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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: try at least to fling away this raiment no longer in fashion; be once
more as in the days of old!--Nay, thou art dead, and by thy own deed!'
"Is not this thy story?" so I ended. "Decrepit, toothless, shivering
crone, now forgotten, going thy ways without so much as a glance from
passers-by! Why art thou still alive? What doest thou in that beggar's
garb, uncomely and desired of none? Where are thy riches?--for what
were they spent? Where are thy treasures?--what great deeds hast thou
done?"
At this demand, the shriveled woman raised her bony form, flung off
her rags, and grew tall and radiant, smiling as she broke forth from
the dark chrysalid sheath. Then like a butterfly, this diaphanous
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