozen, with the devil's own self, a badly lined purse in my pocket. But hunger inspired me with a brilliant idea: "Suppose I go to the markets." I had often heard of the markets, and a certain Gaidras, whose establishment remained open all night, and where for the sum of three sous they provided a plateful of succulent cabbage soup. By Jove, yes, to the markets I would go. I would sit down at those tables like the veriest prowling vagabond. All my pride had vanished. The wind is icy cold; hunger makes me desperate. "My kingdom for a horse," said another prince, and I say to myself as I trot along: "My principality, my Wallachian principality, for a basin of good soup in a warm corner."

Gaidras' establishment looks a mere filthy hovel, all slimy and badly lighted, thrust back beneath the colonnades of the old market-place. Often and often since then, when noctambulism was the fashion, have we, future great men, spent whole nights there, elbows on table, amidst tobacco smoke and literary talk. But at the first I must own, notwithstanding my hunger, I almost drew back at the sight of those blackened dingy walls, that dense smoke, those late sitters, snoring with their backs against the wall or lapping their soup like dogs; the amazing caps of the Don Juans of the gutter, the enormous drab felt hats of the market porters, and the healthy rough blouse of the market gardener side by side with the greasy tatters of the prowler of the night. Nevertheless I entered, and I may at once add that my black coat found its fellows. Black coats that own no great coat are not rare in Paris after midnight in the winter, and they are hungry enough to eat three sous' worth of cabbage soup. The cabbage soup was, however, exquisite; full of perfume as a garden, and smoking like a crater. I had two helpings, altho a custom peculiar to the establishment--inspired by wholesome distrust--of fastening the forks and spoons with a chain to the table, hindered me a little. I paid, and fortified by my substantial mess, resumed my way to the Quartier Latin.

What a picture my return home! The return of the poet, trotting up the Rue de Tournon, with his coat collar turned up, while dancing before his sleepy eyes are the elegant shadows of a fashionable evening party mingling with the famished specters of the market-place. He stands knocking his boots against the curbstone of the Hotel du Senat, to shake off the snow, while opposite the bright lamps of a brougham light up the front of an old mansion, and Doctor Ricord's coachman cries out: "Gate, if you please." Life in Paris is made up of these contrasts.

"A wasted evening," said my brother the next morning. "You have been taken for a Wallachian prince, and have not succeeded in launching your book. But all is not yet lost; you must make up for it when you make your 'digestion call,' as we say in Paris."

The digestion of a glass of water, what irony. It was quite two months before I made up my mind to pay that call. However, one day I summoned up courage. Besides her official receptions on Wednesdays, Augustine Brohan received more unceremoniously on Sunday afternoon. I resolutely started off....

Even now I can recall the smallest details of that interview. But see how all depends upon our point of view. I had told Sarcey the comical story of my first appearance in society, and one day Sarcey repeated it to Augustine Brohan. Well, the ungrateful Augustine--whom, it is true, I have not seen for thirty years--swore most sincerely that she knew nothing of me but my books. She had forgotten everything! Everything--all that had played such an important part in my life--the broken glasses, the Wallachian prince, the rehearsal of "Lait d'Anesse," and the boots of the heavy dragoons.

GUY DE MAUPASSANT

Born in 1850, died in 1893; educated at Rouen; trained in
literary matters by Flaubert; wrote an unsuccessful play in
1879 and then a short story, "Boule de Suif," which
attracted marked attention, and was followed by a great
number of short and long stories, including "Mademoiselle
Fifi" in 1882, "Pierre et Jean" in 1888, and "Notre Coeur"
in 1890.

MADAME JEANNE'S LAST DAYS[12]

Jeanne did not go out any more. She hardly bestirred herself. She got up every morning at the same time; looked out of the window at the weather, and then went down-stairs, and sat before the fire in the hall. Here she would think of the happy years of Paul's childhood, when he had worked in the salad-bed, kneeling side by side in the soft ground with Aunt Lison, the two women rivals in their effort to amuse the child, and seeing who could root up the young plants most skilfully.

