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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: one of the pillars in the Church of Saint-Sulpice, weighed down by
the feelings and thoughts that oppressed him, and absorbed in the
thought of a Future, the same thought that had engulfed Melmoth.
"He was very happy, was Melmoth!" cried Castanier. "He died in the
certain knowledge that he would go to heaven."
In a moment the greatest possible change had been wrought in the
cashier's ideas. For several days he had been a devil, now he was
nothing but a man; an image of the fallen Adam, of the sacred
tradition embodied in all cosmogonies. But while he had thus shrunk he
retained a germ of greatness, he had been steeped in the Infinite. The
power of hell had revealed the divine power. He thirsted for heaven as
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