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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: been in the fencing-saloon; then as he riposted (sending the point
home this time), he added, 'There is the right thrust, monsieur!'
"His antagonist kept his bed for six months.
"This, still following on M. Sainte-Beuve's tracks, recalls the
/raffines/, the fine-edged raillery of the best days of the monarchy.
In this speech you discern an untrammeled but drifting life; a gaiety
of imagination that deserts us when our first youth is past. The prime
of the blossom is over, but there remains the dry compact seed with
the germs of life in it, ready against the coming winter. Do you not
see that these things are symptoms of something unsatisfied, of an
unrest impossible to analyze, still less to describe, yet not
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