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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: subtle influences of ideas; they never make game of real dignity; they
feel the charm of real graciousness, and beauty attracts them, for
childhood itself is beautiful, and there are mysterious ties between
things of the same nature.
"Mlle. d'Esgrignon was one of my religions. To this day I can never
climb the staircase of some old manor-house but my foolish imagination
must needs picture Mlle. Armande standing there, like the spirit of
feudalism. I can never read old chronicles but she appears before my
eyes in the shape of some famous woman of old times; she is Agnes
Sorel, Marie Touchet, Gabrielle; and I lend her all the love that was
lost in her heart, all the love that she never expressed. The angel
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