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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: handles the foils, and rides a horse like the late Chevalier de Saint-
Georges. He has a thorough knowledge of all our vintages. He is as
good an arithmetician as Bareme, draws, dances, and sings well. The
devil's in it! what more do you want? If that is not a perfect
gentleman, find me a bourgeois who knows all this, or any man who
lives more nobly than he does. Does he do anything, I ask you? Does he
compromise his dignity by hanging about an office, bowing down before
the upstarts you call Directors-General? He walks upright. He is a
man.--However, I have just found in my waistcoat pocket the card he
gave me when he fancied I wanted to cut his throat, poor innocent.
Young men are very simple-minded nowadays! Here it is."
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