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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: The sum she had mentioned was, by the Venetian measure of such matters,
exceedingly large; there was many an old palace in an out-of-the-way
corner that I might on such terms have enjoyed by the year.
But so far as my small means allowed I was prepared to spend money,
and my decision was quickly taken. I would pay her with a smiling face
what she asked, but in that case I would give myself the compensation
of extracting the papers from her for nothing. Moreover if she had asked
five times as much I should have risen to the occasion; so odious would
it have appeared to me to stand chaffering with Aspern's Juliana.
It was queer enough to have a question of money with her at all.
I assured her that her views perfectly met my own and that on the morrow
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