[Footnote 12: From the last chapter of "A Life." Translated for this collection by Eric Arthur Bell.]

So musing, her lips would murmur, "Poulet, Poulet! my little Poulet"--as if she were speaking to him; and, her reverie broken as she spoke, she would try during whole hours to write in the air the letters which formed the boy's name. She would trace them slowly before the fire, imagining that she really saw them; then believing that her eyes had deceived her, she would rewrite the capital P again, her arm trembling with fatigue, forcing herself to trace the name to the end; then when she had finished it she would begin over again. At last she could not write it any more. She would muddle everything--form other words, and exhaust herself almost to idiocy.

Ever since her childhood just one habit had clung to her--that of jumping up out of bed the moment she had drunk her morning coffee. She was inordinately fond of that way of breakfasting, and the privation would have been felt more than anything else. Each morning she would await Rosalie's arrival with extraordinary impatience; and as soon as the cup was put upon the table at her side, she would sit up and empty it almost greedily, and then, throwing off her robe, she would begin to dress herself at once.

She thought she was directly pursued by obstinate misfortune against which she became as fatalistic as an Oriental: the habit of seeing her dreams fade away and destroy her hopes made her afraid to undertake anything; and she waited whole days to accomplish the most simple affair, convinced that she would always take the wrong way to do it, and that it would turn out badly. She repeated continually, "I have never had any luck in my life." Then Rosalie would cry, "Supposing you had had to work for your bread--and were obliged to get up every morning at six o'clock and prepare for your day's doings? There are lots of people who are obliged to do that; and when such people become too old, they die of poverty."

She had checked certain memorable days in her life, and now and then she was able to remember episodes of an entire month, bringing them up one by one, grouping them together, and connecting together all those little matters which had preceded or followed some important event. She succeeded by sheer force of attention, by force of memory and of concentrated will power in bringing back to mind almost completely her two first years at Peuples. Distant memories of her life came back to her with a singular facility, bringing a kind of relief; but the later years seemed to lose themselves in a mist--to become mixt one with another: and sometimes she would stay for an indefinite time, her head bowed on one of the calendars, her mind full of the past, and yet not being able to remember whether it was in this or that calendar that such or such a remembrance ought to be tabulated. She placed them around the room like the pictures of the Way of the Cross--those tableaux of days that were no more. Then she would abruptly set down her chair before one of them; and there she would sit until night came, staring at it, immobile, buried in her dreams of remembrance.

One morning Rosalie came earlier than usual into her room, and said, setting down upon the table the bowl of coffee: "Come now, drink this up quickly. Denis is down-stairs waiting for us at the door. We are going over to Peuples to-day: I've got some business over there."

Jeanne thought that she was going to faint, so deep was her emotion. She drest herself, frightened and tremulous at the mere idea of seeing again that dear house.

A radiant sky spread out above over all the world, and the horse, in fits and starts of liveliness, sometimes broke into a gallop. When they entered into the commune of Etouvent, Jeanne's heart beat so fast that she could hardly breathe, and when she saw from a distance the brick pillars of the boundary-line of her old home, she exclaimed in a low voice two or three times, "Oh!--oh!--oh!--" as if something had happened to change her whole heart.

They left the wagon with the Couillards: then, while Rosalie and her son went off to attend to their business, the caretakers offered to take Jeanne over the château, the present owners of it being away; so they gave her the keys.

She set out alone, and when she was fairly before the old manor-house by the seaside, she stopt to look at it once again. It had changed in nothing outside. The large, grayish building that day showed upon its old walls the smile of the brilliant sunshine. All the shutters were closed.

A bit of a dead branch fell on her dress. She raised her eyes. It came from the plane-tree. She drew near the big tree with its smooth, pale bark; she stroked it with her hand as if it had been an animal. Her foot struck something in the grass--a fragment of rotten wood; it was the last fragment of the very bench on which she had sat so often with those of her own family about her; the very bench which had been seen set in place on the very day that Julien had made his first visit.

