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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: the significance of sofa corners in Germany. If we three went
there together, I should be ushered into the right-hand corner of the sofa,
because it is the place of honour, and I am the greatest stranger;
Elizabeth would be invited to seat herself in the left-hand corner,
as next in importance; the hostess would sit near us in an arm-chair;
and you, as a person of no importance whatever, would either be
left to sit where you could, or would be put on a chair facing us,
and with the entire breadth of the table between us to mark the immense
social gulf that separates the married woman from the mere virgin.
These sofa corners make the drawing of nice distinctions possible
in a way that nothing else could. The world might come to an end,
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
