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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: he was waging war with the sharpest poverty of all--poverty
unconfessed. Like all essentially light and frivolous natures, he
cherished the singular point of honor which consists in never
derogating in the eyes of one's own little public, which makes men on
the Bourse commit crimes to escape expulsion from the temple of the
goddess Per-cent, and has given some criminals courage enough to
perform acts of virtue.
Lousteau dined and breakfasted and smoked as if he were a rich man.
Not for an inheritance would he have bought any but the dearest
cigars, for himself as well as for the playwright or author with whom
he went into the shop. The journalist took his walks abroad in patent
The Muse of the Department |
