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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: fortune matched his learning and his merits; only the day before his
youthful and fervid eloquence had dazzled the Assembly. At this moment
he stood before the Countess, free, and graced with all the advantages
she had formerly required of her ideal. Every mother with a daughter
to marry made amiable advances to a man gifted with the virtues which
they attributed to him, as they admired his attractive person; but
Emilie knew, better than any one, that the Vicomte de Longueville had
the steadfast nature in which a wise woman sees a guarantee of
happiness. She looked at the admiral who, to use his favorite
expression, seemed likely to hold his course for a long time yet, and
cursed the follies of her youth.
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