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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: Bixiou. "You don't know anything about Paris. Ask it for a hundred
thousand francs to realize an idea that will be useful to humanity,--
the steam-engine for instance,--and you'll die, like Salomon de Caux,
at Bicetre; but if the money is wanted for some paradoxical absurdity,
Parisians will annihilate themselves and their fortune for it. It is
the same with systems as it is with material things. Utterly
impracticable newspapers have consumed millions within the last
fifteen years. What makes your lawsuit so hard to win, is that you
have right on your side, and on that of the prefect there are (so you
suppose) secret motives."
"Do you think that a man of intellect having once understood the
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