|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: were endeavoring to rise. Social classifications ready-made are
perhaps a great boon even for the people. Napoleon has confided to us
the pains he took to inspire respect in his court, where most of the
courtiers had been his equals. But Napoleon was Corsican, and Diard
Provencal. Given equal genius, an islander will always be more compact
and rounded than the man of terra firma in the same latitude; the arm
of the sea which separates Corsica from Provence is, in spite of human
science, an ocean which has made two nations.
Diard's mongrel position, which he himself made still more
questionable, brought him great troubles. Perhaps there is useful
instruction to be derived from the almost imperceptible connection of
|