She reached the double doors of the vestibule of the house, and she had great trouble to open them; for the heavy, rusty key refused to turn in the lock. At length the lock yielded with a heavy grinding of its springs; and the door, a little obstinate itself, burst open with a cloud of dust.

At once, and almost running, she went upstairs to her own room. She could recognize it, hung as it was with a light new paper: but throwing open a window, she looked out and stood motionless, stirred even to the depth of her being at the sight of all that landscape, so much beloved; the shrubs, the elm-trees, the flat reaches, and the sea dotted with brown sails, motionless in the distance.

Then she began prowling about the great empty dwelling. She even stopt to look at the discolorations on the walls; spots familiar to her eyes. Once she stood before a little hole crusht in the plaster by the baron; who had often amused himself, when he was young, with making passages at arms, cane in hand, against the partition wall, when he happened to be passing this spot.

She went down-stairs to the drawing-room. It was somber behind the closed shutters: for some time she could not distinguish anything; then her eyes became accustomed to the darkness. Little by little she recognized the wide tapestries with their patterns of birds flitting about. Two settees were set before the chimney as if people had just quitted them; and the very odor of the room, an odor which it had always kept--that old, vague, sweet odor belonging to some old houses--entered Jeanne's very being, enwrapt her in souvenirs, intoxicated her memory. She remained gasping, breathing in that breath of the past, her eyes fixt upon those two chairs; for suddenly she saw--as she had so often seen them--her father and her mother, sitting there warming their feet by the fire. She started back terrified, struck her back against the edge of the door, caught at it to keep herself from falling, but kept her eyes still fixt upon the chairs.

The vision disappeared. For some moments she remained forgetful of everything; then slowly she recovered her self-possession, and would have fled from the room, fearful of losing her self-control. Her glance fell by chance on the door-post on which she was leaning; and there before her eyes were the marks that had been made to keep track of Poulet's height as he was growing up!

The little marks climbed the painted wood at irregular intervals; figures traced with the penknife noted down the different ages with the month of the boy's life. Sometimes the jottings were in the handwriting of the baron, a large hand; sometimes they were in her own smaller hand; sometimes in that of Aunt Lison, a little shaky. It seemed to her that the child of other days was actually there, before her, with his blond hair, pressing his little forehead against the wall so that his height could be measured. The baron was crying, "Jeanne! he has grown a whole centimeter in the last six weeks!" She began to kiss the piece of wood in a frenzy of love.

But some one was calling her from outside. It was Rosalie's voice: "Madame Jeanne, Madame Jeanne, we are waiting for you, to have luncheon." She went out in a trance. She hardly understood anything that the other said to her. She ate the things that they put on her plate; she listened without knowing what she heard, talking mechanically with the farming-women, who inquired about her health; she let them embrace her, and herself kissed the cheeks offered to her; and then got into the wagon again.

When she caught her last glimpse of the high roof of the château across the trees, she felt a terrible sinking in her heart. It seemed to her in her innermost being that she had said farewell forever to her old home!

GERMANY

1483-1859

MARTIN LUTHER

Born in 1483, died in 1546; his father a slate-cutter:
studied at Magdeburg and Erfurt; against the wishes of his
family, became a monk; went to Rome in 1510; published on
the church door at Wittenburg in 1517 his thesis against the
sale of indulgences; summoned to Rome, he refused to go and
published further attacks upon the Church; excommunicated in
1520 and his writings publicly burned, whereupon he publicly
burned the papal bull of excommunication; made his speech
before the Diet of Worms in 1521; taken prisoner and
confined in the Wartburg, he there translated the New
Testament; later translated the Old Testament, and published
a hymn-book; in 1525 married a nun; published numerous
polemical pamphlets against the Church; had great influence
in the formation of the present literary language of
Germany.

