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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: many young girls--that no one else dwelt in a sphere so lofty as to be
able to understand the merits of her soul; and a pride based no less
on her birth than on her beauty. In the absence of the overwhelming
sentiment which, sooner or later, works havoc in a woman's heart, she
spent her young ardor in an immoderate love of distinctions, and
expressed the deepest contempt for persons of inferior birth.
Supremely impertinent to all newly-created nobility, she made every
effort to get her parents recognized as equals by the most illustrious
families of the Saint-Germain quarter.
These sentiments had not escaped the observing eye of Monsieur de
Fontaine, who more than once, when his two elder girls were married,
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