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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: own rooms in the family mansion, nor her fortune, nor her pretty toys;
she is buried in trade; she buys socks for her dear little children,
nurses them herself, and keeps an eye on her girls, whom she no longer
sends to school at a convent. Thus your noblest dames have been turned
into worthy brood-hens."
"Alas! it is true," said Joseph Bridau. "In our day we cannot show
those beautiful flowers of womanhood which graced the golden ages of
the French Monarchy. The great lady's fan is broken. A woman has
nothing now to blush for; she need not slander or whisper, hide her
face or reveal it. A fan is of no use now but for fanning herself.
When once a thing is no more than what it is, it is too useful to be a
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