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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: the original cause of her not remarrying. Later, her pride had drawn
comparisons between the suitors who presented themselves and the
husband who had loved her so sincerely and so well.
She had thus reached, through mistaken calculations and disappointed
hopes, that period of life when women have no other part to take in
life than that of mother; a part which involves the sacrifice of
themselves to their children, the placing of their interests outside
of self upon another household,--the last refuge of human affections.
Madame Evangelista divined Paul's nature intuitively, and hid her own
from his perception. Paul was the very man she desired for a son-in-
law, for the responsible editor of her future power. He belonged,
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