Explore "The Brotherhood of Consolation" by Honoré De Balzac on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Weary of himself, Godefroid attempted one day to give a meaning to his life, after meeting a former comrade who had been the tortoise in the fable, while he in earlier days had been the hare. In one of those conversations which arise when schoolmates meet again in after years, -- a conversation held as they were walking together in the sunshine on the boulevard des Italiens, -- he was startled to learn the success of a man endowed apparently with less gifts, less means, less fortune than himself; but who had bent his will each morning to the purpose resolved upon the night before. The sick soul then determined to imitate that simple action.
"Social existence is like the soil," his comrade had said to him; "it makes us a return in proportion to our efforts."