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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: fleshly power. Thy linen vestments, thy couch of moss, the cell in the
rock, bright with rays of the Light Divine, was forsaken; thou hast
sparkled with diamonds, and shone with the glitter of luxury and
pride. Then, grown bold and insolent, seizing and overturning all
things in thy course like a courtesan eager for pleasure in her days
of splendor, thou hast steeped thyself in blood like some queen
stupefied by empery. Dost thou not remember to have been dull and
heavy at times, and the sudden marvelous lucidity of other moments; as
when Art emerges from an orgy? Oh! poet, painter, and singer, lover of
splendid ceremonies and protector of the arts, was thy friendship for
art perchance a caprice, that so thou shouldst sleep beneath
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