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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: the impulse of a breeze and recovers its glad serenity when the air is
still. More than one young man, a victim to her scorn, accused her of
acting a part; but she justified herself by inspiring her detractors
with the desire to please her, and then subjecting them to all her
most contemptuous caprice. Among the young girls of fashion, not one
knew better than she how to assume an air of reserve when a man of
talent was introduced to her, or how to display the insulting
politeness which treats an equal as an inferior, and to pour out her
impertinence on all who tried to hold their heads on a level with
hers. Wherever she went she seemed to be accepting homage rather than
compliments, and even in a princess her airs and manner would have
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