|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: Certainly the woman who can lay aside her love like a garment may be
thought to be capable of changing it. What tempests arise in the heart
of a man, stirred by wounded self-love, when he sees a woman taking
and dropping and again picking up her love like a piece of embroidery.
These women are too completely mistresses of themselves ever to belong
wholly to you; they are too much under the influence of society ever
to let you reign supreme. Where a Frenchwoman comforts by a look, or
betrays her impatience with visitors by witty jests, an Englishwoman's
silence is absolute; it irritates the soul and frets the mind. These
women are so constantly, and, under all circumstances, on their
dignity, that to most of them fashion reigns omnipotent even over
The Lily of the Valley |
