Drama on the Seashore

De Balzac Honore, Prescott Wormeley Katharine

Description

This short section of Honore de Balzac's vast story cycle The Human Comedy unfolds against the beautiful backdrop of the western coast of France. A couple on vacation have a chance encounter with a fisherman. After chit-chatting for a while, they take him up on his offer to shuttle them to a nearby island. Along the way, he recounts a heartbreaking local legend that puts a damper on the trip.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776586011
• Langue: English

Extrait

A DRAMA ON THE SEASHORE
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HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated by
KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY
 
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A Drama on the Seashore First published in 1834 Epub ISBN 978-1-77658-601-1 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77658-602-8 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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A Drama on the Seashore Addendum
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DEDICATION
To Madame la Princesse Caroline Galitzin de Genthod, nee Comtesse Walewska. Homage and remembrances of
The Author.
A Drama on the Seashore
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Nearly all young men have a compass with which they delight in measuringthe future. When their will is equal to the breadth of the angle atwhich they open it the world is theirs. But this phenomenon of the innerlife takes place only at a certain age. That age, which for all men liesbetween twenty-two and twenty-eight, is the period of great thoughts, offresh conceptions, because it is the age of immense desires. After thatage, short as the seed-time, comes that of execution. There are, as itwere, two youths,—the youth of belief, the youth of action; these areoften commingled in men whom Nature has favored and who, like Caesar,like Newton, like Bonaparte, are the greatest among great men.
I was measuring how long a time it might take a thought to develop.Compass in hand, standing on a rock some hundred fathoms above theocean, the waves of which were breaking on the reef below, I surveyed myfuture, filling it with books as an engineer or builder traces on vacantground a palace or a fort.
The sea was beautiful; I had just dressed after bathing; and I awaitedPauline, who was also bathing, in a granite cove floored with finesand, the most coquettish bath-room that Nature ever devised for herwater-fairies. The spot was at the farther end of Croisic, a daintylittle peninsula in Brittany; it was far from the port, and soinaccessible that the coast-guard seldom thought it necessary to passthat way. To float in ether after floating on the wave!—ah! who wouldnot have floated on the future as I did! Why was I thinking? Whencecomes evil?—who knows! Ideas drop into our hearts or into our headswithout consulting us. No courtesan was ever more capricious nor moreimperious than conception is to artists; we must grasp it, like fortune,by the hair when it comes.
Astride upon my thought, like Astolphe on his hippogriff, I wasgalloping through worlds, suiting them to my fancy.