Author: Honoré de Balzac

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2018-12

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 9780483665088

Excerpt from The Quest of the Absolute (La Recherche De L'absolu), Vol. 2: And Other Stories But these things, though they illustrate the general prin ciple that the presence of a great central interest and figure will radiate greatness and interest on its surroundings, would contribute comparatively little to the effect of the book if it were not for the Seeker after the Absolute himself. No where, perhaps, has the hopeless tyranny of the fixed idea, the ferocious (not exactly selfish) absorption in the pursuit of a craze, been portrayed with quite the same power as here. And we know and feel that the energy, the fire, the perfec tion of the handling are due to sympathy - that Balzac a few generations earlier would have sought the Philosopher's Stone with the same desperate energy as Balthazar. Prob ably nothing but his prior attachment to literary work pre vented him from doing something similar; while actually, and as it was, he kept himself in lifelong difficulties by no very different persistence in the corresponding, if more ig noble, Game of Speculation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.