The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Choice of Life, by Georgette Leblanc,
Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos

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Title: The Choice of Life

Author: Georgette Leblanc

Release Date: August 26, 2007 [eBook #22411]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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THE CHOICE OF LIFE

by

GEORGETTE LEBLANC

Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos

[Illustration: Georgette Leblanc]

New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1914

Copyright, 1914, by
Dodd, Mead and Company
Published, March, 1914

Women are ever divided by a miserable distrust, whereas all their
weaknesses intertwined might make for their lives a crown of love and
strength and beauty....

How one of them strove to deliver her unhappy friend, the words which
she spoke to her, the examples which she set before her, the joys which
she offered her: these are what I have tried to record in this book.

G.L.

PART THE FIRST

CHAPTER I

1

Here in the garden, close to the quiet house, I sit thinking of that
strange meeting in the village. A blackbird at regular intervals sings
the same refrain, which is taken up by others in the distance. The
lily's chalice gleams under the blazing sun; and the humbler flowers
meekly droop their heads. White butterflies are everywhere, flitting
restlessly hither and thither. So fierce is the splendour of the day
that I cannot raise my eyes to the summit of the trees; and my quivering
lids show me the whole sky through my lashes.

Thereupon it seems to me that the emotion which bursts from my heart,
like a too-brilliant light, compels me to close th