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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: not merely from its perfect art (according to its own measure and
intention), but from its perfect truthfulness. It is the Ancien
Regime itself. It set forth to the men thereof, themselves, without
veil or cowardly reticence of any kind; and inasmuch as every man
loves himself, the Ancien Regime loved "Gil Blas," and said, "The
problem of humanity is solved at last." But, ye long-suffering
powers of heaven, what a solution! It is beside the matter to call
the book ungodly, immoral, base. Le Sage would have answered: "Of
course it is; for so is the world of which it is a picture." No;
the most notable thing about the book is its intense stupidity; its
dreariness, barrenness, shallowness, ignorance of the human heart,
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