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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: admit,--actions which, like pearls, the fruit of pain and suffering,
are hidden within rough shells, lost in the gulf, the sea, the tossing
waves of what we call society, the century, Paris, London, St.
Petersburg,--or what you will.
If the axiom that architecture is the expression of manner and morals
was ever proved, it was certainly after the insurrection of 1830,
during the present reign of the house of Orleans. As all the old
fortunes are diminishing in France, the majestic mansions of our
ancestors are constantly being demolished and replaced by species of
phalansteries, in which the peers of July occupy the third floor above
some newly enriched empirics on the lower floors. A mixture of styles
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