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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: very beginning that this /temps/, well executed by a fine woman, is
worth all the art imaginable. It is the chest-note C of dancing. For
which reason, he said, the very greatest dancers--Camargo, Guimard,
and Taglioni, all of them thin, brown, and plain--could only redeem
their physical defects by their genius. Tullia, still in the height of
her glory, retired before younger and cleverer dancers; she did
wisely. She was an aristocrat; she had scarcely stooped below the
noblesse in her /liaisons/; she declined to dip her ankles in the
troubled waters of July. Insolent and beautiful as she was, Claudine
possessed handsome souvenirs, but very little ready money; still, her
jewels were magnificent, and she had as fine furniture as any one in
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