The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: emotion. But thinking his dignity as a man compromised, no doubt, to
redeem it, he said in a deep voice:
"I weep for my native land. I am an exile! Young man, in such an hour
as this I left my home. There, at this hour, the fireflies are coming
out of their fragile dwellings and clinging like diamond sparks to the
leaves of the iris. At this hour the breeze, as sweet as the sweetest
poetry, rises up from a valley bathed in light, bearing on its wings
the richest fragrance. On the horizon I could see a golden city like
the Heavenly Jerusalem--a city whose name I may not speak. There, too,
a river winds. But that city and its buildings, that river of which
the lovely vistas, and the pools of blue water, mingled, crossed, and
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