Download or read book Small Souls (Classic Reprint) written by Louis Couperus and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-18 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Small Souls This story is translated from the Dutch of Louis Couperus, the foremost novelist in a country which has lately had the good sense to join the Berne Convention. Friends who have seen my version in manuscript suggest to me that certain details of the action and dialogue strike an exotic note to English ears and may therefore need some interpretation. But I could not bring myself to burden a work of fiction with an array of foot-notes nor to believe that it is really necessary to explain to readers of Couperus' fellow-countryman, "Maarten Maartens," that Dutch men and women of the upper classes still call their parents "Papa" and "Mamma," as the English did in the sixties, and still drink tea after dinner, as the English did in the forties; that, in Holland, persons of quality are not addressed by their titles in conversation; that it is not quite correct, or that it is at least a departure from the aristocratic tradition, for a lady of family not to wash up her own breakfast-china at the table; that the Dutch speak of Java as India and sometimes marry native wives, who, nihilo obstante, are "received" by the "family" at home. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.