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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: Guard, and be on the same pattern as all the men of your company--then
you may indulge in the loftiest pretensions, rise to the Ministry!--
and you have the best chances possible, since you are no Montmorency.
You were preparing to fulfil all the conditions insisted on for
turning out a political personage, you are capable of every mean trick
that is necessary in office, even of pretending to be commonplace--you
would have acted it to the life. And just for a woman, who will leave
you in the lurch--the end of every eternal passion--in three, five, or
seven years--after exhausting your last physical and intellectual
powers, you turn your back on the sacred Hearth, on the Rue des
Lombards, on a political career, on thirty thousand francs per annum,
The Muse of the Department |
