Anatole France

“ I declare I believe Miss Genseigne’s school is the best school for girls anywhere in the world. I maintain that those who believe and say the contrary are false and misleading. All Miss Genseigne’s scholars are well-behaved and diligent. There is nothing so pleasant as to see them, with their little stiff bodies and their heads so erect. You would say they were so many little bottles into which Miss Genseigne was pouring knowledge. ”

“ They see more than the thin blue line of boundary between the sky and sea. The ocean does not interest them for its fine changing colors, nor the sky for the huge grotesque shapes of its clouds. What they see off there in space is something more real to them than the tint of waters and the face of the clouds: something that they love. ”

“ One is not always heard when one speaks of justice. She tried in every way to favor the weaker ones, and encourage the timid, but she did not succeed with them. No matter how she tried she fed the fat at the expense of the thin. It made her very sorry: simple child that she was, she did not know it was the way of the world.
Crumb by crumb the slice of bread all went to the little singers, and Fanny went into her grandmother’s house again quite pleased. ”

“ They sing an old song that their grandmothers sang when they were little girls and which one day their children’s children will sing, for songs are frail immortals which fly from lip to lip throughout the ages. The lips that sing them lose their color and are silent one after the other, but the songs are always on the wing. There are songs that come down to us from a time when all the men were shepherds and all the women shepherdesses—which tell us of nothing but sheep and wolves. ”

“ She knows as many fables as Miss Genseigne herself. She knows all the story of the Crow and the Fox, of the Ass and the Little Dog, of the Cock and the Pullet. It never surprises her to hear it said that the animals talked in the olden days. She would be more surprised to hear that they did not talk any more. She is quite sure that she understands the language of her big dog Tom, and of little Cheep her canary. And she is right, too. Animals have always talked, and always will talk, but they talk only to their friends. Rose Benoit loves them and they love her. ”

“ May your hobby horse conduct you safely through the world. May you never have a hobby more dangerous. Little or great we all ride. Who has not his hobby?
Men’s hobbies ride like mad through all the ways of life; one makes a bid for glory, another for pleasure; many of them jump from high places and break their rider’s necks. I hope when you are grown up, little Roger, you will bestride two hobby horses that will keep you always in the right path: one lively, the other quiet; both beautiful—courage and kindness.
[20] COURAGE
Louisa and Frederick have gone to school along the village street. ”

“ Some of them, ranged in a circle at her feet, waited till the crumbs fell near their little beaks. They were philosophers. There were others who circled neatly around her in the air, and one even who came and actually pecked at the slice of bread in her hand.
She crumbled the bread and threw the crumbs to them all. But they didn’t all eat it, because as Fanny could see, the boldest and cleverest left nothing for the others.
“It isn’t right,” she said to them; “each one must take his turn.” ”

“ You have not to sustain your costumes by actions or even by your words.
It would not be very amusing to wear a hero’s dress if you had to show his courage too. The hearts of heroes are torn in all sorts of ways. ”

“ Grandmother knows better than any one how to make ham omelettes and tell stories. Fanny, seated on the little stove, her cheek no higher than the table, eats the steaming omelette and drinks sparkling cider. Grandmother, however, as her habit is, eats standing near the corner of the hearth. She holds her knife in her right hand, and in the other her snack spread on a crust of bread. ”

“ To tell the truth his appearance is a little tousled: one tail feather is missing, lost in a fight, that is unless he has encountered some bad fairy in the village. Fanny suspects him of having a bad head; but she is a girl, and it does not worry her that her cock sparrow has a bad head if his heart is good. She pets him and calls him pretty names. All of a sudden he grows bigger and longer: his wings change into two arms. ”

“ She is alone in the little room. The dawn, shining through the little flowered curtain, spreads its innocent light on the bed. She hears the birds singing in the garden. She jumps out of bed in her nightgown, opens the window, and there in the garden, among the roses and geraniums and morning glories, are the little bird beggars, the little musicians of last night, sitting in a row on the fence rail and giving her a morning song to pay for their crumbs of bread.
[10] THE FANCY DRESS PARTY
Here are little boys like knights of old, and little girls who are heroines. ”

“ And grandmother tells her story of the blue bird, how a wicked fairy changed a beautiful young prince into a bird the color of the deep sky, and of the great sorrow the princess felt when she saw the change and beheld her lover flying all ruddy and dripping toward the window of the tower in which she was shut up. ”

“ MARY
Little girls have a natural desire to gather flowers and stars. But stars won’t let themselves be picked and so seem to teach little girls that in this world there are some desires that are destined never to be satisfied. ”

“ At something which has disappeared below the horizon, something which they can’t see any more but still see in their mind’s eye, and which still dazzles them. Little John has forgotten his eel-skin whip with which just now he incessantly beat up his wooden shoes in the dusty road. ”

“ She tries to smell it but can smell nothing. She is not clever at smelling perfumes. Not so very, very long ago she used to breathe over the roses instead of sniffing them in. We must not laugh at her for that: one can’t learn everything at once. Besides, she might have had, like her mother, a very subtle sense of smell that could smell nothing. The flower of the hortensia has no odor. That is why one grows tired of it, in spite of its beauty. But Miss Mary thinks: “This flower is made of sugar, maybe.” ”

“ That’s why there’s no fun like a fancy ball where the costumes are fine enough. You feel grand just by wearing them. See how well all the pretty company wears its plumes and cloaks. What a fine and gallant air they have, how well they look and how much old time grace they can display. ”

“ It is a situation upon which I invite you to meditate, for it is yours, as it is mine or any one in the world’s. Each one of us, just like James, may consider himself great or small, according as his neighbor cuts a big or little figure in the world. ”

“ They are little sailors, real little sea dogs, every one. Look how they pull their caps down low on their necks so that the sea wind, misty and whistling, shall not split their ears with its terrible groanings. ”

“ Their hearts too are of the same stuff as their father’s—simple, patient and full of courage. Since they came into the world they have been simple and big of heart. Who has made them so? After God and their fathers and mothers it is the ocean. The ocean teaches sailors courage through danger—a rude benefactor. ”

“ A good hostess is equally polite to all her guests. She treats them all with consideration, and if she shows any preference it is for those who are most modest and least fortunate. One must flatter the unfortunate: it is the only flattery that is permissible. ”

“ But soon she perceives that they are after bread, like little beggars. They are indeed beggars, but they are also songsters. Fanny was too kindhearted [5] to refuse them bread when they paid for it with songs. She was only a little farmer’s girl and she did not know that once upon a time, in a country where white rocks bathe in the blue sea, a blind old man earned his bread singing songs to the shepherds, songs that learned men admire even to this day. ”

“ She has found the true politeness—which comes from the heart. She serves tea to her guests, and remembers every one. Indeed, she insists especially with those dollies that are poor or unhappy or shy that they take some invisible cakes or sandwiches made of dominos. ”

“ He’s a fierce dog, the pig man’s. And so, as far away as Frederick can see him in the doorway, he picks up a big stone, following the example of men he has seen arm themselves in this way against surly dogs, and goes hugging the wall of the house across the street from the pig butcher’s closely. ”