Book Details Title:A Moveable FeastAuthor:(6 of 9 for author by title)→←Published:1964Publisher:Charles Scribner's SonsTags:,Description:Begun in the autumn of 1957 and published posthumously in 1964, Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast captures what it meant to be young and poor and writing in Paris during the 1920s. A correspondent for the Toronto Star, Hemingway arrived in Paris in 1921, three years after the trauma of the Great War and at the beginning of the transformation of Europe's cultural landscape: Braque and Picasso were experimenting with cubist form; James Joyce, long living in self-imposed exile from his native Dublin, had just completed Ulysses; Gertrude Stein held court at 27 Rue de Fleurus, and deemed young Ernest a member of une generation perdue; and T.S. Eliot was a bank clerk in London. It was during these years that the as-of-yet unpublished young writer gathered the material for his first novel The Sun Also Rises, and the subsequent masterpieces that followed. Suggest a different description. Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was an American writer of novels and short stories. Born in Chicago, he was grew up in the prosperous suburb of Oak Park.
Excelling in English at school, he became a junior reporter for the Kansas City Star. In 1918 he joined the Red Cross and experienced the horrors of World War I on the Italian Front where he was badly wounded.
Returning home, he briefly worked in Toronto for the Toronto Star before returning to Europe with his first of four wives. He reported on several conferences and his struggles to survive and the people he met are chronicled in his book, 'A Moveable Feast'.
During this era he also published a collection of short stories: 'Men Without Women' and a novel, 'The Sun Also Rises'. These books cemented his reputation as a writer.Travelling back and forth between Europe and North America, he lived life large with bouts of drinking, brawling, bullfighting and big game hunting. 'Death in the Afternoon' relates some of his bullfighting experiences and 'The Green Hills of Africa' recalls his hunting trips in the jungle.His most famous novels such as 'The Old Man and the Sea' and 'A Farewell to Arms' helped him win the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. All of this was overshadowed by bouts of depression which he suffered throughout his life and which led to his suicide in 1961. (Chambers Biographical Dictionary)Available Formats FILE TYPELINKUTF-8 textHTMLEpubIf you cannot open a.mobi file on your mobile device, please use.epub with an appropriate eReader.Mobi/KindleNot all Kindles or Kindle apps open all.mobi files.PDF (tablet)HTML ZipThis book is in the public domain in Canada, and is made available to you DRM-free.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Court Life from Within.Project Gutenberg's Court Life From Within, by Eulalia Infanta of SpainThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictions whatsoever. “The time has come,” the Walrus said,“To talk of many things,“Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax,“Of cabbages and kings.”ILLUSTRATEDNEW YORKDODD, MEAD AND COMPANY1915Copyright, 1913, 1914By THE BUTTERICK PUBLISHING CO.Copyright, 1914By THE CENTURY CO.Copyright, 1915By DODD, MEAD & COMPANYCONTENTS CHAPTERPAGEILLUSTRATIONSFacing PageINTRODUCTIONI have endeavoured in these pages to present a true picture of Courtlife. It is a life hedged about by many restrictions; to me a great dealof it all was empty and meaningless.I say nothing of those who are actively engaged in the duties ofrulership; but to the other members of Royal families, life is littlemore than a round of useless ceremonies, from which a mind with anypretence to independence flies in relief—does opportunity offer. I haveleft behind me the life of Courts and palaces. But for many years, in myown youth, and while my sons were growing up into manhood, I fulfilledmy part as a Princess of Spain, after my marriage visiting practicallyall the Courts of Europe. I have written here of these visits and of myimpressions of the rulers of Europe, and, while I hope there is much inthis book of kindliness and sympathy, yet I have considered truth to bethe first essential in these recollections.I am democratic in my sympathies, and consider the day has gone by whenRoyalty should live behind closed blinds.
The world, as I see it, ispeopled by one big family. We are all brothers and sisters; let us knowone another better.Paris, 1915.COURT LIFE FROM WITHIN CHAPTER ITHE SEEDS OF REVOLT. Gardens of the Alcazar, SevillePadilla when she had lived at the Alcazar; and I had longed to have itfilled with water so that I might use it. The officer told me that once,after Maria Padilla had bathed there, Pedro the Cruel, in a jest, hadinvited a courtier to drink some of the water to show his devotion, andthe courtier replied, “I’m afraid if I tried the sauce, I might get ataste for the partridge.” I thought this very clever of the courtier,and I repeated the story to my governess, after dinner, and she washorrified.
It was the last opportunity I got to speak with the officer.And I did not get the bath. Indeed, at that time it was difficult to geta bath of any sort, except a sponge bath, piecemeal.
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Theladies-in-waiting declared that it was sinful to bathe; and when Ilaughed at that they argued that it was indelicate to take off all one’sclothing at once. (I imagine that their antipathy to bathing must havecome from the feeling against the Moors, who had so long been theconquerors in Sevilla, since it was part of their religion to bathe.) Ifinally got my way by persuading a doctor to give orders that I musthave cold baths for my health.These, then, were some of the material restrictions of our life. Themental restrictions were even more hopeless.