SOME OF HIS TABLE TALK AND SAYINGS[13]

"Before I translated the New Testament out of the Greek all longed after it; when it was done, their longing lasted scarce four weeks. Then they desired the books of Moses; when I had translated these, they had enough thereof in a short time. After that, they would have the Psalms; of these they were soon weary, and desired other books. So will it be with the Book of Ecclesiasticus, which they now long for, and about which I have taken great pains. All is acceptable until our giddy brains be satisfied; afterward we let things lie, and seek after new."

[Footnote 13: Luther's "Table Talk" found English translators soon after it appeared in German. A notable later version was made by William Hazlitt.]

Dr. Luther discust at length concerning witchcraft and charms. He said that his mother had had to undergo infinite annoyance from one of her neighbors, who was a witch and whom she was fain to conciliate with all sorts of attention, for this witch could throw a charm upon children which made them cry themselves to death. A pastor having punished her for some knavery, she cast a spell upon him by means of some earth upon which he had walked, and which she bewitched. The poor man hereupon fell sick of a malady which no remedy could remove, and shortly after died.

Dr. Luther said he had heard from the Elector of Saxony, John Frederic, that a powerful family in Germany was descended from the devil--the founder having been born of a succubus. He added this story: "A gentleman had a young and beautiful wife, who, dying, was buried. Shortly afterward, this gentleman and one of his servants sleeping in the same chamber, the wife who was dead came at night, bent over the bed of the gentleman as tho she were conversing with him, and after a while went away again. The servant, having twice observed this circumstance, asked his master whether he knew that every night a woman clothed in white stood by his bedside. The master replied that he had slept soundly, and had observed nothing of the sort. The next night he took care to remain awake. The woman came, and he asked her who she was and what she wanted. She answered that she was his wife. He returned, 'My wife is dead and buried.' She answered, she had died by reason of his sins; but that if he would receive her again, she would return to him in life. He said if it were possible, he should be well content. She told him he must undertake not to swear, as he was wont to do; for that if he ever did so, she should once more die, and permanently quit him. He promised this; and the dead woman, returning to seeming life, dwelt with him, ate, drank, and slept with him, and had children by him. One day that he had guests, his wife went to fetch some cakes from an adjoining apartment, and remained a long time absent. The gentleman grew impatient, and broke out into his old oaths. The wife not returning, the gentleman with his friends went to seek her, but she had disappeared; only the clothes she had worn lay on the floor. She was never again seen."

"Between husband and wife there should be no question as to _meum_ and _tuum_. All things should be in common between them, without any distinction or means of distinguishing."

"St. Augustine said finely: 'A marriage without children is the world without the sun.'"

Dr. Luther said one day to his wife: "You make me do what you will; you have full sovereignty here, and I award you with all my heart the command in all household matters, reserving my rights in other points. Never any good came out of female domination. God created Adam master and lord of living creatures; but Eve spoilt all, when she persuaded him to set himself above God's will. 'Tis you women, with your tricks and artifices, that lead men into error."

"'Tis a grand thing for a married pair to live in perfect union, but the devil rarely permits this. When they are apart, they can not endure the separation; and when they are together, they can not endure the always seeing one another. 'Tis as the poet says: '_Nec tecum vivere possum, nec sine te_.' Married people must assiduously pray against these assaults of the devil. I have seen marriage where, at first, husband and wife seemed as tho they would eat one another up; in six months they have separated in mutual disgust. 'Tis the devil inspires this evanescent ardor, in order to divert the parties from prayer."

Dr. Luther said, in reference to those who write satirical attacks upon women, that such will not go unpunished. "If the author be one of high rank, rest assured he is not really of noble origin, but a surreptitious intruder into the family. What defects women have, we must check them for in private, gently by word of mouth; for woman is a frail vessel." The doctor then turned round and said, "Let us talk of something else."

