|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: a mistake into which superficial minds are apt to fall; but in you
perhaps it came from generosity, false modesty, or the desire to
escape from me. Vulgar minds may mistake the effect of toil for
the development of personal character, but you must not. Neither
Lord Byron, nor Goethe, nor Walter Scott, nor Cuvier, nor any
inventor, belongs to himself, he is the slave of his idea. And
this mysterious power is more jealous than a woman; it sucks their
blood, it makes them live, it makes them die for its sake. The
visible developments of their hidden existence do seem, in their
results, like egotism; but who shall dare to say that the man who
has abnegated self to give pleasure, instruction, or grandeur to
Modeste Mignon |
