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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: The loss of the fresh and fragrant country air in which he had
hitherto lived, the change of habits and strict discipline, combined
to depress Lambert. With his elbow on his desk and his head supported
on his left hand, he spent the hours of study gazing at the trees in
the court or the clouds in the sky; he seemed to be thinking of his
lessons; but the master, seeing his pen motionless, or the sheet
before him still a blank, would call out:
"Lambert, you are doing nothing!"
This "/you are doing nothing/!" was a pin-thrust that wounded Louis to
the quick. And then he never earned the rest of the play-time; he
always had impositions to write. The imposition, a punishment which
 Louis Lambert |