BÉBÉ TO MINETTE.FIFTH LETTER.“As I have just received and perused your long, sad letter, I can only say, that I am ready to welcome you home. Your story was read through a mist of tears. Although, as I say, I am ready to receive you, for your own sake, I entreat you to remain where you are. Think well before plunging into poverty, and exchanging the sentimental misery of your position for the real woes of want. Remain where you are, for beneath the richly-laden boards of the great, you can never feel privation. You can never feel the savage instinct that causes your poor relations at home to fight for the foulest refuse.“Mark well my words, Minette. There is only one overwhelming type of misery in the world, and that is, born of poverty. I need say nothing to prove that our lot is a sad one. The masons have just left the loft, where they stopped up every mouse-hole, and transformed our happy hunting-grounds into howling wastes of bare timber and plaster.My mother, who knows nothing of all this, is dying for a meal. I have nothing to give her, and I have tasted nothing for days.“BÉBÉ.”“P.S.—I was begging the privilege of hunting in the neighbours’ preserves, and have been driven from their roofs and spouts. Keep your sorrows, you have leisure to weep over them, and over the sad lot of your poor sister and mother.“It is said no one dies of hunger in Paris—we shall see!”
“As I have just received and perused your long, sad letter, I can only say, that I am ready to welcome you home. Your story was read through a mist of tears. Although, as I say, I am ready to receive you, for your own sake, I entreat you to remain where you are. Think well before plunging into poverty, and exchanging the sentimental misery of your position for the real woes of want. Remain where you are, for beneath the richly-laden boards of the great, you can never feel privation. You can never feel the savage instinct that causes your poor relations at home to fight for the foulest refuse.
“Mark well my words, Minette. There is only one overwhelming type of misery in the world, and that is, born of poverty. I need say nothing to prove that our lot is a sad one. The masons have just left the loft, where they stopped up every mouse-hole, and transformed our happy hunting-grounds into howling wastes of bare timber and plaster.My mother, who knows nothing of all this, is dying for a meal. I have nothing to give her, and I have tasted nothing for days.
“BÉBÉ.”
“P.S.—I was begging the privilege of hunting in the neighbours’ preserves, and have been driven from their roofs and spouts. Keep your sorrows, you have leisure to weep over them, and over the sad lot of your poor sister and mother.
“It is said no one dies of hunger in Paris—we shall see!”