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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: the historian's task to find out; but you will undoubtedly perish as
the reward of not having the youth of France to lend you its strength
and energy; for having hated really capable men; for not having
lovingly chosen them from this noble generation; for having in all
cases preferred mediocrity.
"You have come to ask my support, but you are an atom in that decrepit
heap which is made hideous by self-interest, which trembles and
squirms, and, because it is so mean, tries to make France mean too. My
strong nature, my ideas, would work like poison in you; twice you have
tricked me, twice have I overthrown you. If we unite a third time, it
must be a very serious matter. I should kill myself if I allowed
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