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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: would have to deal with the somewhat nasty gentleman who walks in my
shoes--there's what I call a friendship beyond question. Well, my good
fellow, if you should ever have need of discretion, understand that
there are two sorts of discretion--the active and the negative.
Negative discretion is that of fools who make use of silence,
negation, an air of refusal, the discretion of locked doors--mere
impotence! Active discretion proceeds by affirmation. Suppose at the
club this evening I were to say: 'Upon my word of honor the golden-
eyed was not worth all she cost me!' Everybody would exclaim when I
was gone: 'Did you hear that fop De Marsay, who tried to make us
believe that he has already had the girl of the golden eyes? It's his
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
