Mark Twain
| Download PDF |
Children’s Books – Marc Twain – The Five Boons of Life – Contents
< < < Chapter III
Chapter V > > >
Chapter IV
“Chose yet again.” It was the fairy’s voice.
“Two gifts remain. And do not despair. In the beginning there was but one that was precious, and it is still here.”
“Wealth—which is power! How blind I was!” said the man. “Now, at last, life will be worth the living. I will spend, squander, dazzle. These mockers and despisers will crawl in the dirt before me, and I will feed my hungry heart with their envy. I will have all luxuries, all joys, all enchantments of the spirit, all contentments of the body that man holds dear. I will buy, buy, buy! deference, respect, esteem, worship—every pinchbeck grace of life the market of a trivial world can furnish forth. I have lost much time, and chosen badly heretofore, but let that pass; I was ignorant then, and could but take for best what seemed so.”
Three short years went by, and a day came when the man sat shivering in a mean garret; and he was gaunt and wan and hollow-eyed, and clothed in rags; and he was gnawing a dry crust and mumbling:
“Curse all the world’s gifts, for mockeries and gilded lies! And miscalled, every one. They are not gifts, but merely lendings. Pleasure, Love, Fame, Riches: they are but temporary disguises for lasting realities—Pain, Grief, Shame, Poverty. The fairy said true; in all her store there was but one gift which was precious, only one that was not valueless. How poor and cheap and mean I know those others now to be, compared with that inestimable one, that dear and sweet and kindly one, that steeps in dreamless and enduring sleep the pains that persecute the body, and the shames and griefs that eat the mind and heart. Bring it! I am weary, I would rest.”
< < < Chapter III
Chapter V > > >
Children’s Books – Marc Twain – The Five Boons of Life – Contents
Copyright holders – Public Domain Book
| Si vous avez aimé ce site, abonnez-vous, mettez des likes, écrivez des commentaires! Partager sur les réseaux sociaux |
- Progrès du Site semaine du 23 mars 2023
- Site Progress Week of March 23, 2023
- Découvrez le tableau “La Mer Noire” d’Ivan Aïvazovski
- Discover the painting “The Black Sea” by Ivan Aivazovsky
- Progrès du Site semaine du 16 mars 2023
- Site Progress Week of March 16, 2023
© 2023 Akirill.com – All Rights Reserved
AKirill, Learn, apprenez, translation, traduction, livres bilingues, bilingual books 