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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: aggravation of his misery. The little amount of tact which he derived
from his timidity made him fear to seem ridiculous in concerning
himself with such pettiness. And yet those petty things made up the
sum of his existence,--that cherished existence, full of busyness
about nothings, and of nothingness in its business; a colorless barren
life in which strong feelings were misfortunes, and the absence of
emotion happiness. The poor priest's paradise was changed, in a
moment, into hell. His sufferings became intolerable. The terror he
felt at the prospect of a discussion with Mademoiselle Gamard
increased day by day; the secret distress which blighted his life
began to injure his health. One morning, as he put on his mottled blue
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