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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: politician with second-sight who must of necessity have wrinkles on
his forehead, the vices of a great man, the fantasies of the artist,
and the politician's disillusions. Its physiognomy suggests the
evolution of good and evil, battle and victory; the moral combat of
'89, the clarion calls of which still re-echo in every corner of the
world; and also the downfall of 1814. Thus this city can no more be
moral, or cordial, or clean, than the engines which impel those proud
leviathans which you admire when they cleave the waves! Is not Paris a
sublime vessel laden with intelligence? Yes, her arms are one of those
oracles which fatality sometimes allows. The /City of Paris/ has her
great mast, all of bronze, carved with victories, and for watchman--
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
