The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: you quail at the thought of the danger to which you exposed yourself?
Arriving there without being bidden, and saying, 'Here I am!' before
your time, would you not have been cast back into a world beneath that
where your soul now hovers? Poor outcast cherub! Should you not rather
bless God for having suffered you to live in a sphere where you may
hear none but heavenly harmonies? Are you not as pure as a diamond, as
lovely as a flower?
"Think what it is to know, like me, only the City of Sorrows!--
Dwelling there I have worn out my heart.--To search the tombs for
their horrible secrets; to wipe hands steeped in blood, counting them
over night after night, seeing them rise up before me imploring
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