[Corelinux-public] everyt

[Stickfort A. <di...@fr...>]

Ife really is, for as to toiling from morn to evening on a wooden stool,
or a leathern chair, in a counting-house or a laboratory, that certainly
is not living. Your time to die will also come; and if you are not then
so fortunate as to have a son, you will let my name grow extinct, and my
guilders, which no one has ever fingered but my father, myself, and the
coiner, will have the surprise of passing to an unknown master. And
least of all, imitate the example of your godfather, Cornelius de Witt,
who has plunged into politics, the most ungrateful of all careers, and
who will certainly come to an untimely end." Having given utterance to
this paternal advice, the worthy Mynheer van Baerle died, to the intense
grief of his son Cornelius, who cared very little for the guilders, and
very much for his father. Cornelius then remained alone in his large
house. In vain his godfather offered to him a place in the public
service,--in vain did he try to give him a taste for glory,--although
Cornelius, to gratify his godfather, did embark with De Ruyter upon "The
Seven Provinces," the flagship of a fleet of one hundred and thirty-nine
sail, with which the famous admiral set out to contend singlehanded
against the combined forces of France and England. When, guided by the
pilot Leger, he had come within musket-shot of the "Prince," with the
Duke of York (the English king's brother) aboard, upon which De Ruyter,
his mentor, made so sharp and well directed an attack that the Duke,
perceiving that his vessel would soon have to strike, made the best of
his way aboard the "Saint Michael"; when he had seen the "Saint
Michael," riddled and shattered by the Dutch broadside, drift out of the
line; when he had witnessed the sinking of the "Earl of Sandwich," and
the death by fire or drowning of four hundred sailors; when he realized
that the result of all this destruction--after twenty ships had been
blown to pieces, three thousand men killed and five thousand
injured--was that nothing was decided, that both sides claimed the
victory, that the fighting would soon begin aga