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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: lessens doubt; and modesty, perhaps, is doubt.
Worn down with poverty and discouragement, and dismayed at this moment
by his own presumption, the young neophyte might not have dared to
enter the presence of the master to whom we owe our admirable portrait
of Henry IV., if chance had not thrown an unexpected assistance in his
way. An old man mounted the spiral stairway. The oddity of his dress,
the magnificence of his lace ruffles, the solid assurance of his
deliberate step, led the youth to assume that this remarkable
personage must be the patron, or at least the intimate friend, of the
painter. He drew back into a corner of the landing and made room for
the new-comer; looking at him attentively and hoping to find either
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