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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: a thousand volumes of manuscript poetry going the round of the
publishers at this moment, things that nobody can make head nor tail
of, stories in verse that begin in the middle, like The Corsair and
Lara. They set up to be original, forsooth, and indulge in stanzas
that nobody can understand, and descriptive poetry after the pattern
of the younger men who discovered Delille, and imagine that they are
doing something new. Poets have been swarming like cockchafers for two
years past. I have lost twenty thousand francs through poetry in the
last twelvemonth. You ask Gabusson! There may be immortal poets
somewhere in the world; I know of some that are blooming and rosy, and
have no beards on their chins as yet," he continued, looking at
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