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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: writers hated him "pro tem.," ready to hold out a hand to him and
console him in case of a fall, ready to adore him in case of success.
So goes the world of literature. No one is really liked but an
inferior. Every man's hand is against him who is likely to rise. This
wide-spread envy doubles the chances of common minds who excite
neither envy nor suspicion, who make their way like moles, and, fools
though they be, find themselves gazetted in the "Moniteur," for three
or four places, while men of talent are still struggling at the door
to keep each other out.
The underhand enmity of these pretended friends, which Florine would
have scented with the innate faculty of a courtesan to get at truth
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