The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: the circle of disillusionment, political and amorous--are capable of
following out a course like this. Felix, however, found in his work
the same pleasure that painters, writers, architects take in their
creations. He doubly enjoyed both the work and its fruition as he
admired his wife, so artless, yet so well-informed, witty, but
natural, lovable and chaste, a girl, and yet a mother, perfectly free,
though bound by the chains of righteousness. The history of all good
homes is that of prosperous peoples; it can be written in two lines,
and has in it nothing for literature. So, as happiness is only
explicable to and by itself, these four years furnish nothing to
relate which was not as tender as the soft outlines of eternal
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