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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: Urged by a mind that seemed as aggressive as the heart was lovable,
the truly chivalrous feelings of the poor secretary gave themselves
free play in these suppressed letters, which seem, perhaps, more
beautiful than they really are, because the imagination is charmed by
a sense of the communion of two free souls. Ernest's whole life was
now wrapped up in these sweet scraps of paper; they were to him what
banknotes are to a miser; while in Modeste's soul a deep love took the
place of her delight in agitating a glorious life, and being, in spite
of distance, its mainspring. Ernest's heart was the complement of
Canalis's glory. Alas! it often takes two men to make a perfect lover,
just as in literature we compose a type by collecting the
Modeste Mignon |