There was at Frankfort-on-the-Oder a schoolmaster, a pious and learned man, whose heart was fervently inclined to theology, and who had preached several times with great applause. He was called to the dignity of deacon; but his wife, a violent, fierce woman, would not consent to his accepting the charge, saying she would not be the wife of a minister.

It became a question, what was the poor man to do? which was he to renounce, his preacher-ship or his wife? Luther at first said jocosely, "Oh, if he has married, as you tell me, a widow, he must needs obey her." But after a while he resumed severely: "The wife is bound to follow her husband, not the husband his wife. This must be an ill woman, nay, the devil incarnate, to be ashamed of a charge with which our Lord and his apostles were invested. If she were my wife, I should shortly say to her, 'Wilt thou follow me, aye or no? Reply forthwith'; and if she replied, 'No,' I would leave her, and take another wife."

I have no pleasure in any man who despises music. It is no invention of ours: it is the gift of God. I place it next to theology. Satan hates music: he knows how it drives the evil spirit out of us.

The strength and glory of a town does not depend on its wealth, its walls, its great mansions, its powerful armaments; but on the number of its learned, serious, kind, and well-educated citizens.

Greek and Latin are the scabbard which holds the sword of the Spirit, the cases which enclose the precious jewels, the vessels which contain the old wine, the baskets which carry the loaves and fishes for the feeding of the multitude.

Only a little of the first fruits of wisdom--only a few fragments of the boundless heights, breadths, and depths of truth--have I been able to gather.

My own writings are like a wild forest, compared with the gentle, limpid fluency of his [Brenz's] language. If small things dare be compared with great, my words are like the Spirit of Elijah--a great and strong wind, rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks; and his is the still small voice. But yet God uses also coarse wedges for splitting coarse blocks; and besides the fructifying grain, he employs also the rending thunder and lightning to purify the atmosphere.

I must root out the stumps and trunks, and I am a rough woodsman who must break the road and prepare it: but Magister Philip [Melanchthon] goes on quietly and gently, plows and plants, sows and waters joyfully.

Be temperate with your children; punish them if they lie or steal, but be just in what you do. It is a lighter sin to take pears and apples than to take money. I shudder when I think what I went through myself. My mother beat me about some nuts once till the blood came. I had a terrible time of it; but she meant well.

Never be hard with children. Many a fine character has been ruined by the stupid brutality of pedagogs. The parts of speech are a boy's pillory. I was myself flogged fifteen times in one forenoon, over the conjugation of a verb. Punish if you must; but be kind too, and let the sugar-plum go with the rod.

My being such a small creature was a misfortune for the Pope. He despised me too much. What, he thought, could a slave like me do to him--to him who was the greatest man in the world? Had he accepted my proposal he would have extinguished me.

The better a man is, the more clearly he sees how little he is good for, and the greater mockery it is to him to hold the notion that he has deserved reward. Miserable creatures that we are, we earn our bread in sin. Till we are seven years old, we do nothing but eat and drink and sleep and play; from seven to twenty-one we study four hours a day, the rest of it we run about and amuse ourselves; then we work till fifty, and then we grow again to be children. We sleep half our lives; we give God a tenth of our time; and yet we think that with our good works we can merit heaven. What have I been doing to-day? I have talked for two hours, I have been at meals three hours, I have been idle four hours; ah, enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord!

The principle of marriage runs through all creation, and flowers as well as animals are male and female.

If a man could make a single rose, we should give him an empire; yet roses, and flowers no less beautiful, are scattered in profusion over the world, and no one regards them.

GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM

LESSING

Born in 1729, died in 1781; studied theology at Leipsic, but
turned his thoughts to writing for the stage, his first
comedy being produced in 1748; settled in Berlin in 1748;
lived in Leipsic a second time, engaged in writing plays,
poems and books; removed from Berlin to Breslau in 1765,
where he wrote his masterpiece, "Laocoön," published in
1766; in 1769 made librarian of the ducal library in
Wolfenbüttel, which place he held until his death.