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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: receive none from it, to tame it, never to obey it. If one may ever be
proud of anything, is it not a self-acquired power, of which one is at
once the cause and effect, the principle and the result? Well, no man
knows what I love, nor what I wish. Perhaps what I have loved, or what
I may have wished will be known, as a drama which is accomplished is
known; but to let my game be seen--weakness, mistake! I know nothing
more despicable than strength outwitted by cunning. Can I initiate
myself with a laugh into the ambassador's part, if indeed diplomacy is
as difficult as life? I doubt it. Have you any ambition? Would you
like to become something?"
"But, Henri, you are laughing at me--as though I were not sufficiently
 The Girl with the Golden Eyes |