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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: the man I am, and expressing, in all their sacred crudity, the ideas
which I think sound and just. I know very well that before an audience
plain, honest truth may fail to be contagious or even welcome. But
have you never remarked that, by using our opportunities wisely, we
finally meet with days which may be called the festivals of morality
and intelligence, days on which, naturally and almost without effort,
the thought of good triumphs?
I do not, however, conceal from myself that, although I may reach to
some reputation as an orator, such a course will never lead to a
ministry, and that it does not bestow that reputation of being a
practical man to which it is now the fashion to sacrifice so much. But
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