Death is more to be desired than a living distaste for life
     Despair of a man sick of life, or the whim of a spoiled child
     Do they think they have invented what they see
     Force itself, that mistress of the world
     Galileo struck the earth, crying:  “Nevertheless it moves!”
     Grief itself was for her but a means of seducing
     He lives only in the body
     Human weakness seeks association
     I boasted of being worse than I really was
     I can not love her, I can not love another
     I do not intend either to boast or abase myself
     Ignorance into which the Greek clergy plunged the laity
     In what do you believe? 
     Indignation can solace grief and restore happiness
     Is he a dwarf or a giant
     Men doubted everything:  the young men denied everything
     Of all the sisters of love, the most beautiful is pity
     Perfection does not exist
     Resorted to exaggeration in order to appear original
     Sceptic regrets the faith he has lost the power to regain
     Seven who are always the same:  the first is called hope
     St. Augustine
     Ticking of which (our arteries) can be heard only at night
     When passion sways man, reason follows him weeping and warning
     Wine suffuses the face as if to prevent shame appearing there
     You believe in what is said here below and not in what is done
     You turn the leaves of dead books
     Youth is to judge of the world from first impressions

CONFESSION OF A CHILD OF THE CENTURY

(Confession d’un Enfant du Siecle)

By Alfred de musset

BOOK 2.

PART III

CHAPTER I

DEATH, THE INEVITABLE

My father lived in the country some distance from Paris.  When I arrived I found a physician in the house, who said to me: 

“You are too late; your father expressed a desire to see you before he died.”

I entered, and saw my father dead.  “Sir,” I said to the physician, “please have everyone retire that I may be alone here; my father had something to say to me, and he will say it.”

In obedience to my order the servants left the room.  I approached the bed and raised the shroud which covered the face.  But when my eyes fell on that countenance, I stooped to kiss it and lost consciousness.

When I recovered, I heard some one say: 

“If he requests it, you must refuse him on some pretext or other.”

I understood that they wanted to get me away from the bed of death, and so I feigned that I had heard nothing.  When they saw that I was resting quietly, they left me.  I waited until the house was quiet, and then took a candle and made my way to my father’s room.  I found there a young priest seated near the bed.