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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: all vigor of soul is lost; I know that."
She was surprised to hear that subtle observation and to find such
tender pity from this village rector; but, as we have seen already,
the exquisite delicacy which no passion had ever touched gave him the
true maternal spirit for his flock. This /mens devinior/, this
apostolic tenderness, places the priest above all other men and makes
him, in a sense, divine. Madame Graslin had not as yet had enough
experience of Monsieur Bonnet to know this beauty hidden in his soul
like a spring, from which flowed grace and purity and true life.
"Ah! monsieur," she cried, giving herself wholly up to him by a
gesture, a look, such as the dying give.
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