Max Havelaar
23
The publisher asked me afterwards whether here I would not add what Frits had recited. I don’t mind giving some lines from it on which I want to comment later on, provided it be understood that I personally never have anything to do with things of this kind. Lies and silliness, from beginning to end! I will only add that the story seems to have been written about 1843 in the neighbourhood of Padang, and that this is an inferior brand. I mean of coffee.
“What is love that late upsprang,
To the love by God’s hand planted
In the heart when life was granted,
Ere the child’s first accents rang?
Ere, at mother’s breast, he first
Drew, scarce from the womb delivered,
Milk of life to quench his thirst,
Light that in her fond eyes quivered?”
To the love by God’s hand planted
In the heart when life was granted,
Ere the child’s first accents rang?
Ere, at mother’s breast, he first
Drew, scarce from the womb delivered,
Milk of life to quench his thirst,
Light that in her fond eyes quivered?”
