THE BOOK OF PITY AND OF DEATH. BY PIERRE LOTI. (OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY.) TRANSLATED BY T. P. O'CONNOR, M.P. CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED: LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE. 1892. [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] TO MY BELOVED MOTHER I DEDICATE THIS BOOK; AND WITHOUT FEAR; FOR HER CHRISTIAN FAITH ALLOWS HER TO READ WITH TRANQUILLITY EVEN THE MOST SOMBRE THINGS. 167144 A PRELIMINARY WORD FROM THE AUTHOR. “Ah! Insensé, qui crois que tu n'es pas moi.” THIS book is more my real self than anything I have yet written. It contains one chapter (the Ninth, which is between page 181 and page 233) that I have never allowed to appear in any magazine lest it should fall under the eyes of certain people without my being able to give them a forewarning. My first inclination was not to publish this chapter at all. But I thought of the friends I have who are unknown to me; one response from their distant sympathy I would regard as too much to give up. And then I have always the feeling that in time and space I extend a little the limits of my own soul by mingling it with theirs. A few moments and I shall have passed away; and then, perhaps, these brethren will preserve the life of the images dear to me which I have graven on their memories. |