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The Lily of the Valley. the Firm of Nucingen. the Country Doctor (9); And Other Stories
The Lily of the Valley the Firm of Nucingen the Country Doctor And Other Stories - 9 Author:Honoré de Balzac Volume: 9 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1901 Original Publisher: Dana Estes Subjects: Fiction / General Fiction / Classics Fiction / Literary Literary Criticism / European / French Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missin... more »g 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: IV. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR'S CONFESSION "I Was born in a little town in Languedoc," the doctor resumed. "My father had been settled there for many years, and there my early childhood was spent. When I was eight years old I was sent to the school of the. Oratorians at Sor- reze, and only left it to finish my studies in Paris. My father had squandered his patrimony in the course of an exceedingly wild and extravagant youth. He had retrieved his position partly by a fortunate marriage, partly by the slow persistent thrift characteristic of provincial life; for in the provinces people pridd themselves on accumulating rather than on spending, and all the ambition in a man's nature is either extinguished or directed to money-getting, for want of any nobler end. So he had grown rich at last, and thought to transmit to his only son all the cut-and-dried experience which he himself had purchased at the price of his lost illusions; a noble last illusion of age which fondly seeks to bequeath its virtues and its wary prudence to heedless youth, intent only on the enjoyment of the enchanted life that lies before it. "This foresight on my father's part led him to make plans for my education for which I had to suffer. He sedulously concealed my expectations of wealth from me, and during the fairest years of my youth compelled me, for my own good, to endure the burden of anxiety and hardship that presses upon a young man who has his own way to make in the world. His idea i...« less