The Clemenceau Case Author:Alexandre Dumas General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1890 Original Publisher: The American News Co. Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where y... more »ou can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: III. I DO not know how to explain the feeling vhich took possession of me when she had closed the door. I was variously impressed with what I had just seen and heard. The'greatness of art and its difficulties began to be clear to me. How many illusions I must abandon. How many things I would be obliged to learn. Had I the courage ? And then there was this poor girl, who carried from studio to studio, for a little bread, the mysteries of her beauty, and who, should she die in a hospital (and where else could she die ?), would serve upon the tables of a dissecting room in demonstrations of anatomy. Science would separate those limbs, in whose harmonious beauty art had sought inspiration. This girl left me with an unconquerable feeling of sadness. For the first time, I began to think of the destiny of the mass of wretched beings who were in no way related to me. I would have liked to be useful to this Mariette, to whom I owed my first great sensation as an artist. She was no longer a stranger to me. Of that girl from whom Constantine, for instance, would have only demanded a few moments of pleasure, I retained already a grateful remembrance; perhaps it was because I found that I remained chaste through this experience. Strange trait of character! I did not want any other person to see that body, which seemed to be mine by spiritual appropriation. It was the first presentiment of the jealousy inherent in man's nature, which creates a desire in him to make his own property forever what has belonged to him for one instant. And through all these reflections I thoug...« less