|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: cost her so much that she consulted her director, the Abbe Couturier,
upon the subject of this honest but puerile civility. In spite of the
humble remark of his penitent, confessing the inward labor of her mind
in finding anything to say, the old priest, rigid on the point of
discipline, read her a passage from Saint-Francois de Sales on the
duties of women in society, which dwelt on the decent gayety of pious
Christian women, who were bound to reserve their sternness for
themselves, and to be amiable and pleasing in their homes, and see
that their neighbors enjoyed themselves. Thus, filled with a sense of
duty, and wishing, at all costs, to obey her director, who bade her
converse with amenity, the poor soul perspired in her corset when the
|
