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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: welfare came in question, for me, as for her children, she found fresh
strength and sprang up eagerly and joyfully. How she loved to shed her
tenderness like sunbeams in the air! Ah, Natalie, some women share the
privileges of angels here below; they diffuse that light which Saint-
Martin, the mysterious philosopher, declared to be intelligent,
melodious, and perfumed. Sure of my discretion, Henriette took
pleasure in raising the curtain which hid the future and in showing me
two women in her,--the woman bound hand and foot who had won me in
spite of her severity, and the woman freed, whose sweetness should
make my love eternal! What a difference. Madame de Mortsauf was the
skylark of Bengal, transported to our cold Europe, mournful on its
 The Lily of the Valley |