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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: his wife is being courted. So be it. But the high renown of Madame de
l'Estorade's virtue, her cold and rather calculating good sense, which
often served to balance the ardent and passionate impetuosity of one
you knew well,--what of that? And will you not grant that motherhood
as it appears in that lady--pushed to a degree of fervor which I might
almost call fanaticism--would be to her an infallible preservative?
So much for her. But it is not, I see, for her tranquillity, it is
mine for which your friendship is concerned; if Pygmalion had not
succeeded in giving life to his statue, a pretty life his love would
have made him!
To your charitable solicitude I must answer, (1) by asserting my
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