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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: "Madame Mignon, come now, tell us what decisive thing has struck your
mind."
"Ah, my good friend, if you were a musician you would have heard, as I
have, the language of love that Modeste speaks."
The piano of the demoiselles Mignon was among the few articles of
furniture which had been moved from the town-house to the Chalet.
Modeste often conjured away her troubles by practising, without a
master. Born a musician, she played to enliven her mother. She sang by
nature, and loved the German airs which her mother taught her. From
these lessons and these attempts at self-instruction came a phenomenon
not uncommon to natures with a musical vocation; Modeste composed, as
Modeste Mignon |
