This is John Singer Sargent's Madame Gautreau Drinking a Toast – to what, we don't know. Me, I'm drinking a toast to ten years of freedom – yes, it was on this day ten years ago that I achieved the great goal of my working life: retirement. And a great ten years it's been, encompassing, among other highlights, the birth of the two youngest grandsons, the publication of my two books, and the great move to Lichfield. More reading, more writing, more walks, butterflies, churches... Here's to the next ten years!
[Sargent's painting hangs in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It was painted a year before he portrayed Madame Gautreau as Madame X in a high-impact portrait that caused a sensation and ensured Sargent's fame.]
Bravo! (For the retirement, and for that matter, for JSS.)
ReplyDeleteThanks, George.
DeleteWhere I worked for 30 years, my motto was "surviving until retirement." I retired at the end of 2010, at 58. Fifteen years later, it's still the best decision I ever made. Sort of related: I'm reminded of something the French writer Jules Renard once wrote: "Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired."
ReplyDeleteThanks, Richard – best decision I ever mare too. And that's a great Jules Renard quote, must remember it...
Delete"The great goal of my working life" V funny. ZMKC
ReplyDeleteTrue too, and my father felt exactly the same.
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