But, alas!
the human machine does not have such divine proportions. Souls that
are vast enough to grasp a range of feelings bestowed on great men
only will never belong to either fathers of families or simple
citizens. Some physiologists have thought that as the brain enlarges
the heart narrows; but they are mistaken. The apparent egotism of men
who bear a science, a nation, a code of laws in their bosom is the
noblest of passions; it is, as one may say, the maternity of the
masses; to give birth to new peoples, to produce new ideas they must
unite within their mighty brains the breasts of woman and the force of
God. The history of such men as Innocent the Third and Peter the
Great, and all great leaders of their age and nation will show, if
need be, in the highest spheres the same vast thought of which
Troubert was made the representative in the quiet depths of the
Cloister of Saint-Gatien.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Birotteau, Abbe Francois
The Lily of the Valley
Cesar Birotteau
Bourbonne, De
Madame Firmiani
Listomere, Baronne de
Cesar Birotteau
The Muse of the Department
Troubert, Abbe Hyacinthe
The Member for Arcis
Villenoix, Pauline Salomon de
Louis Lambert
A Seaside Tragedy
THE TWO BROTHERS
BY
HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated by
Katharine Prescott Wormeley
DEDICATION
To Monsieur Charles Nodier, member of the French Academy, etc.
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