|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: de Vandenesse had a sense of personal humiliation in the thought that
she had once cared for him. If she had not already been cured of all
extra-conjugal passion, the contrast then presented by the count to
this man, grown less and less worthy of public favor, would have
sufficed her.
To-day the ambitious Nathan, rich in ink and poor in will, has ended
by capitulating entirely, and has settled down into a sinecure, like
any other commonplace man. After lending his pen to all disorganizing
efforts, he now lives in peace under the protecting shade of a
ministerial organ. The cross of the Legion of honor, formerly the
fruitful text of his satire, adorns his button-hole. "Peace at any
|
