|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: victors; it forgets the dead. Many delicate women perish in this
conflict; those who come out of it have iron constitutions,
consequently no heart, but good stomachs. There lies the reason of
the cold insensibility of social life. Fine souls keep themselves
reserved, weak and tender natures succumb; the rest are
cobblestones which hold the social organ in its place, water-worn
and rounded by the tide, but never worn-out. Your wife has
maintained that life with ease; she looks made for it; she is
always fresh and beautiful. To my mind the deduction is plain,--
she has never loved you; and you have loved her like a madman.
To strike out love from that siliceous nature a man of iron was
|