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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: True, the preceptor would put a stern face upon the matter, yet the
culprit would depart with head held higher, not lower, than before,
since in Alexander Petrovitch there was something which
heartened--something which seemed to say to a delinquent: "Forward
you! Rise to your feet again, even though you have fallen!" Not
lectures on good behaviour was it, therefore, that fell from his lips,
but rather the injunction, "I want to see intelligence, and nothing
else. The boy who devotes his attention to becoming clever will never
play the fool, for under such circumstances, folly disappears of
itself." And so folly did, for the boy who failed to strive in the
desired direction incurred the contempt of all his comrades, and even
Dead Souls |
