And I did keep my brain working; I
allowed it also to lie fallow, and to absorb everything of nature
that was complex, grand and beautiful,--and from such studies I
learnt the goodness and the majesty of the Creator as they are never
found in human expositions of Him made by the preachers of creeds.
At eighteen I made my first public address,--and the next year
published my first book in Tours. But though I won an instant
success my soul was hampered and heavy with the burning thought of
vengeance; and this thought greatly hindered the true conceptions of
life that I desired to entertain. When my mother died, and her
failing voice crooned for the last time, 'Ah, la tristesse d'avoir
aime!' the spark of hatred I had cherished all the years of my life
for my father burst into a flame, and leapt up to its final height
this morning as you saw. Now it has gone out into dust and ashes--
the way of all such flames! I have been spared for better things I
hope. What I have written and done, France knows,--but my thoughts
are not limited to France, they seek a wider horizon. France is a
decaying nation--her doom is sealed. I work and write for the To-Be,
not the Has-Been. Such as my life is, it has never been darkened or
brightened by love of any sort, save that which my mother gave me.
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