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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: divisions; and so are closets, wardrobes, mahogany tables, sofas and
armchairs covered with red or green morocco, silk curtains, and other
articles of administrative luxury. The clerk's office contents itself
with a stove, the pipe of which goes into the chimney, if there be a
chimney. The wall paper is plain and all of one color, usually green
or brown. The tables are of black wood. The private characteristics of
the several clerks often crop out in their method of settling
themselves at their desks,--the chilly one has a wooden footstool
under his feet; the man with a bilious temperament has a metal mat;
the lymphatic being who dreads draughts constructs a fortification of
boxes on a screen. The door of the under-head-clerk's office always
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