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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: tattered clothes of these poor creatures. The poor wretches loved
Popinot so well that when they assembled before his door was opened,
before daybreak on a winter's morning, the women warming themselves
with their foot-brasiers, the men swinging their arms for circulation,
never a sound had disturbed his sleep. Rag-pickers and other toilers
of the night knew the house, and often saw a light burning in the
lawyer's private room at unholy hours. Even thieves, as they passed
by, said, "That is his house," and respected it. The morning he gave
to the poor, the mid-day hours to criminals, the evening to law work.
Thus the gift of observation that characterized Popinot was
necessarily bifrons; he could guess the virtues of a pauper--good
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