03195cam a22003253u 4500 78518 UtSlPG 20260610134824.0 m cr n 260607r20261924utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d 24021431 UtSlPG fr iso639-1 PQ Robert, Louis de, 1871-1937 Paroles d'un solitaire Salt Lake City, UT : Project Gutenberg, 2026 1 online resource : multiple file formats text txt rdacontent computer c rdamedia online resource cr rdacarrier Release date is 2026-04-21 Laurent Vogel, Robin Tremblay and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica)) Paroles d'un solitaire by Louis de Robert is a collection of personal essays and reflections written in the early 20th century. It meditates on solitude, aging, illness, nature, death, and the craft of writing, blending lyrical observation with autobiographical recollection. The narrator—a middle-aged invalid who has chosen seclusion—finds meaning in quiet routines, friendship, reading, and the play of seasons, while offering portraits from the literary world. The result is an intimate, humane notebook of a life pared to essentials. The opening of the work moves from a tender dedication to a friend into a first-person meditation by a man of fifty who has shed ambition for the pleasures of thought, garden light, and silence. He reflects on the deceptive gifts of destiny, the sweetness and brevity of autumn, and the necessity of death, doubting personal immortality while finding continuity in posterity and in the persistence of inspiration. Ill health and nervous torment curb his powers, so he leans on small rituals—listening to birds, being read Plutarch by his cousin, and watching sun and clouds—to keep his inner life alive. He imagines a future poet sensing his presence in the house he built, recalls a nightingale singing through wartime, and accepts that long convalescence taught him resilience. Anecdotes sketch writers and leaders—admiring discipline learned from Loti, kindness and vulnerability in Rostand, the sudden death of Pierre Curie—and yield to scenes of a Spanish cloister where time’s steady tick deepens his sense of mortality. Memories of a harsh schoolmaster and secret youthful reading lead to his first novels and a wry encounter with that same master, while sympathetic vignettes of an agile swallow, a trusting toad, and a tame robin enlarge his theme of fellowship with humble creatures. Brief notes on misjudged motives, the limits of truth-telling, and an unfinished story about Zola’s creative swings close this initial section. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Originally published: Paris: Albin Michel, 1924 French fiction -- 20th century https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k8798411 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78518 119236 119236