The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: priest chose, in a family council, one of those honest dullards,
picked out by him through the windows of his confessional, and charged
him with the administration of the fortune, the revenues of which he
was willing to apply to the needs of the community, but of which he
wished to preserve the capital.
Towards the end of 1814, then, Henri de Marsay had no sentiment of
obligation in the world, and was as free as an unmated bird. Although
he had lived twenty-two years he appeared to be barely seventeen. As a
rule the most fastidious of his rivals considered him to be the
prettiest youth in Paris. From his father, Lord Dudley, he had derived
a pair of the most amorously deceiving blue eyes; from his mother the
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |