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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: castles in the air, such as we all make with eager delight during the
moments preceding sleep, an hour when images rise in our minds
confusedly, and often, in the silence of the night, thought acquires
some magical power. He gratified his mother's wishes; he bought the
thirty acres of meadow land; he married a young lady of Beauvais to
whom his present want of fortune forbade him to aspire. With a hundred
thousand francs he planned a lifetime of happiness; he saw himself
prosperous, the father of a family, rich, respected in his province,
and, possibly, mayor of Beauvais. His brain heated; he searched for
means to turn his fictions to realities. He began with extraordinary
ardor to plan a crime theoretically. While fancying the death of the
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