A Chambermaid's Diary Author:Octave Mirbeau General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1900 Original Publisher: B.R. Tucker Subjects: Fiction / General Fiction / Classics Fiction / Historical Fiction / Literary Juvenile Fiction / Classics Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or mis... more »sing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: The book that I publish under this title, ' 'A Chambermaid's Diary," was really written by Mile. C/lestine K , chambermaid. When I was asked to revise the manuscript, to correct it, and to rewrite some parts of it, I refused at first, thinking, not without reason, that, just as it was, in all its disorder, this diary had a certain originality, a special savor, and that I could only render it commonplace by putting into it anything of myself. But Mile. C/lestine f? was very pretty. She insisted. I finally yielded, for, after all, I am a man. I confess that I was wrong. In doing this work which she asked of me, -- that is, in adding here ar. d there some accents to this book, -- / am very much afraid that I have impaired its somewhat corrosive grace, diminished its sad power, and, above all, substituted simple literature for the emotion and life which these pages contained. I say this to answer in advance the objections which certain grave and learned, and how noble, critics will not fail to raise. O. M. A CHAMBERMAID'S DIARY September 14. To-day, September 14, at three o'clock in the afternoon, in mild, gray, and rainy weather, I have entered upon my new place. It is the twelfth in two years. Of course I say nothing of the places which I held in previous years. It would be impossible for me to count them. Ah! I can boast of having seen interiors and faces, and dirty souls. And the end is not yet. Judging from the really extraordinary and dizzy wa...« less