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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: Ought their minds to be under restraint? It need not be said that the
religious system is one of restraint. If you enlighten them, you make
them demons before their time; if you keep them from thinking, you end
in the sudden explosion so well shown by Moliere in the character of
Agnes, and you leave this suppressed mind, so fresh and clear-seeing,
as swift and as logical as that of a savage, at the mercy of an
accident. This inevitable crisis was brought on in Mademoiselle de
Watteville by the portrait which one of the most prudent Abbes of the
Chapter of Besancon imprudently allowed himself to sketch at a dinner
party.
Next morning, Mademoiselle de Watteville, while dressing, necessarily
Albert Savarus |
