"The next day," says Madame de Sevigne, "people were looking for the charred bones of Madame de Brinvilliers, because they said she was a saint."
THE MARQUISE DE GANGES
The beginnings of this union were perfectly happy; the marquis was in love for the first time, and the marquise did not remember ever to have been in love. A son and a daughter came to complete their happiness. The marquise had entirely forgotten the fatal prediction, or, if she occasionally thought of it now, it was to wonder that she could ever have believed in it. Such happiness is not of this world, and when by chance it lingers here a while, it seems sent rather by the anger than by the goodness of God. Better, indeed, would it be for him who possesses and who loses it, never to have known it.
VANINKA
About the end of the reign of the Emperor Paul I—that is to say, towards the middle of the first year of the nineteenth century—just as four o'clock in the afternoon was sounding from the church of St. Peter and St. Paul, whose gilded vane overlooks the ramparts of the fortress, a crowd, composed of all sorts and conditions of people, began to gather in front of a house which belonged to General Count Tchermayloff, formerly military governor of a fair-sized town in the government of Pultava. The first spectators had been attracted by the preparations which they saw had been made in the middle of the courtyard for administering torture with the knout. One of the general's serfs, he who acted as barber, was to be the victim.
Although this kind of punishment was a common enough sight in St. Petersburg, it nevertheless attracted all passers-by when it was publicly administered. This was the occurrence which had caused a crowd, as just mentioned, before General Tchermayloff's house.
SOME FAVORITE QUOTATIONS
Air of frank good-nature which Macchiavelli so greatly admired
All passions are deceitful
Always in extremes, whether of enthusiasm or hatred
Besieged on all sides by mediocrities
Danger of driving the vanquished to despair
Determination to exact his strict legal rights
Disdainful words which brand as deeply as a red-hot iron
Doubting spirit which was unhappily so prevalent
Forgetfulness is the best cure for the losses we suffer
Fundamentally nothing is great, you see, and nothing small
God wills not that a sinner die, but that he live and pay
Influence he had gained over the narrow-minded
Interpolated according to the needs of the prosecution
Italy and Greece seemed to be mere suburbs of Venice
Jesus, Son of David and Mary
Knew how short was the space between a prison and a tomb
Let her keep the pearl for the same price she had paid for it
Madly in love-that is to say silly and blind
Method contrary to the laws of nature
More absurd the reports, the more credence did they gain
No vice which has not a counterfeit resemblance to some virtue
Prejudices, which are sacred to the vulgar
Put to the question ordinary and extraordinary
So much a lover that love imposed silence on ambition
The last thing I should desire would be to be as dead as he
To draw back was to acknowledge one's guilt
Too commonplace ever to arrive at a high position
Vanity and self-satisfaction
Very clear-sighted we can be about things that don't touch us
Without fear of being called to account
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