Only one of all these doctors understood this, and that was Sir John Fayrer, a member of the Royal Society of London, and head of the Sanitary Department in India, who dared to say, in the midst of a flock of his colleagues bleating with fear: “An experience of more than sixty years makes me declare very clearly to you: I do not agree that death should surprise a patient; he should be prepared for it.” VI Life is, after all, such a precious thing that one must neither reject it entirely like those lazy egoists, who soften and contract it to such a degree that it loses all its value; nor partly reject it like those vigorous egoists, who claim to subordinate it to their choice. The very act of opening one’s eyes to the light of day involves a debt of gratitude to those who have permitted us to see it. Formerly in the French family there was no doubt as to the goodness of life. The old French family wrote its own story in its “commonplace books.” These commonplace books were humble volumes of accounts, but it soon became the custom to jot down, besides the record of expenditure, the most important facts of private life, such as marriages, deaths, births. Then there were added a few reflections, which sufficed to express a whole range of feeling, a complete conception of life. We have a great number of these books. They recall the time of our fathers and speak to us with the majesty of a last will and testament. It is the gospel of the wise. And it preaches faith in life to those who are inspired by their fathers and are content to be worthy successors to them. Though one should run through them all, one would not find a single denial of the goodness of life. These workmen, farmers, merchants, always welcome a new-born child with an expression of joy, even if he comes after many others. The forms of baptism are all acts of faith like the one that I came across in the book of Pagès, a merchant of Amiens, who is celebrating the birth of a ninth child: “The divine goodness, continuing to shed its blessings on our marriage, has favored us with the birth of a son.” In the same way, the domestic diary of Joseph de Sudre, of Avignon, is the story--I should say, the epic--of his efforts, his privations, his savings, in order to be able to bring up his numerous offspring. In spite of adverse circumstances and bad harvests, he neglects nothing that contributes to that end. The old French language used only one word to describe the maternal feeding and moral education of the child. It was the verb _nourrir_, to “bring up,” which we have degraded. Our Joseph de Sudre loses his son, a captain in the King’s service, a man of great promise. After his short and pathetic funeral speech he adds; “I have suffered poverty for him with joy.”