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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: bark by every shore; but wherever he was led he was never carried
away, and was only steered in a course of his own choosing. The
more he saw, the more he doubted. He watched men narrowly, and
saw how, beneath the surface, courage was often rashness; and
prudence, cowardice; generosity, a clever piece of calculation;
justice, a wrong; delicacy, pusillanimity; honesty, a modus
vivendi; and by some strange dispensation of fate, he must see
that those who at heart were really honest, scrupulous, just,
generous, prudent, or brave were held cheaply by their fellow-
men.
"What a cold-blooded jest!" said he to himself. "It was not
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