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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: town like Angouleme, he made a favorite, as you shall be mine.
"Arrived at Stockholm, he installed his secretary and overwhelmed him
with work. The young man spent his nights in writing, and, like all
great workers, he contracted a bad habit, a trick--he took to chewing
paper. The late M. de Malesherbes use to rap people over the knuckles;
and he did this once, by the by, to somebody or other whose suit
depended upon him. The handsome young secretary began by chewing blank
paper, found it insipid for a while, and acquired a taste for
manuscript as having more flavor. People did not smoke as yet in those
days. At last, from flavor to flavor, he began to chew parchment and
swallow it. Now, at that time a treaty was being negotiated between
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