There were no books to behad. If I wrote a letter, it had to be read by the lady-in-waiting towhom I gave it to post. We had an old professor to give us lessons inSpanish, and we studied painting and music, and acquired the ornamentalaccomplishments and fundamental ignorances of young ladies who are notexpected to have minds and not allowed to develop any. Religiousinstruction went on always. We heard Mass in the palace every day, andwe should have had to go to confession and communion every day, too, ifI had not insisted that I would not go oftener than once a month. Mysisters were both most devout, and they did not sympathise with myrebelliousness.
When I complained of the imprisonment of our lives, theycounselled me, affectionately, to bow to the will of God and to acceptwith pious resignation the trials to which Providence had appointed us.I should have been happier, no doubt, if I could have done so; butProvidence had also appointed for me a temperament that made resignationimpossible, and I continued to obey the will of God by chafing andcomplaining and struggling to escape.With the arrival of March came a new horror of heat; and as the summerprogressed it seemed impossible to live through each new day. The sunwas unendurable. The soldiers on guard had to be changed every quarterof an hour, and many of them were taken from their posts fainting. Thebirds fell dead from the trees in the garden.
The air was full of anodour of melting asphalt, and even at night the pavements would be sohot that they would burn the soles of the shoes. Indoors the sealing-waxwould melt on your writing-desk. And the mosquitoes! To study, or towrite, we had to sit under mosquito bars, or we would be so pesteredthat we could not work. I was unable to eat.
I lived on lemon and water,ill with the heat and with longing for the cool, green freedom of ourcountry summers in Normandy—with the grey-blue skies and the grey-greenfields, and the shade of the deep, hedge-hidden byways. How I yearnedfor them! As one yearns for the comfort of health in the semi-deliriousmiseries of fever!
I would say to myself, “Oh, if Spain would only haveanother revolution!”Then one of my sisters, who was less robust than I, became seriouslyprostrated. They were afraid that I, too, might collapse, because Iwould not let them give me food.
My mother had quarrelled with mybrother about some political differences, and she wished to take us toFrance; but since the King was unmarried, and one of us—or one of ourchildren—might inherit the throne, it was not permitted to us to leaveSpain, for fear of foreign influences. We were prisoners for life! Itwas decided that we should join our brother in Madrid, and our mothershould go away to France without us. I was never to live with her again,but I parted from her without anxiety, since at last I had my wish—tobe with my brother. CHAPTER IIIPULLING THE STRINGS OF SOVEREIGNTYIf our fortunes had carried us directly from Paris to stay with mybrother in the palace of Madrid, perhaps I should have found myselfstill caged there.
But freedom is only by comparison; and, after myunhappiness in the Alcazar, it seemed to me now as if my life had reallybeen given wings. Our arrival was almost private; the people in thestreets, accustomed to the sight of royalty, did not make a great to-doabout us (for it is chiefly curiosity that draws crowds, I find, even tosee kings!), and the one thing that looked like a public decoration inour honour was the washing, which it is the custom in Madrid to hangfrom the street windows to dry. It was an embarrassing decoration,because the articles were, as one might say, very intimate. They made ajoke for us.We arrived in high spirits at the royal palace, and I was glad to findit not only gorgeous, but most comfortable. It had been built by CharlesIII.—as everything in Madrid seems to have been built—but my brotherhad had it modernised with those conveniences of heating and plumbingwhich our antique splendour had hitherto done without in Spain. He hadallotted a whole wing to us three Infantas (my sister Pilar, my sisterPaz, and I), and we each had our own maids and servants from Sevilla, sothat we made quite a household. He had installed in another wing mysister the Infanta Isabel, whom I hardly knew, because she had not beenwith us in France during the revolution.
She was to take our mother’splace towards us. She had been married at sixteen to a prince of Naples;she had lived all her life among the forms and traditions of royalty,and she was genuinely devoted to their maintenance. I should have beenafraid for my new liberty if I had not foreseen that her direction overus would be tempered by my brother’s indulgence. I knew that he had asmuch impatience as I for what we called, jocularly, between ourselves,the “singeries” (monkey tricks) of royalty. And so I began, with greatexpectations, what proved to be the happiest period of my life.I was able to rise early, because my brother was always up at half-pastseven, to ride in the Casa Campo for an hour, and I rode horseback withhim—to my great joy.
Then, at nine, we girls had our lessons while hemet his Ministers. Early rising is not a Spanish habit. My mother, whenshe was Queen, had met her Ministers after the theatre, at midnight, andworked with them more in the nighttime than during the day. And mybrother’s Ministers had protested against his nine o’clock Cabinetmeetings; but he had won them to it with the smiling and tactfuldetermination that always secured him his own way.At midday we lunched with him, the whole household together, a score attable, with ladies and gentlemen-in-waiting, officers, andaides-de-camp; but, on account of the presence of the latter,conversation was always formal.
