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The Five Boons of Life · The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain

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  Speaker 1: Section twelve of The thirty thousand Dollar Bequest and Other Stories.
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  Speaker 1: This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. The thirty thousand Dollar Bequest and
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  Speaker 1: Other Stories by Mark Twain, Section twelve, The Five Boons
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  Speaker 1: of Life. Chapter one. In the morning of life came
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  Speaker 1: a good fairy with her basket and said, here are gifts.
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  Speaker 1: Take one, leave the others, and be wary. Choose wisely, Oh,
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  Speaker 1: choose wisely, for only one of them is valuable. The
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  Speaker 1: gifts were five fame, love, riches, pleasure, death. The youth
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  Speaker 1: said eagerly, there is no need to consider, and he
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  Speaker 1: chose pleasure. He went out into the world and sought
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  Speaker 1: out the pleasures that youth delights in. But each, in
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  Speaker 1: its turn was shown lived in disappointing, vain and empty,
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  Speaker 1: and each departing mocked him. In the end, he said,
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  Speaker 1: these years I have wasted. If I could but choose again,
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  Speaker 1: I would choose wisely. Chapter two, the fairy appeared and said,
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  Speaker 1: four of the gifts remain. Choose once more, and oh, remember,
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  Speaker 1: time is flying, and only one of them is precious.
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  Speaker 1: The man considered long, then chose love, and did not
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  Speaker 1: mark the tears that rose in the fairy's eyes. After many,
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  Speaker 1: many years, the man sat by a coffin in an
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  Speaker 1: empty home, and he communed with himself, saying, one by
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  Speaker 1: one they have gone away and left me, And now
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  Speaker 1: she lies here, the dearest and the last desolation after
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  Speaker 1: desolation has swept over me. For each hour of happiness,
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  Speaker 1: the treacherous traitor Love has sold me. I have paid
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  Speaker 1: a thousand hours of grief out of my heart of hearts,
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  Speaker 1: I curse him. Chapter three. Choose again, It was the
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  Speaker 1: fairy speaking, the years have taught you wisdom. Surely it
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  Speaker 1: must be so. Three gifts remain. Only one of them
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  Speaker 1: has any worth. Remember it and choose warily. The man
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  Speaker 1: reflected long, then chose fame, and the fairy, sighing, went
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  Speaker 1: her way. Years went by, and she came again and
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  Speaker 1: stood behind the man where he sat solitary in the
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  Speaker 1: fading day, thinking, and she knew his thought. My name
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  Speaker 1: has filled the world, and its praises were on every tongue,
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  Speaker 1: and it seemed well with me for a little while,
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  Speaker 1: how little a while it was. Then came envy, then detraction,
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  Speaker 1: then calumny, then hate, than persecution, than derision, which is
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  Speaker 1: the beginning of the end. And last of all came pity,
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  Speaker 1: which is the funeral of fame. Oh, the bitterness and
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  Speaker 1: misery of renown, target for mud in its prime, for contempt,
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  Speaker 1: and compassion in its decay. Chapter four, choose yet again,
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  Speaker 1: it was the fairy's voice. Two gifts remain, and do
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  Speaker 1: not despair. In the beginning there was but one that
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  Speaker 1: was precious, and it is still here, wealth, which is power.
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  Speaker 1: How blind, I was said the man. Now at last
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  Speaker 1: life will be worth the living. I will spend, squander, dazzle.
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  Speaker 1: These mockers and despisers will crawl in the dirt before me,
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  Speaker 1: and I will feed my hungry heart with their envy.
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  Speaker 1: I will have all luxuries, all joys, all enchantments of
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  Speaker 1: the spirit, all contentments of the body that man holds dear.
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  Speaker 1: I will buy by by deference, respect, esteem, worship, every
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  Speaker 1: pinchback grace of life. The market of trivial world can
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  Speaker 1: furnish forth. I have lost much time and chosen badly heretofore,
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  Speaker 1: but let that pass. I was ignorant then and could
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  Speaker 1: but take for best what seemed so. Three short years
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  Speaker 1: went by, and a day came when the man sat
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  Speaker 1: shivering in a mean garret, and he was gaunt and
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  Speaker 1: wan and hollow, wide, and clothed in rags, and he
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  Speaker 1: was gnawing a dry crust and mumbling, curse all the
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  Speaker 1: world's gifts for mockeries and gilded lies, and miscalled every one.
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  Speaker 1: They are not gifts, but merely lendings pleasure, love, fame, riches.
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  Speaker 1: They are but temporary disguises for lasting realities, pain, grief, shame, poverty.
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  Speaker 1: The fairy said, true, in all her store, there was
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  Speaker 1: but one gift which was precious, only one that was
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  Speaker 1: not valueless. How poor and cheap and mean. I know
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  Speaker 1: those others now to be compared with that innestimable one,
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  Speaker 1: that dear and sweet and kindly, one that steeps in
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  Speaker 1: dreamless and enduring sleep. The pains that persecute the body,
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  Speaker 1: and the shames and griefs that eat the mind and
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  Speaker 1: heart bring it. I am weary. I would rest. Chapter five,
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  Speaker 1: the fairy King bringing again four of the gifts. But
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  Speaker 1: death was wanting. She said, I gave it to a
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  Speaker 1: mother's pet, a little child. It was ignorant, but trusted me,
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  Speaker 1: asking me to choose for it. You did not ask
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  Speaker 1: me to choose. Oh, miserable me, What is left for me?
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  Speaker 1: What not? Even you have deserved the wanton insult of
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  Speaker 1: old age. End of section twelve, Recording by Tricia G.