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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: her charming in these inexpensive costumes which did credit to her
taste. Her ideas were imitated! As she had no standard of comparison,
Dinah fell into the snares that surround the provincial woman. If a
Parisian woman's hips are too narrow or too full, her inventive wit
and the desire to please help to find some heroic remedy; if she has
some defect, some ugly spot, or small disfigurement, she is capable of
making it an adornment; this is often seen; but the provincial woman--
never! If her waist is too short and her figure ill balanced, well,
she makes up her mind to the worst, and her adorers--or they do not
adore her--must take her as she is, while the Parisian always insists
on being taken for what she is not. Hence the preposterous bustles,
The Muse of the Department |
