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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: but, so far as I can guess, I should think she must have been
about nineteen when I made her acquaintance. My friends had
come to know her at Florence; she told them she was an orphan,
the child of an English father and an Italian mother, and she
charmed them as she charmed me. The first time I saw her was at
an evening party. I was standing by the door talking to a
friend, when suddenly above the hum and babble of conversation I
heard a voice which seemed to thrill to my heart. She was
singing an Italian song. I was introduced to her that evening,
and in three months I married Helen. Villiers, that woman, if I
can call her woman, corrupted my soul. The night of the wedding
 The Great God Pan |