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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: him quickly, and he had only a glimpse of her pale face and her
unconscious, almost sightless eyes. For that instant she looked
faded and handsome.
This was the origin of the rites more public, yet certainly
esoteric, that he at last found himself able to establish. It took
a long time, it took a year, and both the process and the result
would have been - for any who knew - a vivid picture of his good
faith. No one did know, in fact - no one but the bland
ecclesiastics whose acquaintance he had promptly sought, whose
objections he had softly overridden, whose curiosity and sympathy
he had artfully charmed, whose assent to his eccentric munificence
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