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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: for a couple of thousand," he added in an aside to Blondet.
"In England, Finot, you grow extremely intimate with a woman in the
course of an evening, at a ball or wherever it is; next day you meet
her in the street and look as though you knew her again--'improper.'--
At dinner you discover a delightful man beneath your left-hand
neighbor's dresscoat; a clever man; no high mightiness, no constraint,
nothing of an Englishman about him. In accordance with the tradition
of French breeding, so urbane, so gracious as they are, you address
your neighbor--'improper.'--At a ball you walk up to a pretty woman to
ask her to dance--'improper.' You wax enthusiastic, you argue, laugh,
and give yourself out, you fling yourself heart and soul into the
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