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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: and creaked as he walked. Above his coat he wore a spencer, an
aristocratic garment adopted by the Clichiens and the young bloods of
Paris, which survived both the Clichiens and the fashionable youths.
In those days fashions sometimes lasted longer than parties,--a
symptom of anarchy which the year of our Lord 1830 has again presented
to us. This accomplished dandy seemed to be thirty years of age. His
manners were those of good society; he wore jewels of value; the
collar of his shirt came to the tops of his ears. His conceited and
even impertinent air betrayed a consciousness of hidden superiority.
His pallid face seemed bloodless, his thin flat nose had the sardonic
expression which we see in a death's head, and his green eyes were
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