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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: had ever seen were nothing to me; but when I met her, I, whose life
was studious, whose nature was not bold, I had been, as it were,
possessed by a frenzy that no one who once felt it could condemn; that
never heart of man had been so filled with the passion which no being
can resist, which conquers all things, even death--
"And contempt?" she asked, stopping me.
"Did you despise me?" I exclaimed.
"Let us say no more on this subject," she replied.
"No, let me say all!" I replied, in the excitement of my intolerable
pain. "It concerns my life, my whole being, my inward self; it
contains a secret you must know or I must die in despair. It also
 The Lily of the Valley |