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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: consecrates great men? Yes, sculpture is priesthood; it preserves the
ideas of an epoch, and you give its chair to a maker of toys and
mantelpieces, an ornamentationist, a seller of bric-a-brac! Ah! as
Chamfort said, one has to swallow a viper every morning to endure the
life of Paris. Well, at any rate, Art remains to a few of us; they
can't prevent us from cultivating it--"
"And besides, my dear fellow, you have a consolation which few artists
possess; the future is yours," said Bixiou. "When the world is
converted to our doctrine, you will be at the head of your art; for
you are putting into it ideas which people will understand--WHEN they
are generalized! In fifty years from now you'll be to all the world
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