The Muse of the Department by Honoré de Balzac
page 45 of 249 (18%)
page 45 of 249 (18%)
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the Andalusian ended her days, the writer came back to the ballad at
the opening: Paquita now is faded, shrunk, and old, But she it was who sang: "If you but knew the fragrant plain, The air, the sky, of golden Spain," etc. The gloomy vigor of this poem, running to about six hundred lines, and serving as a powerful foil, to use a painter's word, to the two _seguidillas_ at the beginning and end, the masculine utterance of inexpressible grief, alarmed the woman who found herself admired by three departments, under the black cloak of the anonymous. While she fully enjoyed the intoxicating delights of success, Dinah dreaded the malignity of provincial society, where more than one woman, if the secret should slip out, would certainly find points of resemblance between the writer and Paquita. Reflection came too late; Dinah shuddered with shame at having made "copy" of some of her woes. "Write no more," said the Abbe Duret. "You will cease to be a woman; you will be a poet." Moulins, Nevers, Bourges were searched to find Jan Diaz; but Dinah was impenetrable. To remove any evil impression, in case any unforeseen chance should betray her name, she wrote a charming poem in two cantos on _The Mass-Oak_, a legend of the Nivernais: "Once upon a time the folks of Nevers and the folks of Saint-Saulge, at war with each other, came at daybreak to fight a battle, in which |
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