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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: that he had had a brilliant education, and that his knowledge was as
thorough as it was extensive. He knew so well the right thing to say
in a discussion on naval architecture, trivial, it is true, started by
the old admiral, that one of the ladies remarked that he must have
passed through the Ecole Polytechnique.
"And I think, madame," he replied, "that I may regard it as an honor
to have got in."
In spite of urgent pressing, he refused politely but firmly to be kept
to dinner, and put an end to the persistency of the ladies by saying
that he was the Hippocrates of his young sister, whose delicate health
required great care.
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