LIVE A LIFE OF NO REGRETS!!: Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

Quote from "Stepping Heavenward" by Mrs. E. Prentiss

"She says I shall now have one mouth more to fill and two feet the more to shoe, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure or visiting, reading, music and drawing.

Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other.

Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which dwells is worthy of all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other dear darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, wondrously blest!"

Monday, February 4, 2013

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

After two weeks of reading, I finally finished Les Miserables. My 13 year old daughter did it in 6 days! I have been amazed at the depth of detail in which Hugo can describe a person, a scene, a situation, an idea, the battle of Waterloo, and unfortunately when I was tired even a 19th century sewer! You cannot help but fall in love with Jean Valjean. My husband works for a county jail and when I see picture of the people in the paper who get in trouble and go to jail (especially the young ones), I often think "that is somebody's child, brother or sister". What got them to this point? Like Jean Valjean, they could have had a difficult, neglectful childhood or a tragedy that scarred them. We never really know. And like Jean Valjean, nobody is beyond the reach of a loving Redeemer. Of course, we could view him like Javert, who happened to remind me of the older brother in the prodigal son, who would never break a rule, or we can show love and mercy like Bienvenu did. It saddened me that Javert's change of heart near the end didn't lead him to repentance and Hope, but to despair and death.

The thought of children running around starving was almost unimaginable to me. They were treated like filthy, undeserving, animals. The mercy and kindness that Jean shows to the poor reminded me of the verse James 1:27 that states "pure religion and undefiled before God the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

Some of my favorite quotes:
“And remember, the truth that once was spoken: To love another person is to see the face of God.”

“A cannonball travels only two thousand miles an hour; light travels two hundred thousand miles a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon.”

“As with stomachs, we should pity minds that do not eat.”

“Ecclesiastes names thee Almighty, the Maccabees name thee Creator, the Epistle to the Ephesians names thee Liberty, Baruch names thee Immensity, the Psalms name thee Wisdom and Truth, John names thee Light, the Book of Kings names thee Lord, Exodus names thee Providence, Leviticus Sanctity, Esdras Justice, creation names thee God, man names thee Father; but Solomon names thee Compassion, which is the most beautiful of all thy names.”

"Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God."

"Even the darkest night will end, and the sun will rise."

"Laughter is sunshine; it chases winter from the human face."

There are many more but I better end here.