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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: stinging pity.
These thoughts, to which the codes of social life had accustomed her,
and the sort of consideration more wounding than insult shown to her
by the world,--a consideration which increases a misfortune by making
it apparent,--oppressed Mademoiselle de Temninck with a constant sense
of embarrassment, which drove back into her soul its happiest
expression, and chilled and stiffened her attitudes, her speech, her
looks. Loving and beloved, she dared to be eloquent or beautiful only
when alone. Unhappy and oppressed in the broad daylight of life, she
might have been enchanting could she have expanded in the shadow.
Often, to test the love thus offered to her, and at the risk of losing
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