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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: admitted the frankness with which Canalis had laid himself bare before
him. Moreover, the defects of the man, who will always be considered a
great poet during his lifetime and flattered as Martmontel was
flattered, were only the wrong side of his brilliant qualities.
Without his vanity and his magniloquence it is possible that he might
never have acquired the sonorous elocution which is so useful and even
necessary an instrument in political life. His cold-bloodedness
touched at certain points on rectitude and loyalty; his ostentation
had a lining of generosity. Results, we must remember, are to the
profit of society; motives concern God.
But after the arrival of Modeste's letter Ernest deceived himself no
Modeste Mignon |
