“ The Mind can illumine in a man and round a man a light more vivid, can open his ear to more melodious harmonies, can seat him on clouds of shining constellations and teach him to question them. The Heart can do still greater things. ”
Honoré de Balzac, Séraphîta (1834). copy citation
Author | Honoré de Balzac |
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Source | Séraphîta |
Topic | harmony teaching |
Date | 1834 |
Language | English |
Reference | |
Note | Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley |
Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1432/1432-h/1432-h.htm |
Context
“The Great and the Fortunate assemble to witness the coronation of some king, whose trappings are the work of men’s hands, but the purple of whose raiment is less glorious than that of the flowers of the field. These festivals, splendid in light, bathed in music which the hand of man creates, aye, all the triumphs of that hand are subdued by a thought, crushed by a sentiment. The Mind can illumine in a man and round a man a light more vivid, can open his ear to more melodious harmonies, can seat him on clouds of shining constellations and teach him to question them. The Heart can do still greater things. Man may come into the presence of one sole being and find in a single word, a single look, an influence so weighty to bear, of so luminous a light, so penetrating a sound, that he succumbs and kneels before it.”
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