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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: Marcher's sense, gave the scene of which she formed part a smooth
and ultimate look, an air of knowing, in its immaculate order and
cold meaningless cheer, that it would never see a fire again. Her
own aspect--he could scarce have said why--intensified this note.
Almost as white as wax, with the marks and signs in her face as
numerous and as fine as if they had been etched by a needle, with
soft white draperies relieved by a faded green scarf on the
delicate tone of which the years had further refined, she was the
picture of a serene and exquisite but impenetrable sphinx, whose
head, or indeed all whose person, might have been powdered with
silver. She was a sphinx, yet with her white petals and green
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