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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: doleful refrain about the hatred of literature? I refer you again
to the perverse constitution of man.
"The Princess is a massive lady with the organisation of an athlete
and the confusion of tongues of a valet de place. She contrives to
commit herself extraordinarily little in a great many languages,
and is entertained and conversed with in detachments and relays,
like an institution which goes on from generation to generation or
a big building contracted for under a forfeit. She can't have a
personal taste any more than, when her husband succeeds, she can
have a personal crown, and her opinion on any matter is rusty and
heavy and plain - made, in the night of ages, to last and be
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