|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: helped the children to make paper boats with their alphabets much
oftener than he taught them how to spell; he scolded them in so
remarkable a manner for pilfering fruit that his lectures might really
have passed for lessons on the best way of scaling the walls. From
teacher he became a postman. In this capacity, which serves as a
refuge to many an old soldier, Pere Fourchon was daily reprimanded.
Sometimes he forgot the letters in a tavern, at other times he kept
them in his pocket. When he was drunk he left those for one village in
another village; when he was sober he read them. Consequently, he was
soon dismissed. No longer able to serve the State, Pere Fourchon ended
by becoming a manufacturer. In the country a poor man can always get
|