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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: genealogies which they all know by heart. Their womenkind are haughty
dames, who assume the airs of Court ladies in their basket chaises.
They huddle themselves up in shawls and caps by way of full dress; and
twice a year, after ripe deliberation, have a new bonnet from Paris,
brought as opportunity offers. Exemplary wives are they for the most
part, and garrulous.
These are the principal elements of aristocratic gentility, with a few
outlying old maids of good family, spinsters who have solved the
problem: given a human being, to remain absolutely stationary. They
might be sealed up in the houses where you see them; their faces and
their dresses are literally part of the fixtures of the town, and the
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