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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: nothing, digesting one of those exquisite dinners to which the
provincial looks forward all through the day, found himself justifying
the customs of the country.
He began to understand why these good folk continued to play with
yesterday's pack of cards and shuffle them on a threadbare tablecloth,
and how it was that they had ceased to dress for themselves or others.
He saw the glimmerings of something like a philosophy in the even
tenor of their perpetual round, in the calm of their methodical
monotony, in their ignorance of the refinements of luxury. Indeed, he
almost came to think that luxury profited nothing; and even now, the
city of Paris, with its passions, storms, and pleasures, was scarcely
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