The Message by Honoré de Balzac
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The Message
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Title: The Message
Author: Honore de Balzac
Translator: Ellen Marriage
Release Date: April 3, 2005 [EBook #1189]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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THE MESSAGE
BY
HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated by Ellen Marriage
To M. le Marquis Damaso Pareto
I have always longed to tell a simple and true story, which should strike terror into two young lovers, and drive them to take refuge each in the other's heart, as two children cling together at the sight of a snake by a woodside. At the risk of spoiling my story and of being taken for a coxcomb, I state my intention at the outset.
I myself played a part in this almost commonplace tragedy; so if it fails to interest you, the failure will be in part my own fault, in part owing to historical veracity. Plenty of things in real life are superlatively uninteresting; so that it is one-half of art to select from realities those which contain possibilities of poetry.
In 1819 I was traveling from Paris to Moulins. The state of my finances obliged me to take an outside place. Englishmen, as you know, regard those airy perches on the top of the coach as the best seats; and for the first few miles I discovered abundance of excellent reasons for justifying the opinion of our neighbors. A young fellow, app