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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: her soul; neither mother, father, husband, nor children had ever known
her.--Strange truth! I stir this heap of ashes and take pleasure in
spreading them before you; all hearts may find something in them of
their closest experience. How many families have had their Henriette!
How many noble feelings have left this earth with no historian to
fathom their hearts, to measure the depth and breadth of their
spirits. Such is human life in all its truth! Often mothers know their
children as little as their children know them. So it is with
husbands, lovers, brothers. Did I imagine that one day, beside my
father's coffin, I should contend with my brother Charles, for whose
advancement I had done so much? Good God! how many lessons in the
The Lily of the Valley |
