文档介绍：THE COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES
THE COLLECTION OF
ANTIQUITIES
BY HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated By Ellen Marriage
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THE COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES
DEDICATION
To Baron Von Hammer-Purgstall, Member of the Aulic Council,
Author of the History of the Ottoman Empire.
Dear Baron,--You have taken so warm an interest in my long, vast
"History of French Manners in the eenth Century," you have
given me so much encouragement to persevere with my work, that you
have given me a right to associate your name with some portion of it.
Are you not one of the most important representatives of conscientious,
studious Germany? Will not your approval win for me the approval of
others, and protect this attempt of mine? So proud am I to have gained
your good opinion, that I have striven to deserve it by continuing my
labors with the unflagging courage characteristic of your methods of
study, and of that exhaustive research among documents without which
you could never have given your monumental work to the world of
letters. Your sympathy with such labor as you yourself have bestowed
upon the most brilliant civilization of the East, has often sustained my
ardor through nights of toil given to the details of our modern
civilization. And will not you, whose naive kindliness can only be
compared with that of our own La Fontaine, be glad to know of this?
May this token of my respect for you and your work find you at
Dobling, dear Baron, and put you and yours in mind of one of your
most sincere admirers and friends.
DE BALZAC.
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THE COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES
THE COLLECTION OF
ANTIQUITIES
There stands a house at a corner of a street, in the middle of a town, in
one of the least important prefectures in France, but the name of the street
and the name of the town must be suppressed here. Every one will
appreciate the motives of this sage reticence demanded by convention; for
if a writer takes upon himself the office of annalist of his own time, he is
bo