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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: to solve the problem of his destiny by a life of ecstasy, adopting an
almost vegetative attitude, like an anchorite of the early Church, and
abdicating the empire of the intellectual world.
This letter seems to hint at such a scheme, which is a temptation to
all lofty souls at periods of social reform. But is not this purpose,
in some cases, the result of a vocation? Do not some of them endeavor
to concentrate their powers by long silence, so as to emerge fully
capable of governing the world by word or by deed? Louis must,
assuredly, have found much bitterness in his intercourse with men, or
have striven hard with Society in terrible irony, without extracting
anything from it, before uttering so strident a cry, and expressing,
Louis Lambert |
