The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: Provencal to appreciate the sublime beauty of the desert; now that he
had a living thing to think about, alternations of fear and quiet, and
plenty to eat, his mind became filled with contrast and his life began
to be diversified.
Solitude revealed to him all her secrets, and enveloped him in her
delights. He discovered in the rising and setting of the sun sights
unknown to the world. He knew what it was to tremble when he heard
over his head the hiss of a bird's wing, so rarely did they pass, or
when he saw the clouds, changing and many colored travelers, melt one
into another. He studied in the night time the effect of the moon upon
the ocean of sand, where the simoom made waves swift of movement and
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