A letter
is a living soul, a faithful echo of the spoken voice.
Paraphrased
Balzac wisdom that on first reading strikes you enough you return to
cast your eye over again, and then again to take note of, only to a
moment later, as the mind still churns them over, want to add 'but'.
But...the
honest man is doubted.
But...an
echo can only be heard if the spoken voice is known.
But...the
honest man might be using his honesty to work towards immoral
rewards.
But...the
echo, if heard, though it might be faithful to the spoken voice might
be speaking lies.
But...
The
buts continue to interrupt, refuse to accept the face value of the
words; for, didn't Balzac set out to prove with his Human
Comedy
cycle, and indeed prove it, that each mortal has its own ways, of
living, of loving, of being both moral and immoral; that no human is
entirely one or the other, and that every human can be, many without
realising it, duplicitous and contradictory.
Picture credit: Portrait of Balzac in his Famous Dressing Gown, Louis Boulanger (source: Wikipedia).
Journal entry, September 2021. See Old
Man Goriot by Honoré
de Balzac (Penguin Classics 2011)
