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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: supplication of a mute despair. This fisherman, this mariner, this
hard, coarse Breton, was sublime through some hidden emotion. Had
those eyes wept? That hand, moulded for an unwrought statue, had it
struck? That ragged brow, where savage honor was imprinted, and on
which strength had left vestiges of the gentleness which is an
attribute of all true strength, that forehead furrowed with wrinkles,
was it in harmony with the heart within? Why was this man in the
granite? Why was the granite in the man? Which was the man, which was
the granite? A world of fancies came into our minds. As our guide had
prophesied, we passed in silence, rapidly; when he met us he saw our
emotion of mingled terror and astonishment, but he made no boast of
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