Читать книгу The Collection of Antiquities - Оноре де Бальзак - Страница 3

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 Nineteenth 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.