It was different on the afternoondrives. Then we were alone, for he drove himself, and I sat beside him;there were just the two servants on the rear seat, and no one tooverhear us. Best of all were the visits I paid him in his apartments,where it was not considered necessary that I should be followed by alady-in-waiting, since I was under the protection of the King. Theguards only took me across the public gallery in the centre of thepalace—a soldier on each side of me and an officer in front, because inthis gallery some attempts had been made to kill my mother when she wasQueen—and the ushers, who led me down the halls, left me when I enteredmy brother’s antechamber.
He had collected a large library for his ownuse, and he made me free of it on condition that I should not tell anyone. At last I had books! And more than I could read.What adventures! I was most eager for history and philosophy, because mymind had been denied access to facts, and I read all that I could find,indiscriminately. It was probably my brother who directed me to Kant,his own education having been chiefly German, in Vienna. But my personalfavourite among the philosophers was Emerson. I suppose it was hissturdy doctrine of self-reliance that appealed to me—his insisting thatnothing is at last sacred but the integrity of one’s own mind—and,although I have not read him for years, I still remember him with theglow of my pleasure in his words.
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For poetry I had no appetite. Frenchpoetry seemed to me very light, without ideas.
And fiction, Englishfiction particularly, to which my sisters were devoted, interested mebut little. I wanted things to be true.
I could not read Balzac; I donot know why.With Shakespeare I had an odd experience. We studied him with ourgoverness to perfect our English, and of course I realised that hisverse was beautiful; but when his kings and queens spoke their linesthey seemed to me to be playing parts that had been written to make funof the claims of Royalty. My governess was indignant when I told herthat.
She said it was not true; that the speeches were meant to be takenseriously. “But no!” I would cry. “Don’t you see? Shakespeare is makingfun of us. He knew we were not so, but he could not tell it in thosedays. He is laughing at us.
He knew it was absurd.”And when we read Hamlet I argued with her: “There! He has made a madprince who talks foolishness. If he had respected Royalty as much as yousay, he would not have written it. If you have an idiot in your family,you do not let people see him. No; he is laughing at his pompouskings.” And my governess scolded in vain.
I still feel the same aboutShakespeare’s Royalties.Outside of my books I began to be most interested to understand theconditions in Spain itself. Why had there been a revolution? And why hadmy brother been called to the throne? I was told that my mother’s rulehad been too “clerical”—that the priests had had too much power—andthat when the Republicans had failed to provide a stable Government mybrother had been welcomed as a liberal King. But the story of the way inwhich he came to be proclaimed seemed to contradict this reasonableexplanation.The ladies of the Court, it appeared, had merely given money to soldiersin the army to cry “ Viva el Rey Alfonso!” when General Martinez Camposcalled out to them one morning, “ Viva el Rey!” General Campos had thentelegraphed to my brother that the army had proclaimed him King.
Mybrother admitted to me that he had received the telegram as aninvitation to an adventure, and, being fond of adventures, he hadaccepted it.He rode into Madrid, a boy of seventeen, on a spirited horse, followedby the general and his officers. The horse, excited by the crowds,pranced and curveted; the crowd cheered his riding, and the more theycheered the more he made the animal caper. Every one admired him. Hehad—what is a valuable asset for a King—a very winning smile, and hesmiled and rode his way into the hearts of the people. From the palacehe announced to the Parliament that he had been proclaimed King, and theParliament accepted him on behalf of the country. The only oppositioncame from the Carlist rebellion, led by Don Carlos, a rival claimant tothe throne.
My brother went at once to the war, and the rebellion wasput down. General Campos and his family were rewarded with lands andtitles, and my brother remained securely on the throne.I thought it was a strange thing that a King could be made in Spain onthe strength of a shout from a few soldiers; but it was the onlyexplanation that any one could give me. When my mother had beendethroned, the Republicans had first chosen as King a Prince Amadeo ofSavoy, son of Victor Emmanuel. But after a brief reign Amadeo resignedthe crown and left the country. He told me him self that he had neverfound out why the throne had been offered to him, nor why his rule hadbeen rejected. It was all a mystery to him.Similarly, I found that the way in which my mother herself had come tothe succession was as peculiar as all the rest.
When her father,Ferdinand VII. Was taken with his final illness, there was a Salic Lawin Spain by which his brother Carlos would be his heir and successor.But an old enmity existed between Don Carlos and my mother’s aunt, theInfanta Luisa Carlota. She had said to him, “You’ll never reign.” And hehad laughed at her. But when the King was plainly dying of paralysis,she put before him a paper that she had prepared, abolishing the SalicLaw; and, placing a pen in his hand, she took hold of his fingers andbegan to sign his name to the decree. The Prime Minister, Calomarde,seeing what she was doing, put his hand over hers to stop her.
Shestopped long enough to strike him a blow on the head that dazed him.When he recovered himself the document had been signed and KingFerdinand was dead. Calomarde bowed gallantly and said to her, in thewords of a Spanish proverb, “A fair hand can do no wrong.” She.