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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: heart and the fragments of my will; I gave myself to him whole. In one
of those touching theories of pagan religion, the victim sacrificed to
the false gods goes to the altar decked with flowers. The significance
of that custom has always deeply touched me. A sacrifice is nothing
without grace. My life is simple and without the very slightest
romance. My father, who has made his own way in the world, is a stern,
inflexible man; he treats his wife and his children as he treats
himself. I have never seen a smile upon his lips. His iron hand, his
stern face, his gloomy, rough activity, oppressed us all--wife,
children, clerks and servants--under an almost savage despotism. I
could--I speak for myself only--I could have accommodated myself to
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