I do not seek to paraphrase the commonplace moral, the song
of songs that obscure genius is for ever singing; I want to come, in a
logical manner, by the reason of the frequent successes of mediocrity.
Alas! study shows us such a mother's kindness that it would be a sin
perhaps to ask any other reward of her than the pure and delightful
pleasures with which she sustains her children.
"Often I remember soaking my bread in milk, as I sat by the window to
take the fresh air; while my eyes wandered over a view of roofs
--brown, gray, or red, slated or tiled, and covered with yellow or
green mosses. At first the prospect may have seemed monotonous, but I
very soon found peculiar beauties in it. Sometimes at night, streams of
light through half-closed shutters would light up and color the dark
abysses of this strange landscape. Sometimes the feeble lights of the
street lamps sent up yellow gleams through the fog, and in each street
dimly outlined the undulations of a crowd of roofs, like billows in a
motionless sea. Very occasionally, too, a face appeared in this gloomy
waste; above the flowers in some skyey garden I caught a glimpse of an
old woman's crooked angular profile as she watered her nasturtiums;
or, in a crazy attic window, a young girl, fancying herself quite
alone as she dressed herself--a view of nothing more than a fair
forehead and long tresses held above her by a pretty white arm.
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